Will You Ever Finish Your Game?

hey hey this video is brought to you by Squarespace thank Squarespace yay hey Wow hi my name is Thomas brush and I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe also a game called never song you could take a look at those games in the links in the description I've been making indie games for about a decade and one of the biggest hurdles that most game developers talk about is the struggle of not actually finishing their games always starting something but never really knowing how to bring it to completion and start making some money I had an incredible chat with this guy named David Whaley and he created a game called the first tree and he talks about compromising your vision and that sounds like a really horrible thing to do right you wouldn't want to compromise your vision but he actually makes a really good point and that is that it is very important for indie game developers to be willing to bring down the level of expectations they have for themselves in their game to ensure that they actually

finish what they're working on you may have a perfect unfinished product or a product that is has been compromised but it's been finished so I want to show you guys a portion of this conversation I had with David 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 six years both my websites Thomas brush calm and at most games calm where I host my games in 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 comm slash Thomas brush and use the promo code thomas brush for 10% off yay yay I love Squarespace I really do thank Squarespace tell some of my viewers - I'm like it's okay to compromise your vision if you're getting like 90% of the way they're like if you're almost there and it's not totally perfect then finish it anyway because finishing and releasing a game is by far the best way to learn that's how you have teach yourself game dev is to finish a project cuz it it takes discipline like making the first tree and then being a dad and working full-time it wasn't it was not fun after a while that's what that's why I totally agree with you like if you're just single and you're going to school or something that is like the season to just dive in yeah and work your butt off it's yeah it's it was hard I even like right now I'm thinking back on I'm like how did I do that

I don't know I feel the same way man like I was and I was a bad husband at the time we didn't have kids when I was making a pinstripe like you can ask my wife I was so involved it's so obsessed with getting everything perfect with that game and I look back on it like you said you've got to compromise and I want I want your audience and I want my audience to know like it's it's it's similar to the feeling of like when you're in a fight with a family member or you're in a fight with a friend or your spouse or something it's really heated and you're seeing red right and you just want you want to win that argument that same feeling is the is what it is for me when I want to get something right with a game I'm not I'm not necessarily ration I'm not necessarily rational in decision-making and so I look back on all the decision decisions I made with pinstripe and I'm like why did I spend so much time on those things like little tiny things to make it my way and and I look back on it

I'm like people don't care about those tiny little things now obviously it's a balance like if you had decided to not make the Fox in in first tree look so beautiful then and just it I I think the Fox is really what sold that game no and by the way if my audience doesn't know that game is really popular on switch steam did you really sign Xbox and ps4 yeah it's on not on mobile but everywhere else yeah yeah so you're in terms of like success like you've you've nailed it and you've you've done a really good job with with promoting that game and selling it but if you haven't focused on if you hadn't focused on I think if you hadn't focused on making that that Fox as beautiful as it was then I don't think that game would have sold as well as it did so there are certain things to not compromise on and certain things you compromise on and understanding where those things should be compromised

I think is what what separates the great developers from the failed ones mmm yeah I I really like that thought it's and I think a way to figure out what you can and can't skip is to release games and that's my first game yeah it was a financial failure like I was happy I did it but it I wasn't quitting my job I was like okay I'll just keep doing my thing that's cool but what it taught me it taught me things and I was able to use that data it was it was real data to say okay here's what I did wrong I didn't market it I didn't have a lead character to rally around like a fox it was a first person game that made it that made a huge difference um it wasn't as colorful and I think those things that helps grab attention and the same thumbnail it was it was lots of little things and I guess maybe you know I think every game developer has to be an entrepreneur of some kind but I am like I'm very analytical and I'm saying like okay that didn't work here's why didn't

that why did that not work and it was satisfying to be like I made a list of like okay here's the stuff I want to fix for the first tree like I want to market it regularly I want the I want to spend a lot of time on the Fox because that's the whole that's the focal point of the whole game but other things I was like okay I can't I can't do that I can't compose all the music I'm gonna license the music I can't do the sound effects and go out in my backyard and like make jumping sound effects with rocks or whatever I have to license those it was there's a lot of stuff and it's still and you might you might not like this Thomas but I thought I was terrified of using all the assets because I just knew everyone wouldn't know right yeah I everyone know the feeling everyone would know I was like oh man I'm an asset flipper even though I tried hard the right if I tried really hard to modify them but it was still the same geometry same meshes yeah but well the

reason why I don't do asset like I've pretty much decided I'm probably not gonna do it be an asset flip kind of guy mmm the reason why I don't is because the things that I'm really gifted at are are illustrate like I don't know where your gift things are or where your talents are it's probably storytelling and setting the mood those things and you also said you're really interested in music yeah like I'm not really sure where all of your where you believe all of your skill sets are but for me it's definitely in the art side of things and so I feel like it would be a mistake for me to to pull away from where I'm gifted and what really separates my style out from others but the thing is is that I'm totally fine using assets that are like code assets right and back-end assets so what I tell my audience is find out where your gifting is where you're talented and lean heavily into that making that custom but everything else

that you feel like you're not your strong suits it's just like a regular business right you need to outsource it you need to hire people well in in our case we can't really probably can't afford to hire a couple people for our studios so go quote-unquote hire people by just buying their assets on the asset store and they actually will they will help you out like if you email these developers you just spent $20 on an asset and I learned this from you by the way because we had a meeting in I think it was a year ago and you told me all about your your mentality with assets I started downloading certain assets that I use now and I'll email these developers and they will treat me like I'm their boss almost they'll they'll help me out and write custom stuff for that asset and help you out which is insane you're using third person controller right biopsy yeah I was I was using that there was a couple things that he did he really

much with the Fox bad shoes because I was like one of the first people to put a quadruped ed an animal as the controller and he was like really yeah like and he he added stuff later to make it more compatible but I found out a lot of stuff and so he helped me a ton and I like to think maybe I gave him some information so he can make the asset better and yeah but no you're you're you're totally right and that's that's the cool part about this internet age is there's all these resources and you're helping these other developers and they make a living by selling in bulk right they sell it by quantity with these licensing these assets and it's cool like you can go to all these like freesound.org like a lot of them just ask to be credited and you have you have whole sound studios and musicians and everything at your fingertips right on right from the internet it's this it's this new age of just you know you can be a one-man mega studio in a way by getting by like crowd sourcing all these people's help and paying paying them

what they request which is usually like I don't know 50 bucks for a unity asset or 50 bucks for yet licensing a song on audio jungle or pond5 or whatever so it's exciting and yeah and I was gonna say about you know I was always terrified about the environment packs like everyone would notice and the fact is you know I read maybe 10,000 comments over the course of a few years like from reddit and your girls and Twitter I not not all of them but only like a handful like five to ten people said oh that's that that's that nature pack from unity really no one really cared and and Pinstripe I I loved pinstripe I played it with my girl like a thank you I'd get Evelyn on my on my lap and we go play I'll be like hey what game do you want to really yeah I'd be like we could play on east shade or we could play this game she always said pinstripe I want to play piss and I as an artist I noticed all your touches and I was amazed by it and

that's why you're one of my favorite devs but I miss you and I want you to like yeah to know like it's hard because the lay person like the gamer who just wants to have a good time and feel some feels you know go on a feel or whatever because I make I make emotional games I think you have you make games with a lot of heart to their story driven right right and I think that's what that's a nice well it depends like it really depends on on where you where your target market is like right now I think my I've made two I've made two like feels games like that have heavy stories very emotional poignant endings and I think what I'm gonna do and you've kind of gone down this path as well is I want to try and make some money in the game industry this year and like make this year like maybe that's not what you're doing but like in terms of making you know your your courses but for me this year I want

to focus on the business side of things the entrepreneurship side of things up how do I maybe maybe do a little bit of experimentation so for me I'm gonna try and hit like four games or three games in the next year and a half just pop them out like it's awesome fun little fun little short games because I want to see I want to see what happens right I mean I think it's important for game developers to this is something I was actually wanting to talk to you about is I'm I'm of the opinion that game developers indie game developers tend to take themselves way too seriously like for me I used to be like I'm gonna be a prophet of the game industry like I'm gonna make or like a poet like I'm gonna be the one who makes games that really hit people in the fields and change people's lives and what I've learned is I think I'm taking myself a little bit too seriously I think I just need to make games and people are gonna enjoy them and maybe I'll look back one day and say that you know it was better

for me to focus on super highly emotional games that change the world as opposed to just fun games you know short fun games maybe I'll look back and say that but right now I don't know the answer I don't know what my role is or my calling is in the game industry and I think that like you said it's important to just release games and not yourself so seriously like for you you could have been really cocky and said I'm not gonna use any assets from the a so store but instead you were like no I just need to get this done and I think that that is what I think that is the minority of game developers the way that they think most game developers are way too principled they they care way too much about doing things from scratch and it leads them to never release stuff and never finish them you know I think I think those principles can be if you're too stubborn with your principles it can

be dangerous if it never leads to you finishing and releasing a game right and yeah I I used you know I used to beat myself up a lot I think every creative they have the impostor syndrome yeah and and of course I did cuz you know I was just trying I was like you know throwing this stuff together because I wanted to tell my story but it wasn't as it wasn't high art enough it wasn't it wasn't principled and enough and me and my wife she's an artist and you know she's a traditional artist she does collage with a paper and it's fine art that's awesome and she's she's she's awesome she's done you know she's in galleries and stuff and we have these conversations all the time like what's the balance between art and commercialization and it's it's hard I I don't I don't know if I know all the answers but I know like I love telling my story I love I don't want to rip people off but I want to use these resources available from the asset store

and I want to make them original somehow and I I don't and I would rather a game that's imperfect be released than not released at all and then no one would know that story even if it was even if it's not as high art or his principles principled as other games if he if you know what I mean yeah and that was like kind of the decisions I had to make those are the I call him my compromising your vision a little bit and I'm glad I did because if I didn't my life would have never changed from releasing my imperfect honest you know beautiful game Triana [Music]