[2019 TGDF] Making Games in 2019 and Beyond (Jonathan Blow)

2019 台北遊戲開發者論壇 Taipei Game Developers Forum（TGDF）
Official Website: 2019.tgdf.tw/
Speaker:
Jonathan Blow / Game Designer & Programmer
Title: Making Games in 2019 and Beyond
Jonathan answers a series of questions from the community about design, programming, and putting everything together into a completed game that lives up to its original potential.
Post-session notes for context:
The selected questions and answers include some untold highs and lows during the development of Braid, the difficulty of pitching the game to platforms, or even finding artists who actually are willing to work on the project; by coincidence, the selected questions seemed to revolve around the theme of "communication" -- with hiring, with platforms and publishers, with your team, and eventually, with yourself.

[@nick.permyakov]

"Cosiendo la vela", 1896 ("Mending/Sewing the Sail") by Sorolla seems to be the painting Jon mentioned in the talk.

[@Hergonan]

You can see it here: arthive.com/artists/63967~Joaquin_Sorolla/works/338002~Sewing_the_Sail#show

[@ccgb92]

@Luka Lovre LOL

[@meanmole3212]

52:30 Maybe Jon did not know that this is often a deliberate technique by artists to draw focus on the interesting things of the painting. It's more easier on your brains to watch a painting if your eyes can rest on the few interesting points and the rest (flowers in this case) are left for your brains to fill. If the painting has super detailed objects everywhere, your brain is getting overwhelmed on deciding where you should focus your attention.

[@ReubMann]

@@meanmole3212 i agree with this assessment. look at some works by craig mullins. he doens't make the entirety of the piece detailed. he uses detail to focus the eye and draw attention the import elements in the piece. I kinda get annoyed when i hear non-artists talk about art techniques. To add onto what you said about making it easier on the eyes. that is completely true as well. An overly busy or noisy piece can in some ways tire out the eyes.

[@peezieforestem5078]

@@Hergonan OMG how come KZbin didn't delete a comment because of a link?

[@robrick9361]

Story in videogames suck because they're almost never told in a way that actually takes advantage of the medium. People praise RDR2's story but it's just a bunch of cutscenes. What does that have to do with an interactive medium like videogames? It's just a Pixar movie interwoven with and constantly interrupting the game, taking control away and ignoring player agency.

[@microdavid7098]

this comment stuck out to me and I'll use it appropriately

[@lotus143_]

I was at rhe edge of my seat when Jonathan Blow started speaking. About 0.005% of my existence was waiting to see if he was fluent in Mandarin or Taiwanese Hokkien lol

[@SETHthegodofchaos]

Sounds like deep knowledge is some higher-level abstraction of a concept that holds up across many situations.

[@narnbrez]

or is the surface level an abstraction of many interconnected deep concepts? :P

[@SETHthegodofchaos]

@@narnbrez Well yes, usually when you express your opinion then you only give a very summarized, condensed and lacking view of the underlying reasoning, may it be a concious, unconcous discovery or a mix of both, until you go further into detail by elaborating and defining what you mean. But that does not necessarily mean that a simple statement comes from a place of great thoughout and understood concepts. Same with being vague also does not mean that it is deep. I think the idea of "deep knowledge" can co-exist with the idea of surface level being an abstraction of interconnected concepts. The concept of "deep knowledge" means the knowledge is good because it can be applied in a reusable and reliable way and the other is more about perception of shared knowledge.

[@gracefool]

I think the answer to the question "how to get deep knowledge?" is experience. Learning lots of more surface things and understanding the common principles. Either you're wired to think about fundamentals like Blow does (Elon Musk is another good example) - it takes both ability in analysis and high openness (creativity) - or you just learn intuitively by experience (but then you're less able to communicate your intuition to others).

[@SETHthegodofchaos]

​@@gracefool Very interesting and well put! I agree. The first step is to gather as much knowledge by coming from multiple angles, then dig into each one, understand it and search for aspects which are similar and ones which are different. Then figure out how/in which ways exactly they are the same/different. This reflecting on all gained knowledge, re-evaluating what we already think we know, will eventually lead to a better understand of what the knowledge itself is about, thus having extracted something from it all on a higher abstraction level. And that in turn helps understand the "low level" knowledge itself again which makes you more efficient in processing it. I think thats very fascinating.

[@mnkeymasta]

"God" is "Myth that Battles Entropy" "Deep Knowledge" is probably along similar lines

[@stacymitchell1890]

Thank you so much for sharing! I'm so glad this is finally up!

1:03:18 Hi bro! What a level of confidence! :-)

[@Kavukamari]

THAT EMAIL IM DYING

[@shcode805]

at least the guy gave an explanation. when I tried to find an artist for my game about 10 years ago, I found one, he made me beautiful testing tileset, precisely what I wanted, and even though it was highly incomplete (in regards to tile variations), when I put it into the level, it instantly elevated it by about 5 review score points, and I was so happy, I sent the guy a video of the level with the tileset in, and happy mail about how great it looks and how it's precisely what I wanted, and oh, btw, going forward, you'll need to know this technical detail about how emissive (light-emitting) things need to be done so that I can make them look even better in engine, and great, let's go for it... ...and he replied back something like "i'm sorry, but I'm not going to work on this because I feel like I'm not able to achieve the level of quality that you require. and I was left like "what the fuck?".

[@gracefool]

@@shcode805 that's the problem with email. So easy for misunderstandings to happen. I had a something like that happen on the other side, building a website for a client. Text (and especially email because it's low in context) is very low information density. Far better to talk by phone or video call. But also it sounds like he just lacked confidence, especially with new things? Stone brilliant people just need encouragement (ironically people who are really good at something tend to underrate their ability while the ignorant overrate themselves). Anyway I'd way rather have that scenario than the email Blow got! BTW that email really does express how most people thought about 2D platform games at the time. For the past 10 years games had been changing so fast technically that everyone was focused on the big new possibilities of 3D and better graphics and the indie arty game just didn't exist in any mass-market way. Blow was one of the developers who changed that. (Though of course it was inevitable - what's obvious now is that *most* games in earlier times were creative arty things from small teams, the new AAA category is really a very different beast, and both have different appeal, like the difference between Hollywood and KZbin.)

[@youtubesuresuckscock]

Honestly, the guy was basically right. Braid blew. He got lucky.

[@gd7681]

Big Blue Frontend - wow what an edgy opinion

[@tech6hutch]

@@gracefool also I found it funny how he specifically said the game should have limited lives, a "time-honored tradition" or whatever, when many platformers in recent years have been eschewing lives.

[@dingolover6969]

First google result for "the right making of things" is Social Theories in the Middle Ages 1200-1500 > What prudence was to the right doing of things, art was to the right making of things. Art meant that this making had been governed by right reason, prudence ... Did Jon grow up in the middle ages?

[@NukeCloudstalker]

our ancestors were a lot more intelligent and wiser than people tend to give them credit for.

[@Pangeli70]

Enjoyed very much this talk. Thanks for sharing.

[@mvargasmoran]

I'm liking the Chef John Music at the start.

[@Irockman1]

So much wisdom in this talk.

[@marscaleb]

"Anyone who played any games on the first Sega or Nintendo consoles got tired of this kind of gameplay fifteen years ago." I want to kick that guy in the nuts so hard. Dillholes like him ruined gaming for a solid 20 years. So many of us gamers were freaking STARVING for some solid 2D games. We ate up every little morsel of it, and he made that statement at a period of time where there was an immense famine of such games. And what exactly was he basing his statement on? Literally nothing. There was literally not one example he could point to of a side-scrolling game in the last ten years that sold poorly because it was 2D. All he was doing was perpetuate an outright lie.

[@GonziHere]

Shout out to the first question, it was perfectly put follow up :-)

[@Mike.Garcia]

The past information was better quality... JB is a quality guy!

[@h0lyrs422]

Very good talk, although I feel that the question about "how did you know that The Witness would sell?" (or something like that) was not entirely addressed. In my humble opinion, when The Witness was published, Braid was already a huge indie success, and that established a track record for JB. In a way, it established a brand. So, of course, it was still a gamble because a bad game could also kill a brand, but at least the risk of it not selling well was considerably lower, since a good chunk of the marketing effort was already done just by recognition. I'd like to hear him talk more deeply about taking risks at the beginning versus taking risks after a successful game.

[@mescellaneous]

I think he makes it clear that he views his games as art, if not himself an artist. It's like asking Zuckerberg how he knew Facebook would be big. He didn't. He just had positive feedback and trusted his gut. Sort of the same thing. Braid was the seed of confidence for The Witness. But Braid was not successful at the start also, as he details in other talks. A lot of the experts didn't get it or disliked the game. He recognized that the experts were being dismissively negative though, while his peers were quite positive about the game. He took a risk on Braid too. He's good at his "job", then he became a success. You don't calculate your success, then become good at the job. He trusts he made a unique game and is well designed. What more can he say without being conceited? On his website, he shows he created a prototype, Oracle Billiads, dealing with time and billiards. I suspect he's made a lot of prototypes just to test out ideas. I'm sure he's played around with a lot of time related games before Braid. Also, good game designers seem to play/know about a lot of other well crafted games. Part of it is being aware of other indie games. Jonathan Blow is well read, well versed, well practiced. Very hard to boil down his life's work/path into a magic pill (or maybe it's futile). He also understands this, which is why he often gives a vague answer. As said in his Preventing the Collapse of Civilization talk: "Removing complexity is the right short-term play." He will always give a vague answer for something like "how did you become so successful". The specific answer does not help anyone, it is just specific to him. If the question is vague, it would be presumptuous to give a specific answer.

[@gd7681]

Simon Farre - opinions opinions. The Witness is a good game. See?

[@____uncompetative]

His _Game 3_ / _Sokoban_ game looks like it will kill the Blow brand. I know he is making it to assess the language he is creating for _Game 4_ but maybe no one will want _Game 4_ due to _Game 3..._

[@Pspet]

@@____uncompetative For what it's trying to be, I think it will be excellent. It seems very densely packed with ideas that push the mechanics to the limit and make for interesting puzzles(around 1000). It is pretty different than his other games and due to its nature, I can't except it to be comparable with Braid and the Witness. But I don't think it will be bad in any way, just not as approachable.

[@____uncompetative]

@@Pspet Grid limited movement is naff. I can accept it in _Angband_ due to the era, but no one will want the sequel to _The Witness_ to be a glorified _Angband._

[@gaspode8]

The timing ... The talk (without the Q&A) was exactly 1 hour. Accurate to the second.

The mountain king music was playing in Jon's head in the last two minutes.

[@mimisaiko]

I'll share some thoughts about deep knowledge. It's something that emerges when you learn a lot. It's not a shortcut, it's an ability you acquire to see shortcuts. It's very hard to describe since people without it have way less experience and knowledge than people who have it. There's a great book talked a bit about this topic named "Why don't student like school?"

[@nicolasdelattre8833]

This man is utterly brillant.

[@youtubesuresuckscock]

No he isn't.

[@gd7681]

Big Blue Frontend - i’m very curious about the reason for your personal vendetta against Blow

[@johnmiller446]

Oh man, this talk was a real struggle for me because I really struggle with rejection. I knew that small businesses (in general, not just small studios in the game industry) have to deal with a lot of rejection, but I didn't know it was this bad!! When someone is rejecting me, how am I supposed to know if the problem is me or them?!

[@Gonzakoable]

Yo, I'm taking your words to heart. But it really does show how the indie community has really evolved. It's been 6 months since I started making a single game every week and I've yet to get any kind of harsh kickback even on entries I'll gladly admit are trash.

[@kevinscales]

The problem is you if the feedback proves that you are not achieving your goal. So ask yourself what your goal is (which should never be to please everyone, that is how you remain eternally disappointed) and recognize the difference between what you want to achieve and what others want from you. The best way to avoid disappointment and handle all feedback properly is to have confidence in your goals.

[@gracefool]

Blow's example is special, he was one of the first people to be really successful with an indie game (before that, it was hard to publish a game without a lot money, there was basically no indie game market, and before that almost all games were made by small teams).

[@____uncompetative]

It's you. LOL No, seriously... the thing about art is that you should still want to do it if you have no customer and no audience. You can't NOT do it.

[@bennyjones1502]

You have to logically parse all the information you've received about your creative abilities in a rational light, neither being overly positive nor negative about your work. Consider how others have reacted to your creative work, what you'd need to improve, and if the improvements will actually result in something that people like to consume. Be aware that sometimes you need to believe in yourself when nobody else will, but also be aware that sometimes you overestimate your own abilities. Basically, the answer is that there is no clear-cut answer. You must modulate your own understanding of yourself and your own abilities every day. My one piece of advice would be to not let it consume you. Your creative ability is not the sole determinant of your worth. In my eyes, much more important in a human being is whether they are kind and empathic. Your creative ability comes second to your relationships and your emotions. Then the creative output can be a healthy practice that will improve your life, rather than something that will hamper your happiness.

[@diegosandoval2043]

23:30 "It's hard for people to understand what your game will be" Especially if it's weird... And especially if you're Hideo Kojima and don't even try to explain what your game is about.

[@hkoxnw]

we all know kojima played it perfectly and in doing so he drummed up more buzz for his game which turned out to be a slow-burner about delivering packages.

[@Wildstyle23]

Diego Sandoval kojima is so overated in the game industry he doesn’t put gameplay first resulting in a boring art piece

[@swyxTV]

I love that he gave this in English at a Taiwanese event, what's the context does anyone know? was he just in town or did he travel to there specifically for this conference?

[@IGDATaiwan]

We had been trying to invite him to give a speech here for a while, and back in 2019, I think multiple communities in Asia just happened to invite him in a way that his travel was able to connected (and not conflict) between each spots. So we were pretty lucky!

[@swyxTV]

@@IGDATaiwan awesome! thanks for replying!!

[@Ihavetoreturnsomevideotapes]

hi swyx , i watch your content

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

English is the lingua franca of programming and that's really really convenient for American people making programs - don't worry, it's not unfair, they have a different advantage because all the newest electronic chips are documented in Chinese.

[@rensborkent22]

I always forget J.B. majored in writing

[@Ihavetoreturnsomevideotapes]

@@veridianr2490 no computer science dropout

[@gordo6908]

1:14:08 i wonder how he feels about the results of jon ingold's narrative scripting language

[@the_primal_instinct]

TFW you read the title of the video, read the text on the preview image and are like WTF

[@alexbuhl1316]

Exactly my thoughts :D

[@skiz8848]

the person who sent that email sounds like a total redditor

We use the term Redditor as an insult now, ok noted.

[@skiz8848]

@ woah I think you just topped that comment in sounding like a redditor

@@skiz8848 well that escalated quickly!

[@opl500]

I think the thing to take away, if someone cares enough to send you a wall of text, what you're doing is probably going to do at least OK.

[@callmedeno]

Reddit is a mess. Its users don't even realise yet apparently, in a couple of years it'll be all fields once again

[@gimptoast]

I would wholeheartedly agree with him about a lot of games not having great stories, I mean truly great stories. Video games for the most part are still in this almost B-Movie type stage, it's slowly crawling out of that trend I like to think. But for the most part it really is MEH sadly

[@ThatDudeDelv]

What games do you consider to have great stories? My favorite is Red Dead Redemption.

[@ThatDudeDelv]

Prey (2017) also has a really unique and interesting story.

[@gracefool]

The thing is, there's a big difference between telling a story in the way a film or book does, and the way a game does. Most games so the former, and so they're just a more awkward way of doing a traditional story. I agree with Blow that games really don't add anything to plot. The principle is "show, don't tell". So it's usually bad writing to just have the narrator *say* that a character has a particular attribute, it's better to reveal that through their actions. With film you have approval ways to show things. With games you have even more ways to show things, but it's a lot harder because you can't directly control the player experience (which BTW is why straight-up interactive movies have never really taken off - it's just the wrong paradigm for the medium). The best examples I know of doing "story" in a gamey way are Ico and The Last Guardian. They're about character relationships expressed through gameplay, rather than words or plot.

[@____uncompetative]

I think that is a consequence of Ludonarrative Dissonance working in the other direction. Usually the game undermines the narrative characterisation by having Nathan Drake, lovable rogue kill 1,000 men (oops!) If the narrative is to shine the game almost has to go away, so A-movies would be Z-games, generally.

[@RoastLambShanks]

His point was that games are about gameplay, not stories. And that people who harp on about story in games, are missing the point and do not understand games.

[@soulstudiosmusic]

WOW

[@gimptoast]

He was class in Indie Game! smart wee whure. Bless em

[@Czeckie]

that email is awesome, how come the room is not in stitches?

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

they don't speak english

[@yetanothernguyen2125]

I wonder what he did for the living during the development?

[@nickeshchauhan5661]

He did some contract work while working on Braid to pay his expenses, and he made enough money off that to make The Witness without needing to do other work.

[@qiao8031]

that camera following jon back and forth is really funny to me idk

[@RizaBochiza]

I couldn't have said it better. I don't like plot in games either. I love stories, and characters, and settings, and worlds. But as soon as I feel like the game starts forcing me in a direction I lose interest very quickly.

[@gracefool]

Yeah it's not what games are really good at. There's no problem with having art genres that straddle a line, like between games and film. But it's not really my cup of tea either - when I play, I want to be involved and creative, if I want more passive entertainment I'll watch a film or read a book.

[@TheAnimator1808]

@@gracefool Bang on man. My interest in games that don't "involve" me has waned a lot the older I get. Annoying because that doesn't leave me much choice!

[@gracefool]

@@TheAnimator1808 There's an abundance of choice, but very little of it is AAA. Indie games have never been stronger.

[@TheAnimator1808]

@@gracefool Yeah that's usually what I've been leaning towards. Even though a lot of indie games are far more creative, I still struggle to find ones that "involve" me in a really meaningful way, save for a few I've played more recently.

[@gracefool]

@@TheAnimator1808 Factorio is the most gamey game IMO, to the point where it can feel more like a job... There are lots of good roguelikes, have you looked there?

[@gzycrosslife]

不能摄影，然后闪光灯不断

[@johnsonlin878]

現場活動是可以「拍照」的，閃光燈的使用主要是大會紀錄組攝影師所使用的閃光燈。 不能攝影的部分應該是指禁止私下錄影。

[@grawss]

This guy is great. He trashed the whole industry haha. The greatest takeaway for me was the Steam response. Yeah, they're supposed to be able to see success in games, and yes, they're supposed to be the guys to support the industry, but the reality is, we as developers are responsible for making sure we successfully market ourselves and our products. I'm sure I've passed up at least a thousand dollars in free money lying on the ground throughout my life. It's easy to miss opportunity or success. The redditor-esque email guy, or the Steam employees, they could be bad people, but in all likelihood they just weren't in the right mindset to spot the potential. That can happen to anyone, so prepare to persist!

[@mosesturner4018]

Clickbait thumbnail but great talk

[@Lestibournes]

The price is one of the reasons I didn't buy The Witness yet. Another is that I'm a Linux user and I want something that I know for sure will work, and I don't know whether or not The Witness will run well.

[@Lestibournes]

I bought The Witness and played it on Linux. It was a great experience with no problems.

[@DUHRIZEO]

Does anyone in the audience know what he's saying? Edit: since I didn't phrase this well, my point was that this is a Taipei conference and I didn't see a translator. I was mainly curious what steps they took in making sure people could get the most out of the talk rather than just assuming people from another place could speak English.

[@khoavo5758]

At least the ones that asked question... What do you mean?

[@DUHRIZEO]

@@khoavo5758 I meant in terms of language. I didn't see an interpreter anywhere and was just questioning if everyone spoke fluent English.

[@gracefool]

@@DUHRIZEO you can understand a language without being fluent

[@ifsck]

The ones wearing headphones are listening to a translation of him talking. The person doing the translation is somewhere off camera. So judging by the number of people not wearing them, most of the audience understands him at least a little bit.

[@shellchen5184]

you can request a headphone, which has realtime translation channel in case you needed. and the speaker has a headphone, too. in case if some one want to ask question but doesn't speak in English.