How This Game Dev Made Over $1,000,000 - Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 015

In this video I chat with ‪@eastshadestudios8335‬ how he made his massively successful indie game.
► Learn how to become a full time game dev, free: www.fulltimega...
► Wishlist Songs of Glimmerwick: store.steampow...
► Wishlist Twisted Tower: store.steampow...
► What I believe: • What I Believe

[@thomasbrush]

► Learn how to become a full time game dev, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-how-to-make-six-figures ► Wishlist Songs of Glimmerwick: store.steampowered.com/app/1706510/Songs_of_Glimmerwick/ ► Wishlist Twisted Tower: store.steampowered.com/app/1575990/Twisted_Tower/

[@DroolingNoob115]

The best part about these podcasts is that I can let them play while I work, I don't have to look at the screen I can just focus on my game lol

[@ssuversa]

I thought i was the only one

[@SubzeroBlack68]

@@ssuversa Its basically why podcasts exists and are super popular. They are background filler while people do other stuff.

[@JohnniLover]

fr

[@forceful_creations]

Doing the exact same thing right now lol

[@IvanTeslenko]

What I loved about this podcast is that after Thomas said "Well, it's been a great talk" we still got another 40 minutes of extra content hehe It's like when something is so good you wish it doesn't end, and suddenly your wish is granted

[@present_artist1033]

Thomas is correct in regards to children becoming a part of your journey. I have 5 kids and my 10yr old son builds mods in Roblox next to me while I work with a studio remote. We discuss games, gameplay, and share each others work. With kids you see yourself reflected back and also understand you’re mentoring your replacement in this world.

[@UnlikelyYuusha]

Constantly impressed that Thomas's guests always have purple lighting in the background

[@MrChambers]

Been following Eastshades development on KZbin, awesome to hear Danny dive more into how he felt during the time of development.

[@bolo2747]

I love the "should fun be the focus" conversation near the end. I know games are *played* but I think they are meant to evoke emotion like all other mediums of art. I think you described this well when you kinda shifted into saying they should give a sense of joy somewhere in the experience. Gris is a fantastic example to me of this

[@TeDiouS1001]

18:00 exactly my experience with my kiddo. He's interested, gives me ideas, gets excited when something works, and says "sorry it didn't work" to console me when it doesn't.

[@michaelshollaj6428]

Thanks, Thomas for these podcasts, they're so helpful 🔥

[@whitefinchx0]

I'm a dad. Dangit, I did not expect to tear up. Guys stop, this is too good. (around 17:29) Love the rest of it too but that part tugged on my heart strings for sure.

[@thisnameistaken]

Hey Thomas I love these long form game dev interview podcasts of yours. And I was NOT disappointed that your "6 more minutes of your time" turned into like 40 lol. The more I watch these the more I like you as an interviewer and a person. These really feel like organic and casual conversations and the mutual respect between you and your guests always comes through. I like how you discuss both the personal and professional side of things and weave between the two. Anyway one time I gave you crap for click-baity thumbnails and I feel like I should apologize for that. If I could make a guest request it would be for LocalThunk, Daniel Mullins, literally anyone from basically any New Blood game, or one of the Pacific Drive devs. You're awesome, Danny's awesome, and these are great!

[@Iamjake1000]

I actually agree on Thomas's point on a game needs to be fun. When taking a look at elden ring, yeah it's frustrating and hard, but it ends up being fun because of the dopamine you get from progressing

[@Iamjake1000]

Lol I just got to the point where he explains dopamine as an ejaculation of joy 😂

[@zionen01]

Loving these interviews Thomas, great job as usual and another very inspiring story. Unity is a great tool and is the natural extension of XNA, which was a blank slate and fire-started the indie scene on consoles and blew up it in PCs, then Unity took MonoGame and ran with it. XNA is probably one of MS's greatest contributions to the video game industry because other console systems were extremely closed before that.

[@Haapavuo]

All this sounds too similar! I am also the same age as you guys, and made my previous title (Finnish Army Simulator) for about 5 years, and had a day job simultaneously. Constant 70 hour weeks, no free time, sleep deprivation etc... The game was released in January 2023 and has now sold a bit over 11 000 copies / +300 000 USD. I feel like it was totally worth it, though still not financially self-supportive. Thanks for the podcast Thomas and Daniel.

[@cybershellrev7083]

34:46 Unreal works great for switch but just like any engine, we gotta limit the fancy features & use techniques to meet juicy performance. Most people don't know or care about the tiny shader, lighting, topology & render pass tricks that really squeeze the performance out of their games.

[@samwilsoncg]

The insights of the behind the scene thought processes in these interviews are priceless.

[@thetuningroom]

Games that are not fun are like watching Requiem For A Dream - A great movie, but very much so a one-time-only watch. There’d be no chance I’d put that movie back on, and I’d never go out of my way to recommend that movie.

[@luckywright7285]

My favorite gaming podcast I've ever watched so far❤️ Been following you for a long time, Thomas. The videos legit get better every year 💙 Thank you for all you're doing! :)

[@danconklin2542]

This was such a great conversation. Enjoyed every second of it.

[@Nathan_Baker]

You are both an inspiration to so many!!, good luck on songs of glimmerwick

[@-LightSmit]

Loved the real talk - Thanks guys! Light

[@Commandante0]

Awesome interview, love both of your energy. The passion for what you both do is palpable! I'd like to add, that during the interview, when you where talking about the costs to make the game, you kind of brushed over the fact that it took over 100k $ AND five years of work from two well trained, talented and passionate creators. I would see this as an opportunity cost, too. If you put a pricetag on that, you would end up well over 1M $. So thank you so much for investing your money and, much more so, your time to create this game and incentivise others to do the same. Passion projects like this are really bringing a fresh wind into this rather stale AAA(A) industry.

[@GeckoOverflow]

It would be nice to have a segment about which games the guest played or was influenced by and dive a bit into this topic

[@kwcnasa]

I like that take on Unreal and Unity. @32:50

[@IgniteSlickGamer]

11:00 so true about the energy then getting caught up!

[@Huedini74]

Really starting to love these Dev podcast by Thomas, always a couple of valuable ah ha moments in them, thank you !!

[@l.a.w.6494]

Thomas he was right because lots of people texture like that. Just have the image made or found first bring it into blender and unwrap faces in groups and move the uvs over the parts of the image you want. Works best for robots and hardsurface objects. Organic objects would have too many visible seams sometimes.

[@deadpiece111]

I am loving this podcast, keep it coming.

[@azzaeuh]

Awsome podcast, one of the best you've done! Wouldn't have mind for it to be 5 hours

[@bitwisedevs469]

This is probably my favorite episode, a lot of funny thoughts.

[@experts_sketch1051]

man these indie talks are amazing Thomas we got to get Zeekers on please pls plz

[@itslitgamestv6827]

I think fun is when a game presents a clear and attainable path for the player to win or lose, which is done psychologically using numbers and language. Once the game presents a clear path to be able to win against an opponent, that is when a game becomes "fun" (the "opponent" can be either AI or a player). My days of playing Call of Duty, day and night, was pretty much fun every single day because there was always a clear path to win: Reach 1st place on the leaderboard against the competition (or level up equipment to beat the competition). Fun, I think, also has to do with your inputs and outputs. It was fun for my effort, my inputs, to have a compounding effect on my reward, or output. The history of games (not only video games) has always been about one thing: Competition!

[@wilhelmlake1359]

Amazing conversation! With a perfect length to enjoy )👌 Thank you both very much ) Also would be very interesting to listen Thomas conversation with the guys responsible for Outer Wilds (Not Worlds)! 🙏

[@lt.facepalm9566]

Dany: I have realized I can't stay up until 5 in the morning every night. Me, at 5:50 in the morning practicing making models and watching game dev podcasts: I have met with a terrible fate haven't I? we jus srsly wanna make vidya eh

[@IrishZOMBIE117]

This was a super fun conversation to listen to, also really informative and helpful.

[@Stargate16789]

Hi there, great conversation. I feel the same as you do; not everyone should give advice on how to do something if they haven't done it before! I love these kinds of podcasts, like chatting with game developers. Thank you!

[@arthurd4012]

Hey Thomas! I am an aspiring indie game dev and love your content! Also really appreciate the level of emotional intelligence you bring to the work!

[@marveII0us]

When he said Danny at the start I heard it as Dani and was like no way :0

[@thetuningroom]

Word of advice: Don’t refer to someone’s work as a ‘gimmick’. 😬

[@srsherman7]

I remember Vue... lol. And now i need to go back and play Eastshade again.. that whole game is a meditative experience.

[@DCatGameDeveloper]

Lov this channel

[@socialnetworking4782]

Dude drops truth on problems with college teachers. Often times have little to no experience in the field they teach.

[@Tbjbu2]

A lot of the time when I see steady wishlist growth it ends up being from KZbin, which certainly seems to be the case with his YT channel and his videos. There is always a source of wishlists traffic, it's never just "internal Steam" (Typically), Steam doesn't really show upcoming games before they are already very popular. Anyways thanks both for the great entertaining podcast once again! Was great as always!

[@baselalmadi4219]

Great Interview . . one thing to clear though . . Unreal doesn't force you to a certain templet at all . . it provides variety of templets to choose from at the beginning (which is a very effective way to create a quick prototype) or you can start from scratch . . and even if you start from a certain templets you can completely remove its assets and turn it into a project from scratch

[@NecrotekLabs]

I think they meant with the amount of bloat the engine has and most things have to be done in the "Unreal Way". Even more so if you don't use C++. Unity has it's quirks but Unreal has way more, given that it's essentially a modded FPS engine.

[@Atticus_Moore]

Sounds like fun is the core feeling but the way games illicit that fun is different for each genre. Souls games are fun because of the sense of accomplishment you feel for winning. Cozy games are fun because they make you feel like you're in a home away from home. Action games are fun because they make you feel like a badass. Horror games are fun because they scare you. This is a great podcast video. Definitely the best one I've seen so far. He's a unique game developer who's done something not many devs have done. How many can you say have made a game without combat that's successful and fun? It's opened my eyes on game design a bit more in terms of not having combat and how you can make it work.

[@jaymarksman]

1:37:50 -> Honestly, Elden Ring is the most fun I've had with a AAA game in years. From Software games have an incredible sense of adventure, exploration and discovery, and there is an absurd amount of freedom in choosing your build and playstyle. These things are absolutely fun, and on top of that, if you take just the combat part of the game, it's also fun in and of itself. I personally don't even care about the challenge (or overcoming it) that much, but the other parts of those games are so fun it doesn't matter. That being said, I do agree that not all games need to be fun, and there is room for a lot more in games than just that, but From Soft games are definitely not the example I would use. I agree about the awe and wonder part as well, but I don't think fun and awe are mutually exclusive.

[@Grigore-Daniel]

You're right Thomas, It DOES sound wrong....

[@thetuningroom]

“Be a Bob Ross for Gaming”

[@milantiquestudios7460]

Damn. Dude set himself up for life. Now he can just live life instead of constantly worrying about finances. That is the dream. Live life with no worries. Ha his trade school sounds the same as the one I went to, the DAVE School. Same story. Professionals who got sick of people coming out of college not knowing what they are doing so they decided to teacher. "If you can't do, teach." They said nah, duck that. If you can do, teach. For the Unreal vs Unity argument. Unreal is more user friendly especially towards artists. And Unity is more complex and coder friendly. Personally I just really don't like the Unity layout and controls. I see indie as 2 things. Solo or small team. And a certain style that just comes from inexperience or lack of resources. And people got used to connecting "indie" with that style. Like the original Spyro game has an indie look to it now but in reality it was just the technology wasn't there yet. It doesn't automatically mean poor quality but if you are indie then chances are your game is going to lack somewhere. Like with this game, I could tell he was an environment artist as soon as I saw the characters. That also goes the other way, AAA doesn't mean great quality. Especially these days. But indie just means small. Not lack of skill. When I hear "games have to be fun" it means enjoyable. It isn't a style to me. And it makes more sense with games than movies to say "fun" because games are interactive. But walking through a peaceful forest is fun. So is shooting through hoards on an alien planet. Getting scared is fun. Crying is over romance is fun. Drama is fun. Comedy is fun. Every time I have heard someone say something is fun, it just means invoking a positive feeling. So I agree with Thomas on this one. Games have to be fun in some regard. Grinding is necessary to get the thing, not fun. Battlepasses and loot boxes are addictive gambling, not fun. It also comes down to preference but I also think the ways people are getting people to play their games these days is manipulative into thinking its fun when its really not.

[@JasonWelch]

My kids both always have creative suggestions... mostly "make it an obby game!" :p

[@samuluvi]

Fantastic video as always. I finally decided to return to Unity after a couple of years' break from game development due to health issues. I was wondering if you could make a more niche video, specifically an explanation of how to create videos where you talk about and explain game development. This would help people like me who think it's best to create videos to use for studying. I hope you will consider my idea. Keep up the great work! P.S. I think the tutorial would be perfect if it included an explanation of how to make videos, such as which parts of the recording to keep and which to cut, or how to avoid making the video boring.

[@shenshaw5345]

18:10 aww 🥲

[@calebkrauter4027]

Love these podcasts!

[@danikpri50]

great podcast, very interesting topics!

[@MrXBJonte]

Awesome episode! Just hope you get an unreal engine dev someday :D

[@yam_fasrpawn]

Games as Silent Hill makes me cry, but afterall it is fun. So maybe a smile not the only one target to achieve fun. Tears make games personal to a player. I believe other kinds of emotions might work too. The routine in a gane have to be enjoyable. Smashing and avoiding monsters in Silent Hill is fun, although it's definitely not the main driver of the game. The same with puzzles. The common thing here - a player will enjoy in the end of the element.

[@TonyCollinsTech]

@thomasbrush Please! Make a book and release it on audible! It would be a gamedev best seller for sure!

[@RequstingFlyby]

Wow, you’re almost the same person! 9:43

[@_sleepyFox-oh6ob]

Guild wars 1 was my favorite game until they shut down the servers, it was absolutely amazing.

[@TollerGamesLLC]

Nice

[@Grigore-Daniel]

Am I procrastinating on my own game to watch other gamedevs success stories? Mayhaps :D

[@kozmiclando]

Yes

[@BodyCodeGames]

Hey Thomas I have always enjoyed how beautiful your videos are. What kind of camera do you use to shoot? Also what kind of microphone do you use. Your voice is so clear and wanted to know what you use.

[@pemcodegame4918]

Re game fun 1h 39m. Game doesn't need to be a game. It can be an interactive experience; or an interactive digital simulation experience media. Game is just a word for historical reasons. No need for an interactive movie or experience etc to have game elements to be a 3d app that sells on steam and plays similar to a game or a movie or a book.

[@TorQueMoD]

An issue with Godot is that it doesn't support consoles natively. Also, having used Unreal Engine for years, I think the idea that it's no as good for consoles or long term is totally inaccurate. There's a reason why almost every AAA game has used Unreal since the mid 2000s

[@ithinkicanwrite]

Godot will provide console support and tools by the end of the year. If that's a big concern, chances are by the time a game is finished, Godot will support this 😊

[@TorQueMoD]

I'm so jealous that you found a girlfriend/wife that wanted to make a game with you! That's been my ultimate fantasy for years. I'm traditionally and artist and level designer, so I always thought it would be cool to have a programmer GF :P

[@citadel510]

Quick questionThomas, what do you think about unity visual scripting

[@Urotsuki]

longest podcast so far! :o

[@kwcnasa]

Resume @33:00

[@netwarrior-qv5hq]

Hi Thomasbrush i want to make game but i don have pc But I learn game development with the help fo my uncle pc

[@harneetsingh9420]

Great podcast, goodluck with your new game!! thanks guys ! Love these podcasts Thomas 🙌 you are such a legend in gamedev community 🫡🫡🫡

[@ChrisSwafford1]

36:00 How do they feel about the game coming from Godot?

[@present_artist1033]

May be easier to talk about fun by replacing that word with “entertain”.

[@user-it8yh8tu7d]

With luck, fraud, or extensive prior background.

[@taco1010]

Good shit, id hate on this guy if i didnt know how hard game dev was. Hopefully something out of these videos can help my own games make bank.

[@nursultannazarov8379]

He had to run for another meeting. What an important person.

[@Jimmy-yp2mi]

Thomas is wrong about what fun is.

[@TRXST.ISSUES]

In the first few minutes it really sounds like you're sh!tting on his game. Like why lol.

[@riesmeister]

Yes, I noticed that too 😀

[@nursultannazarov8379]

cuz his game made just $500k but guest's game made $3.5m. He is jealous and he is doing sh!tty job to hide it.

[@devlogerio]

U get the point guys? Rule num1: Hes living a firstworld country Rule num2: He had a 6 figure job before this Rule num3: He has a team, small Rule num4: 10000$ was nothing for him even before he makes 1M Conclusion: if you are not from a first world country, migrate first...

[@GreedAndSelfishness]

Yeah he has several layers of advantages, I live in first world country but none of the other things he has.

[@devlogerio]

@@GreedAndSelfishness At least you're 1/0 ahead of us, keep it up, be tnkful

[@BrandonCourt]

Is the secret to becoming a successful game dev is to have purple lights in your room?

[@RadikalizedEternally]

My team can challenge anyone that we can make any type of AAA game with no more than 20k😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 stop playing on peoples intelligence believe I’m that person can back my words

[@redcore-games]

You look like twins!!

[@atom-2077]

thomas might be the worst interviewer of all time

[@el-goose]

There are two points that I don’t really understand why(?) and that, to be honest, made me a little angry. The first concerns the misogynistic statement addressed to the guest's Partner. Why did you speak so dismissively of her? Is it really so hard to agree that she is a brilliant game designer and that she made a huge contribution to the project? And I didn't like how the guest himself reacted to it... 😢😢😢 Second, I have quite a lot of experience with both Unity and UE5 and I want to tell you that it doesn't matter which engine you use, if you don't initially plan to port the game to a console (especially Switch), then you will have huge difficulties with both Unity and UE5. However, if you use UE5 mainly with C++, then you will get much higher performance than with Unity. Also, if we talk about Renderer Pipelines, then as the guest said, if you are technically savvy in this, then you will get an incredible picture on both engines. And what is more important (this is a plus, more in favor of UE5 in which you have more access to the engine source code), you can use third-party Renderer plugins that will make your game look super beautiful. And one more small point, you talked about interaction with objects... Seriously, how else do you plan to implement interaction with objects, except with Ray (or shape) Casting (Unity) or Ray (or shape) Tracing (UE)? 😂

[@eastshadestudios8335]

I don't think he was dismissing her, and I certainly did not perceive that at all during the interview. Had I sensed him dismissing her you can be certain my reaction would have been very different! He was speaking to the tone of the comment dismissing ME. She is a brilliant designer. And also a brilliant artist. That was not in question! The title of the viral post-mortem he is referring to is "My Wife and I Made an Indie Game...". So she is very much featured prominently there. But the comment was not "Wow Jaclyn is an amazing designer!" Our video got those too and those comments are lovely! The comment in question is directed at ME, the narrator, and was essentially (at least in an uncharitable reading) "lucky you. You were rich and happened to be attached to real talent". There were a lot of comments like that. Not about Jaclyn in particular but about any number of other factors that make out Eastshade's success to be blind luck, or at least my own skills and toil as a non-factor. Right place, right time, or trust fund baby. I am absolutely devastated you perceived us both as dismissing her. I will not be able to sleep tonight wondering how many perceived it that way.

[@omniclause4986]

@@eastshadestudios8335can only speak for myself but I didn’t perceive it that way at all.

[@pronova159]

I didn't perceive it that way.

[@pronova159]

@el-goose You're not the only one bewildered by the ray casting comment in the video. Generally, it's how you would do interaction in 3D but I think the tone of the conversation centered around how Unreal's default project template is very FPS focused.

[@eastshadestudios8335]

@@pronova159 okay that's good to hear! Regarding the raycast iirc the tutorial was actually using a bullet. Like used a bullet api call with damage and all the stuff that comes with a bullet. But I could be wrong It was a long time ago and UDK stuff is buried but if it was just a simple physics raycast that would of course have been very normal.

[@kotsoskotsoskotsos-o6q]

0.10 no offense thomas but, your game wasnt...how should i say this...not good so spectacular like it was ok but not enough good. I mean why even compare :/ Edit: wait i take all that back, i didnt realize who that developer from eastshade was, lemme rephrase, he got amazing artwork while you got right the mechanics and the crafting, altho a lot ppl liked his games and they are ok but not my cup of tea, the games he made are immersive but aside painting nothing else just like the tree soul etc...yea idk its a new niche genre which new gamers particularly women to be specific, it seems they are drawn to these kinds of games. But the old real gamers are not diving so much into it, his game gives off skyrim vide but without in depth game mechanics lore or crafting or anything to puzzle the gamer around.