Want To Make Games? You MUST See This Graph First...

Okay, so there's something that I'm going to call the Frankenstein moment. And uh I didn't come up with this phrase. Uh one of my followers did on X. Um there's there's a something it's like a Frankenstein moment where your game suddenly it comes to life and it's just all of a sudden
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you went from just this dead matter that you didn't fully understand to all of a sudden this thing's awake and alive. You feel vindicated and you're like, "I knew this thing would come alive. I knew what I was doing and everybody doubted me and finally [music] this game is something." And it's a moment where all of a sudden you're flatlined, you're flatlined, you're flatlined. The game is just blah and then it pops up and all of a sudden the game's alive. So I posted this graph on Twitter. Am I the only one who seems to experience this every time I make a game? Okay, so this is your game quality, right? And this is time. And you work on your game and you work on your game and you work on your game and then right here is that Frankenstein

moment. Pachow! It goes up and all of a sudden it's alive, right? I [snorts] want to talk about not only why this happens. And by the way, I got a lot of comments confirming from a lot of developers. Yeah, this this happens. Something clicks and it happens. I want to talk about why this happens. But more importantly, I want to I want to talk about what this what happens exactly at this moment. And it's very specific. There's something very specific that happens right here at this moment where your game comes to life. If we open up our chart here, right here and I was thinking about this. I was like, "Why did it take me five freaking years for both for Pin Stripe, my first game Pin Stripe, why did it take five years before I hit this moment where all of a sudden the game got increasingly exponentially uh more valuable and polished. What

happened? Why did it take 5 years? Well, let's start with an archaeological dig. That's that's kind of the metaphor. So, let's move from Frankenstein to an archaeological dig. Any project, especially games, is like uh an archaeological dig. You start with just sand and you're in the middle of the desert and you you've got this weird inkling in your head like there's something there's something below this sand. And you might tell your mom and dad, you might tell your friends, you might tell your family, you might tell your social media followers, "Hey, I got this game idea and I need to start digging it up and discovering what this thing is." And you start to dig it up and right around here you get really excited because you did find something. You find a bone. Right? Let's make sure we do this. We don't want to just Yeah, okay, that looks I was I was getting worried there. There's a bone there and you might get

so excited. And I've had this happen so many times where a tiny little blip of an idea for a game gets so exciting. And then I'll show my friends or I'll show my family or I'll show a publisher or I'll show you guys, right? And it's like, yeah. Okay, cool. You made a capsule collider that is bouncy. Congratulations. But for me, in my head, I'm thinking, "Okay, that's proof that there is something there. That there is something in this game." And so, you're perceived and again, I'm stealing this this chart I'm about to draw, I'm stealing it from one of my followers here. It's uh let's see who it was. Um right here. Philip M posted this here incredible extra chart. Um but I'm going to steal that here. Right here, your perceived quality pops up real high.

Now, it's the game's quality isn't actually that good, right? It's Let's say it's just a caps collider, big big deal. But you have this perceived idea because you get this sense of relief or vindication that yes, I knew something was here and I did it and I started digging and I found that there is something here. And so, your perceived quality goes way up, but of course it's going to drop right back down after, you know, that euphoria fades. Crap, all I've got is a caps collider. This game sucks. And so, what's going to happen is every time you find a new something in your archaeological dig. Let's finish There we go. Okay. Every time you find something Oh. You get excited, right? But the quality is not actually increasing. You're just adding feature after feature after feature. And [snorts] who knows, you're maybe a year into it, 2 years into it.

And suddenly, your confidence just starts to wane. And that's what this is, is confidence. Okay? It starts to wane and wane and wane. And you get to this point right here. And look, I'm going to tell you this right here, this crux moment, this Frankenstein moment, or another way of putting it as when you finally uncover the archaeological dig and it's fully removed and you've got a Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil. That moment is not related necessarily to time. It's not really time. It It's something else. So, first off, I just want to say that if you feel like your game is it just hasn't really made progress for years or maybe it's months for you. It just has not made progress, right?

And you found yourself getting confident and then you you lose confidence and then you get confident and then you lose confidence. Number one, that's absolutely 1,000% normal. In fact, I tweeted about this yesterday. Let me open up this post and lo and behold, the creator of Ori and the Blind Forest and also um No Rest for the Wicked, Thomas Mahler, responded. Um so, what I said was there will come a point when working on your game when you lose pretty much all confidence in the project and you feel like you're holding on to a glimmer of hope with your pinky. I'm kind of thinking about Alex Honnold like climbing El Capitan free solo and you're just holding on for dear life. You're like, "I'm going to let go. This project sucks." What I said was it's important to hold on tight and to keep climbing. Okay? The reason why the reason why you want to keep climbing is because there is this moment and and there's a caveat here, okay? And it's

related to how many games you released. But there's a moment where you get to this moment. So, this is holding on for dear life. It especially you especially feel like you're holding on for dear life right here. You're about to let go. But what Thomas Mahler said here, um he said it never goes away. This feeling of insecurity about your game, no matter how successful your games were. And I'm sure he's speaking from personal experience here. You never fully got know what you got until it's in people's hands. Bingo, there it is. There it is. That is what the Frankenstein moment is, okay? I'm going to delete all this weird stuff here and let's talk about this Frankenstein moment. It is not related necessarily to to to time. Okay, it can be. But what this moment right here, what this is, is proper feedback. Proper feedback is when all of a sudden

it's the game explodes in quality. What exactly is proper feedback? And why did it take Thomas Brush 5 years to get proper feedback? First off, proper feedback is feedback Look at my font choices. This is great. Proper feedback is number one. Number one. What in the world, Photoshop? What? Okay, I'm going to write one. There we go. Okay, number 1.1. It's playtesting with real players, okay? Not game developers, but playtesting with real players. And I'm going to explain why this it's like a magic spell that causes this crux moment. But I'll explain why in a sec. But

playtesting with real players, okay? Number two, playtesting
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with seasoned game devs. That's another one. Because the truth is, here's the thing. When you playtest with real players, let's say you have your your demo done, and you send it off to just normal people, your friends, your family, uh your followers on social media. When you playtest with real players, what they're going to do is they're going to identify problems. Yes, they'll tell you problems, but they don't tell you solutions. They And and by the way, they'll they'll try and tell you solutions. And you'll go and they'll say, "I need a map. I wish the game had a map." That's probably not the solution, right? The solution might be something completely different that they have no idea about because they're not game developers. So, what Where do the Where do the solutions come from?

They come from the seasoned game devs. Right? Now, a lot of players might give you solutions. There There might be some, okay? But you just need to be really, really careful. So, that's why you need to talk to season game devs. I understand that I'm in a position of privilege because I've had my podcast and I have my channel. And so, I get to know a lot of season developers. Truth is though, I'm going to be honest with you. Even Even when I was working on my very first game, Pin Stripe, I I was able to talk to season developers because I would just reach out to them. I would say, "I need your advice. Can you help me?" Remember talking to Brian Fargo uh on the phone. So, point being, what's my point? Am I flexing? No, I'm not flexing. I'm trying to say, "I don't want to hear about how you can't get in contact with season developers." I I did. And I I had no I had no audience at the time. I was working a desk job. I got to talk to Tom Foote on the phone as well. I just reached out to people. I I I was psychotic about reaching out to

people and just talking on phone. I just wanted to talk to them because I knew that they knew more than I knew. And I might find problems with my game, right? But the seasoned developers are the ones who have the solutions. It's great. It is great to find out, "Hey, I have this problem." But it it's not going to help you at all if you don't know what the solutions are. So, when you play test with season developers, you get solutions. Now, there's one other type. There's one other type of game dev or or playtester you want. Geniuses. There are consultants out there. Like, for example, I'll hire like I I've recently hired a business consultant to help me with with some my side business with the course that I sell. They're very expensive.

Right? Tens of thousands of dollars. And they will give you one sentence. These And you got to find the right consultants cuz there's some some fishy ones out there. But, when you find the right consultants that are actually geniuses, and by the way, you know it by the fruit that they have. So, if they've had a really successful career, those are the ones you want to hire. Geniuses are going to give you explosive solutions. Okay? So, here's the thing. I'm not telling you I'm not telling you to pay for a consulting. I'm not saying that. I'm saying if you're lucky enough to find a genius who has crazy success and they can give you one tiny sentence, "Hey, you should do this." It can lead to this.

Right? If you playtest with seasoned game developers, I'm talking people who have They've just released games on Steam, right? So, they have experience. And their games get mostly positive very positive. Right? Doesn't mean they're millionaires, right? They've just been had a decent career. That can lead to this. And then finally, this. Playtesting with real players absolutely leads to the crux moment. Okay. I'm going to tell you why it leads to the crux moment, and then I'm going to give you a massive caveat. Okay, when it comes to this, these when it comes to getting good play testing feedback, there's one ginormous caveat. Okay, I'm going to put a little asterisk here or star. So, hang tight. But why does Let's say you get proper feedback. Why does it lead to this? Because what's going to happen is they're going to tell you what's working and what's not working. You don't know

what's working. Not not really. Like you you might think you know what's working for your game, but a player is going to say, I really like X. And you're going to go, wait, really? And then all of a sudden you keep hearing that over and over and over again. Players are like, yeah, I like this. I like this. I like this. I like this. And it's always that one thing that they love, right? For example, it might be um collecting coins. You're like, what No, no, no. The game is about tornadoes. Coins were just added as an afterthought. And they're going to say, no, I really like the coins. And then suddenly you say, wait a second. So, I need to focus more attention on coin collection than the tornadoes? Tornadoes were the gimmick all along. That's what you thought. And I know that that's a dumb example, but there's a ton of gimmicks and mechanics in my own game, Twisted Tower, which I never would have ever thought were the good things about the game. The gimmick in Twisted Tower originally was

multiple branching paths, right? So, the tower is sort of always this amorphous golden path. You never really know Every time you play it, it's got a different sort of flair to it, but it's linear, right? That was the idea initially. People don't care. They want a polished experience, and they want a good story. That's what they're looking for in Twisted Tower. So, when I started playtesting Twisted Tower with people, I kept hearing over and over and over again, "I really like the balloons. I want to pop balloons." What? "I really like scavenging and looking for coins." What? "The story. I want more story, more story, more story, more story." What? I was focused on a gimmick that I had assumed was exciting, but the playtesting with real players and also with seasoned game developers. And I'll get to the the geniuses in a sec. That was what led me to go, "Oh, this is where I focus my attention."

And so, you start to focus your attention on the feedback you're getting, proper feedback, and you lo and behold, surprise, surprise, humility and listening to player feedback is what leads to this. Because you're like, "Wait a second. This is really fun. I do really like to scavenge. I really like popping balloons. I'm going to do more balloons, new more balloon types." And all of a sudden, the game, yes, it's different than you thought it would be, but for some reason, it's way funner, right? Now, [snorts] when it comes to geniuses, uh I could just give you an example of a few geniuses who have played my own game and given me crazy feedback that changed everything for me. Thomas Sala is one of them. Um and and again, we're going to talk about this asterisk here because it's not as simple as just doing this, okay?

There's one major caveat. Okay? Thomas Sala is one of those geniuses, okay? He's the creator of The Falconeer, um Falconeer Chronicles. The game is and then he also another game called The Falconeer. And it's it's a whole universe he's creating. And he's a solo developer and um I asked him to play my game. And he just gave me one little just it was just a throwaway comment. He said, "I need to know what I'm about to get in the game." That's all he said. Now, he explained it a little bit more. But what he meant was, "Don't spoil everything for me. Don't give me all the upgrades, but I need a taste in the first 5 minutes about what can be gained in this game and what can be experienced in this game." So, for example, with Thomas Sala, he was saying, "Hey,

dude, show me the final boss just a little glimpse in the distance. Or show me the the the person I'm trying to rescue. Uh or even better, give me a really quick tasty upgrade that I can play with for just a little bit." And these are like just simple duh things, right? It's like, "Yeah, most games do that." But as a game developer, you're going to get so lost in the minutia of this grind of building out your systems, building out your game systems and mechanics, and graphics, and art that you totally forget about the simple psychological low-hanging fruit. Another example from a genius is Thomas Maller. Thomas Maller messaged me on Discord after he played Twisted Tower. And he said, "Yeah, the game's fine." He he he liked it okay. And he was like, "Amp up the juice of the combat." He was

like, "You He said, 'Spend a week amping up the juice of the combat.' Meaning enemy enemy knockback, right? Uh blood splatter that stays on the enemies, right? You uh, reticle feedback when you hit an enemy. He just said, "Just amp up the juice for a week." And so I I actually amped it up in two days. I I scrambled cuz if that's what Thomas Mahler wants me to do, I'm going to do it. So I went in and amped up the juice. Tiny little sentence. Bloop. Right? And boom, huge mega impact. Geniuses are different than like a seasoned developer. So to reiterate here, a seasoned developer is going to give you solutions to problems real players are going to have. So and I real quick example there is I've been told by players or at least I perceived it by watching people play the game. I was like, "Okay, they're getting lost." So they need a map.

That's a problem. But then I talked to Jason Smith, the creator of Cultic. And but mind you, this is this is this is one of the developers who actually added a map to his game after the fact because he realized play players needed a map. But he told me, he was like, "Your game isn't a map game. It probably doesn't need a map. You probably just need to lock the player into a specific moment." I was like, "What?" And then and then and what he was saying was we need to just lock the player in to a level so that they can't backtrack out of the level. It's It's pretty obvious, right? For games like Twisted Tower, it's not an open world game. It can feel that way. It can feel like a Metroidvania or an open world. But we want to lock the player into these moments of combat. Require them to solve a puzzle or do something interesting. And then then that gate unlocks when they're done with the level. And then they can go back.

So [snorts] it wasn't a map problem, it was locking the player in. Right? That was the problem. And again, geniuses, they they they tend to give you different solutions. Or they they they tend to give you explosive solutions to problems. So, there's this is just basically amping up what a seasoned game dev already can do. They give you these explosive one-liners. And I've seen it time and time again, and it happens also in in pretty much any industry. When you talk to a veteran game dev or a veteran filmmaker or a veteran writer, they've got these juicy one-sentence things that are the lowest hanging fruit possible that you would not have known. Now, let's talk about the caveat. There's only one way to get proper feedback, okay? You have to have some semblance of let's use a cooking metaphor. You have to have some semblance

of a dish that's made before you can get feedback. Okay? So, for example, if you spend a month on your game, it it could be the greatest concept ever. It could be Minecraft. If Notch I don't know, maybe got feedback way too early, so it was just really hard to know what that concept even was. And he started getting feedback, he's going to get a barrage of feedback that's completely unhelpful. So, if we go to our chart here, it's not that you just go, "I'm going to start a game." Let's say you start the game. I'm going to start a game here and get feedback and boom, no. It doesn't work that way. This process right here is the discovery process. It's the unearthing.

Right? Kind of like an archaeological dig. It's throwing ingredients into a pan and trying to make some kind of dish and you're not really sure and it's gross and then it's good and then it's gross and then it's good. That's what this process right here is, okay? It's a bunch of failures. So, you've probably heard the phrase fail fast. And the implication there is that failure's inevitable so just do it as fast as you can, right? The reason it took me 5 years to make Twisted Tower is cuz I didn't know anything about making 3D games, about 3D materials, coding in 3D. I didn't know anything about the game design of a first-person shooter. I'm still learning.

And so I had to fail I had to fail as many times as any seasoned game developer who makes first-person shooters. But I need I had to compress it down into 5 years cuz I traditionally I make 2D games. 2D platformers and and 2D story games. So, this is just a bunch of failures figuring out what the heck you're even making and how to make it. That's why it's important to release a bunch of crappy games. And so you might be thinking, man, this kind of I don't feel encouraged, Thomas, because what you're telling me is that that flatline is kind of necessary. It I think it is. If I'm being completely honest, I I I wasn't planning on saying that in this video. But I don't I don't see a way around getting past this point here. These these 5 years for me. I just don't

because every solution that I found was a result of painful failure, of falling on my face, of getting some top-tier industry veterans saying, "Yeah, your game is kind of an F." Well, they never said F, but they were like, "It's like a C-." "Uh, Thomas, that's a C-. It's not really working for me." "Players, uh, it's kind of a C-." That was necessary for me. And so, the encouragement here, though, the light at the end of the tunnel is hold on tight. Hold on tight and be totally fine be totally fine with that moment when you lose all confidence in a project. You got to be okay with it. And when you fail and fall on your face, do you know what that means? It means Oh, yes, I failed fast.

I got my battle scars. And the lesson It's funny how the intensity of a lesson learned, or I'm sorry, the value of a lesson learned is correlated to the intensity of the failure. And I'll just say that that's I'll just speak for me. That's true for me. The more humbling it is, the more ashamed I feel after a failure, the more painful it was, more expensive, the more time-consuming, the more public, the more intense and valuable the lesson learned is. And I cannot Like, here's a great example. If you've ever been on a bad date with somebody or you've been in a really awkward social situation, I want you to think right now, can you remember the exact sentence you said? Or the exact sentence that person said. You probably can. I know that I can. There's There's certain sentences that I will remember till the day I die because it was such a painful moment.

And the same is true with public failures. They can be private as well. But just failures where you just keep dropping the ball with a game or a project you're working on. Over and over you drop the ball and it hurts. It hurts a lot. This is a good thing. These failures are awesome. These failures are Let's draw an apple. They're nourishment. These failures are nourishment. That's a good apple, actually. They are nourishment for your soul and for your career. Okay? I pray and I hope that you don't have to go through 5 years to to figure out that crux moment when all of a sudden it's life is breathed into your game.

But it might be. And you've got to be okay with that. That's all I've got for you.