How To Make Indie Games In 2025 w/ Jonathan Blow - Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 024

[@thomasbrush]

Can we give a round of applause emojis for Jonathan? ► Follow Jonathan's new game on Twitter: x.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1854276627305283874 ► Get 50% off Full Time Game Dev during the Black Friday sale: www.fulltimegamedev.com/full-time-game-black-friday

[@thomasbrush]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@mobatton]

Jonathan is my hero! Which makes you my hero by proxy! Thanks for all your great work Thomas

[@zarandor2012]

Hi! There's this upcoming platfom called Gamearly which goal is to help game developers fund their game thanks to the players. Have a look to it, it might be a game changer for developers in a close future.

[@aadhityaravichandran169]

The man himself is here finally!👏👏👏👏👏

[@Muskar2]

I looked up JB's twitter images and wow that's a pain to look through. I found the easiest way to find them was to look at his media posts, and of the five polished images from Nov 6, and Sep 12, I think this post picked one of the least interesting. The others were much more atmospheric.

[@ali-4096]

I've never seen jon blow in such high quality before 😂😂

[@badpotato]

haha

[@stickguy9109]

I like your pfp

[@Louis-v8m]

So your solution is that you, as an indie US developer, came first and grew, and now it's the time to shut the door for other developers? That's a very nice, typical US act! I think in response, other countries should ban Steam from selling in their countries and open their local stores!

[@magellan124]

He switched to Vulkan for this stream so now he can handle higher res textures

[@maxrinehart4177]

It's run on 4090 with dlss with 4k resolution. of course you get the highest quality there to be.

[@GreedAndSelfishness]

Thomas just visibly dying from stress.

[@bryanedds8922]

Feeling this.

[@maxrinehart4177]

dude was like a student who has exam but never studied for. fumbled his way till the end of stream.

[@khoavo5758]

I don’t get this, the interview is good.

[@imphonic]

What I'm getting from Jon's comments about the difficulty of making games is exactly what matches how I feel right now: it's easier than ever to get started, but it's harder than ever to finish and stand out. There's so many more features and so much more polish that you need that you could simply get away with not having back in the day. Optimizing is a nightmare too when the code behind it is a mess; Unreal's source code is a trainwreck, but it's got the tools I need to ship a game, so... oh well.

[@lifeartstudios6207]

yeah, add in the complexity of today's low end platform development or cross platform. I'm an XR developer and it's been an ongoing nightmare since 2017. The software stack just keeps getting more and more jank. Meanwhile Epic is chasing the film and automotive industry instead of focusing on it's game developer audience. Haven't had a stable engine version since well before UE5.

[@fceruti]

I've been waiting for this cross over for years!

[@korpos8833]

Me2

[@techpiller2558]

When J. Blow talks, I listen.

[@CharlesLijt]

When he talks, I kneel

[@luckyboy5nu]

If Jonathan Blow thinks, I agree.🤔✅ If Jonathan Blow speaks, I listen.🗣👂 If Jonathan Blow orders, I obey. If Jonathan Blow has a million fans, I am one of them.🙋🙋‍♂🙋 If Jonathan Blow has one fan, I am that fan 🙋 If Jonathan Blow has 0 fans, I’m dead😵❌

[@bryanedds8922]

Same.

[@zionen01]

The man has correctly predicted many tech events years ahead of time, so smart thing to do I think.

[@RizaBochiza]

Jon: *coughs up a lung* Jon: Maybe we can cut that out Thomas: No, that's okay Why, Thomas? Look after your guests.

[@briangular2115]

Lol

[@bryanedds8922]

fugg it

[@indieguy7297]

This industry BLOWS! Great guest, looking forward to these insights.

[@facelessanon]

It doesn't help that the interviewee is Jonathan BLOW

[@philippe6918]

Thats the joke lol ​@@facelessanon

[@scottlee600]

Really funny to see these two minds together on one video - I see Thomas as this passionate, emotional artist contrasted with this analytical mastermind Jonathan Blow. They kind of care about different things but they're attempting to meet each other within this space between them. Kind of great.

[@ew2430]

Beautifully said, I agree.

[@EvelynHill]

Thomas - What you discussed with "Making a game where you can get paid to make it" and "Building an audience to activate for funding" is *exactly* what my studio is trying to do right now. We have a harder time because we are a team, but our entire social media strategy is around getting patreon subscribers so that we can be self reliant and liquid even if we find publishing etc. Ideally we wouldn't have to do layoffs if a game doesn't sell incredibly well or we get a publisher and then finish the project we got that funding for because that money is supplement to the audience funding.

[@callumbirks]

Amazing to see this GOAT on the podcast

[@Glaucus-999]

“We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” - Epictetus

[@Mekkablood]

I appreciate his perspective, and I really hope this doesn't sound harsh at all. But I'm seeing a pattern with these videos with certain people. Many who have had a hit and just don't have it in them to get to that same creative space they were in to make another one, and have trouble adapting to industry changes. Sometimes new technology also. This is an insanely hard thing to do technically, but also you have to mix that with a creative mindset that appeals to others, doing that over and over again is a monumental task. With that said, the space may be getting more competitive, but I still don't see many games that I would consider great products not doing well. Mullet Madjack, Animal Well, and many others I could list are showing where our heads should be at when developing a game. You really need something unique these days, customers are rewarding creativity more than they ever have before.

[@drumandbassob0007]

i dont think you really need to be that unique these days just put out a fun game thats not a buggy mess as thats "unique these days" lol also this guy has a pretty big option on game engine's like unity and unreal but hasnt used them for 20 years. I havnt used unity but worked in unreal for the last 3 years and love it, i proto type in blueprints which compiles instantly and then i move the heavy functions to C++ and its pretty quick to work with and can look great. Some people say UE5 is unoptimized but most just dont know how to get the most out of the engine and because theres many ue5 games that run like shit but thats not ue's fault its on the devs. look at the finals its not my cup of tea but the game runs really well end looks great

[@nathanfranck5822]

Since watching the hl2 documentary that just came out - it's startling how much they talk about feedback and play testing, like it's something that doesn't come up in conversation nearly enough for current game devs, but its so obviously necessary for building a good game

[@TheJeremyKentBGross]

There's a HL2 documentary?

[@iamvfx]

6:33 THE WITNESS SPOILERS ALERT, THE WITNESS SPOILERS ALERT

[@iamvfx]

The spoiler ends at 7:01

[@1337pianoman]

so unnecessary too!

[@joshuadonahue5871]

Bump

[@rami22958]

When Jonathan gives it to you, hold on to it. This is a game developer in an era where it's hard to be an indie game developer.

[@zionen01]

Damn Thomas got the legend himself on the show, must have been hard. Game Dev industry indeed looking dire, I'd say current environment favors good story-tellers and artists whereas before it'd favor technical skills and programmers. It's still tough for all though.

[@BronsonBragg]

The cuts to Thomas not talking and just listening/empathizing is crackin' me up. 1:06:24

[@jomesias]

13:28 the idea of a blue and red ocean comes down to doing the same thing that everyone else is doing. If no one else is doing the gameplay like you do it, no one else is doing camera changes and no else is adapting the gameplay like you, then you are doing a blue ocean strategy! In the end a good game is a polished (and addictive) game hook. So good you can’t put it down, the effects the lighting the cinematic camera changes etc all of it contribute to immersive gameplay and you can’t help and say “yes I’m the greatest! Yes that was a great goal, yes that was a great dragon punch!” So, establish a game hook and polish it: add particles, add cam changes, add sound and visual response to your button actions, etc! Only you know how you would want the game to play, it also takes a lot of time and effort to do all of this!! So polish polish polish !! Until you polished it into a diamond!! 💎💯💯💯

[@AlexKolakowski]

Whoa epic guest!

[@Crunchiness]

never knew Dave Bautista was an indie dev

[@siskavard]

Dave Blowtista

[@CharlesLijt]

dave now looks thinner than JB

[@ShinDMitsuki]

I want to just take a moment to push back further than the assessment of Thomas that "it's easier to make a game because the engine will just do those things for you." Jon was nice about it, but it needs to be understand that it's unequivocally not true. A game engine obviously solves some problems, but you also inherit all the problems of that engine. Also, given how complex the tool you are using is, most of the time you also cannot feasibly solve those problems, even if you were using your own technology a solution would be feasible. In Unity's case, you can't even access the source code to hope to fix any of it. I have personally ran into this problem of waiting years on a fix in Unity for something, which is why I no longer use it or even consider it a reasonable tool for game dev unless you are a large studio that can pay for source access. Jon brought up the problem of frame rate independence. "Just let the engine solve it for you." Unity can't solve it for you. Unity will do frame rate independence through fixed update. That is a solution with many drawbacks (go look at how it actually ensures you get a fixed update) Also, once you understand how it works, you know you cannot take user input there. Well, if you can't take input from the user in the fixed update, you run right back into the problem Jon was talking about. Also, even if you do use fixed update, you run into the other problem Jon talked about. By fixing the update interval, you are basically disallowing higher frame rate refreshes from occurring. How do you solve this? Interpolation? That's an extremely non trivial solution. Unreal is the same way. AAA studios inherit it's shader combinatorics issues. That leads to in game stutters. Do you really think you are going to fix the massive beast that is Unreal's material system just because you have source access, when even AAA studios and Epic themselves have yet to do so? Yes, you can reasonably architect YOUR system to not have the problem, but can you do it for the multi million line codebase of Unreal? How about trying to get a temporally stable frame in Unreal? Very difficult task, given how they develop the renderer, it's actually borderline impossible. There is no magic solution to these problems and a game engine existing is not some panacea that is going to solve all of these things and make them easier. You can choose to ignore all of these problems and say they don't matter, but then we run right back into the problem of mass produced subpar quality products. It is easier to ever to make something with reckless abandon, but the entire point here is that that is in and of itself a major issue.

[@ItsAllGoodGames]

lol its not that hard, you do input in Update() but the action itself in FixedUpdate() you can use a boolean like ButtonPressed or something. And the rigidbodies have interpolation built into the component, you can choose interpolate, extrapolate, etc Sure its something you have to learn but its not like some super complex issue. The fact is unity DOES out of the box provide you with Update() and FixedUpdate(), And if you're not making a unity physics dependent game then its even simpler.

[@joeysipos]

Industries evolve and platforms evolve. I for one am not seeing the hardship. My little Meta Quest game I have been working on for the past 2 years is starting to do well. I am getting a couple grand a month and my game is still in early access not even fully released. Mainly because standalone VR is a new emerging market and competition is less. Just takes a creative mind to adapt to emerging new technologies.

[@TrickyxMickey894]

What’s your game?

[@joeysipos]

@ Glider Sim on Meta Quest and Steam

[@MichaelYouTube23]

Got Blow J on the pod? Hell yeah

[@shotoutgames8823]

Didn't see this coming. Blow with Brush

[@owencoopersfx]

I work with Unreal Engine all the time. As cool as the engine is, it’s not unusual for me to spend several hours every week just waiting for things to load/compile. It can definitely be very frustrating.

[@Pontypants]

w episode

[@rapidstress2008]

Bro big fan!!! Am I first??

[@stickguy9109]

​@@rapidstress2008yes

[@luckyboy5nu]

hope your cooking something new up

[@jacobkirkbride1581]

Great episode! Always excited to see a new Jon Blow interview.

[@tokenguitardude]

Yoooo, totally awesome surprise to see Jonathan Blow on the podcast!

[@lDeath489]

Grateful to hear Jonathan. It always have an impact in me because he is humble and realistic.

[@paryonix3d6657]

Great Interview. I too went down the "write your own engine" path, couldn't be any happier. Did it pay off? Well, time will tell 😀

[@danielvgrigore]

*unexpected, but greatly appreciated Looking forward to this one

[@sinelacico823]

Wow I was literally listening to a Jonathan Blow interview as I saw this in my homepage.

[@Interference22]

Regarding AI, I feel like its effectiveness is inversely proportional to knowing what you want: the more you have a specific vision of something, the less likely it's going to be any use creating it. If, on the other hand, you have the absolute vaguest idea of something, you might actually get a useful result out of it.

[@emanuel-alvgard]

Thank you so much for bringing Jonathan on! Loved the episode!

[@thomasbrush]

You bet :)

[@prodigybr]

100% agree with the idea that development is getting harder as the times goes by. In all areas, with all the patterns, articles, "optimization"...This podecast is one of the best of the series! Thanks!

[@jorava8768]

Never expected this conversation to happen. Cool talk! Would love to see more industry veterans, perhaps even older devs like Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer.

[@theonewithoutidentity]

1:31:44 I really like what Subset games did with FTL, which is they pushed an update for the game in which an advert for their new game was shown, which is how I found out they had a new game and then I bought it. But it requires you already own a popular title on the platform.

[@MikeGemi]

Released my first game this year. It was a mobile game took two years to make, all through out the process I was thinking if we can somehow get it featured on the app store we will be set. Released and got featured got about 8k downloads from that and made less then $100. The cost for an artist to make promotional art work for the feature was $200.

[@achorjustin9807]

What's the name? I will go play it

[@MikeGemi]

@@achorjustin9807 I appreciate that thank you! Its Knight Runner on IOS and Android its the one by Stargazers Studios

[@RetroBreak]

Fantastic interview! Been really enjoying them recently, great guests! Keep it up, one day I'll start making a game again and these are so full of invaluable information!

[@nedraHarden]

I’m a mobile app developer and we work fully remote and we are highly efficient. Saves the company tons of money

[@luckyboy5nu]

Thomas and Jonathon Blow was not on my 2024 bingo card lol

[@CAInandAIbel]

It may be that instead of a rounded engine, we may need to build something that is genre specific. Like an engine that is specifically for 3rd person shooters. An engine that is specifically for RTS games. An engine for 2D side scrollers. An engine for space flight simulators. All open source if possible.

[@bioburden]

Such an awesome guest and great episode - mant thanks fir sharing

[@abdullahnaim10]

Amazing content! Would love to see a video talking about building an audience with youtube and stuff if haven’t already.

[@raskolnikov6347]

MORE JBLOW CONTENT LETS GO

[@memory_leaps]

when he said if you wanna play the best game you wanna play the game from the people who are the best at game design/programming art not the game from the people who are the best at marketing it really hit me

[@1bytesnack369]

Brilliant conversation!

[@hawkgamedev]

I watched the whole video and man at least is not just me, the market is super competitive and its super hard to make a game nowadays.

[@iamvfx]

3:40 wow, camera, chill out 😄

[@too_many_fish]

Woah this is awesome! Very unexpected, really looking forward to this one.

[@kwcnasa]

Steam please take notes @1:33:30 give options to opt in to show player pc spec

[@SandorClegane-TheHound]

It's therapy for me during the times I can't be in the office

[@phdost3267]

Thomas can you try to interview developer 'localthunk', he made Balatro. Would be really interested to hear you 2 talk. Thanks!

[@lubba64]

The low quality churn problem is why I am on v3 of my game

[@kafir1337]

hey, your automatic camera switching based on mic volume isn't working as intended and is distracting. almost every time jon pauses in a sentence for a few seconds, the camera switches to you, and then switches quickly back to jon. it feels awkward to get a reaction shot of you while jon is simply taking a very natural pause between words, not to mention how abrupt and random the cuts feel. also, when you shift around, play with an object, readjust your mic, accidentally tap or bump int your desk, etc., the camera switches to you and then right back to jon as he's talking.

[@killercreeper55]

Nice!! 👏

[@RoyAltman]

Wow thank you for this! As a new comer to the industry this helped me immensely - especially that veterans are also facing some of the same challenges us new comers face. At least I'm not alone 😉🙏

[@macsmola]

Wow! Should have put some spoiler alerts before showing that Witness footage!

[@gardian06_85]

the "building a brand" is kind of tricky especially for Indies where many indies want to go off and make something different from the thing they made before, too where those people who got the previous game might not be interested in the next game because it is too different. Like for Super Giant Bastion was seen as an Action adventure almost brawler game, but then Pyier was seen as a sports game, so people who really like Bastion for the Action almost brawler combat would be like "what is this soccer + basketball game"; then Hades would be seen as a return to form. with Jonathan's games people might not have seen Braid as a puzzle game out right, so when The Witness rolled around it would have been too divergent, and I real feel that players are much more sensitive to Genre and mechanics then they are too "it was made by X" there are players that will jump at "it was made by X" but even those would be re-enforced by the genre and mechanics similarities. on the Statement about "advertising another game on the news feed of Steam" the only limitation is that the game must be available on the platform, and you must have some association with it, so you could advertise through your game's news feed (which will show up in the user's library) about a new game you have made, but you can't advertise like an Activision game.

[@Smeighl]

Also have to consider that the bar is just higher. Assassins Creed came out and it was the bees knees. Now, everyone is just kinda tired of it.

[@edhahaz]

Oh boy new comfy rant just dropped

[@ArksideGames]

AWESOME, I like his vids, very technical, love it.

[@thomasbrush]

I’ll be honest - I can’t keep up with his technical brilliance.

[@ArksideGames]

@@thomasbrush yeah, he is heavily into high level tech stuff from game engines to operating systems. I am mildly interested in tech, so I like his videos, and I wholeheartedly agree with his opinion on modern software and hardware. I am also a semi tech-purist. Everything is SO bloated nowadays because silicon valley is LAZY.

[@ItsAllGoodGames]

I can't wait to become a famous dev, i want to be on podcasts and be interviewed too i just love to talk LOL

[@samuelmartin390]

You may think the interview was a little ankward and it was. But it was GREAT and that's because you two are really different types of dev, it was amazing to see the intersection of the two places you are coming from. More alike devs could have had more feeling at times but would have been far less nuanced. Thanks Thomas

[@samuelmartin390]

The games as a business perspective is rare to see on yt and really needed

[@CAInandAIbel]

Please do a part 2!

[@silchasruin4487]

There's an awesome indie game from Craig Daversa, Survivor The Living Dead. The first game is free and part 2 is on Steam. It's a tight and quick little game, it didn't get enough attention. He upgraded the gameplay in part 2, the Redux. Just putting that out there so he gets some love.

[@phee3D]

on the topic of ai integration into engines, unity has muse and their new behavior tree system which does utilize ai. So we're already getting to the point where ai is getting properly and deeply integrated into specific tools.

[@Zanthous_]

on AI, Liar's bar had ai voice acting, some games use it for crappy art, and some successful games (supermarket simulator) use it for capsule art. It's chipping away at a few places, sfx generation maybe?

[@Almostnamless]

$20 in 1980 is equivalent to about $76.62 today 2:44

[@jinno1236]

41:00 @thomasbrush to speed up load time of the scene while playing, Edit> Project Settings> Editor> turn on Enter Play Mode Options, with Reload Domain and Reload Scene unchecked.

[@bedtimestories1065]

Jonathan Blow is a engine programmer. All that means is that he really understands CS fundamentals. That seems to be lacking more than ever nowadays and I suspect it contributes to issue of software being so complex nowadays.

[@KD0YCL]

Great conversation. Love it. Please stop manhandling your mic - super annoying in the low freq.

[@MikAlexander]

Not everyone. I use C and raylib atm.

[@BrandonCourt]

Not a single person on this planet who has successfully escaped the risk associated with creating art/entertainment products.

[@bbok1616]

It feels like Tom is trying to insert himself while Jonathan talks and then he just gives up

[@BartMamzer]

zevia is awesome man, I wish I could easily buy it here in Poland

[@calmhorizons]

Would be great to see you chat to Hugo Cardoso (CodeMonkey) on this topic - seems like he would be an interesting foil to Johnathan Blow - since he is a one-man operation and is all about making the most of Unity and building games that have an acceptable return, rather than being something artistically unique etc.

[@michaelhawthorne5516]

Brush and blow, the game dev salon

[@sina-ox3lz]

thanks

[@benitoe.4878]

Thanks for the interview. I appreciate it. That frequent cutting to and fro, however, is somehow off. Like an AI did it.

[@deadpiece111]

Holy shit.... EPIC

[@tedbendixson]

It's a great year to make a survival crafting game where you craft games and don't survive.

[@Catskullgames]

I use Godot, What's a compile time?

[@rodrigomaximilianobellusci8860]

I don't think Open Source by itself is the solution. I think an objective like "be the most performant engine" can only be achieved with a leader in charge of setting priorities and making sure the requirements are met. That can be compatible with Open Source, but it's not a given.

[@Mohagged]

As much as I like Unity, and having worked on tiny (phone) projects, having to wait 10, 20, 30 seconds everytime I made a tiny change was driving me up the wall. I'd rather take UEs editor crashes. They at least give me enough time to do some chores

[@gnatinator]

Great interview but stop touching your mic. The random thumps are really jarring for listeners.

[@921Ether]

17:37 almost done with the next game. And he said that he would likely release Jai alongside it. Is the decade of waiting finally over?

[@Sethalonian]

I've heard his name, but never seen him before. He looks like Bautista lol.

[@CAInandAIbel]

22:30 did the dude just swig apple cider vinegar?

[@Alucard_Seven]

One game that I know of that uses AI generation for 3D models, that game Dreamworld. I know it was a scam looking game when it was announced, but its come a long way.

[@shotoutgames8823]

Making good games is hard

[@zoran7389]

😢please try to do daily lives

[@thomasbrush]

I'll be live today reviewing games. Coming up!

[@kwcnasa]

Resume @1:04:00

Step one: BUILD TIME MACHINE 😂

[@johnnylollard7892]

He's right, and it's a very basic thing in nature. Often an industry or an art form will hit peak expansion right before it drops off. It happened to classical music, painting, cinema. Even pop music genres. Tasteless simpletons can often see only quantity, that new stuff is produced. Really, is classical music or oil painting as culturally powerful and new as it was in the 18th century? We can see that now, but maybe someone 100 years ago can't see how it was dying a hundred years before them. The difference is that software moves fast.

[@iamvfx]

22:27 I do flu shots now and I feel great every winter :)

[@gnomes-the-game]

tldr, make good games and you'll be fine

[@razorgarf]

Android phone UI used to be finicky but I don't think that's the case anymore - actually it's become quite nice and you can do more customization than on iOS.

[@phatpingu]

Most developers can't write their own game engine. Complaining about unity from 13 years ago and unreal from 21 years ago without actually presenting an alternative to that group of developer is the reason why none of what he said is very useful

[@ItsAllGoodGames]

lmao why does thomas look bored af LOL