Episode 28 - The Independent Mindset of Jonathan Blow

IGF Design Award winner Jonathan Blow has made legendary games like Braid and The Witness by taking risks and making the hard decisions. Currently making a new game with a homemade game engine (!) using a homemade programming language (!!), he tells tales of perseverance and putting in the reps for when opportunity knocks.
Thank you for listening to our podcast all about video games and the amazing people who bring them to life!
Hosted by Alexander Seropian and Aaron Marroquin
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Featuring the music track Liberation by 505

[@nellkellino-miller7673]

This man is scary. I can really relate to his perspective and I'm both humbled and inspired by his work ethic. Creative artistic AND philosophical genius, AND he can put his money where his mouth is with his cooding skills and euntrepreneurial spirit. No wonder so many people are intimidated by his mind. I wish him all the best and will be eagerly awaiting whatever he's working on.

[@double051]

One of the modern game dev greats! Thanks for this episode.

[@stefdevs]

8:00

[@kamikaz1k]

Hero

[@user-pp3df9rm7z]

Jon is a beast. He's a real motivation to keep going and do the right thing.

[@FindingFocus]

Jon is my all time fav! He inspired me to learn programming ♥️

[@0ia]

Amazingly cool! Thanks guys!

[@DusanFajler]

Thanks for this. Great insight into his career and thoughts

[@9hoot789]

This was a great interview, good interviewers and extremely helpful answers

[@mareknetzel]

Amazing! Thanks for sharing!

[@FlatThumb]

Jonathan Blow is "The Philosopher Gamer" - always love to hear what is on his mind!

[@sergesolkatt]

❤

[@kamikaz1k]

Hey creators, I'm new here. Highly recommend adding chapter annotations. Thank you

[@babbisp1]

12:56

[@villaindepot]

I really like that you are having in-depth conversations with such great and interesting creators. Please keep making more. But please stop interrupting the guests when they are talking about something interesting, just because you have an agenda for your interview that you need to crowbar in. When you interrupted Jon while he was talking about his current projects and made him talk about his 'origin story', I felt that you had ruined a very moment and disrupted the whole flow of the interview, just so he can re-iterate his work history, like he has done in dozens of other interviews. Please don't stop guests when they are being interesting.

[@blowfantoo]

Agreed. It was also clear that the hosts had failed to do their research beforehand as many questions they asked had answers easily found online (e.g. during the Noclip interview or on Wikipedia.)

[@nerdError0XF]

+++

[@blenderpanzi]

13:40 I wonder if Untitled Goose Game got it's name that way. By wonder I mean I'm sure even though I didn't look it up.

[@wisnoskij]

I dont think it is really a question if video game crunch was bigger decades ago. You almost cannot watch a video game studio documentary without some story about how the entire team worked for 0 salary and slept in the office for 2 months to finish a project.

[@justin4911]

@7:51

[@sporefergieboy10]

Please get the creator of Among Us next 🙏

[@justin4911]

LET THE GUY TALK WHAT HE IS ABOUT TO SAY IS WAY MORE INTERESTING THAN WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAY. *Ahem.*

[@tx7300]

for some reason i see a variation of this same comment in every JB video that features some sort of interviewer talking to him

[@m-is8mm]

@@tx7300 Somehow many interviewers think that their mediocre observation is worth interrupting the stream of consciousness of the extremely talented genius they are lucky enough to have on their podcast.

[@skimmy93]

Easy to say when you’re not the one holding the conversation

[@Muskar2]

Interesting, I thought the interviewers made barely any interruptions compared to many others.

[@brandonchin9873]

@Muskar2 Yeah, I read this comment before hearing the interview and thought it’d be a lot worse. I liked the dynamic in this interview, they let him say his piece while affirming they are listening and joking around with him and it felt like an actual conversation while most interviews with Jonathon sound like a lecture/monologue with disjointed prewritten questions in between.

[@EdPotter-xn1ir]

Is his new game still about solving puzzle? I thought he had said it wouldn't ：(

[@sagitswag1785]

Yea, of course it's a puzzle game.... He literally said multiple times it's a sokoban style game....

[@lastburning]

That's a different project he's been working on.

[@oscarsalesgirl296]

This interview was basically over the moment the soy boys brought up childhood nostalgia. WEEEWOOOW U HAD AN ARCHAADE WITH SPACE INVADERS. EEUGUU IM GOING TO TELL MY DISCORD AND FUNKO POP DOLLS ALL ABOUT THIS. Way to Blow an interview

[@Seacle14]

Way to interview a Blow

[@m-is8mm]

Someone please make an edit of this video containing only Jonathan Blow talking. No offense to the creators of this random podcast. Just that 95% of people are coming here for Blow, not you guys.

[@danielwalley6554]

Fucking hell, 20 million dollars to make a grid based puzzle game??!?! That's disturbing.

[@quaker5712]

Its not just the impact of the game that covers that cost in my opinion. He's developing this commercial game that's also a proof of concept for tools that will, when released, help other devs make better games. He's said that he'll release the language and the engine for free when they're done and I can't be sure that jai (the new language behind the engine behind the game) will make huge strides in the industry. However, it does sound promising and exciting given my average understanding and experience with making games. Well worth the money if the tools end up being at least good I think.

[@Seacle14]

Why shame people for being passionate? This guy is making incredible things happen with his money. You want more successful people to be like him.

[@PabloGnesutta]

I love John, but I can't believe he still talks positively about Elon musk

[@meanmole3212]

What do you mean still?

[@PabloGnesutta]

@TheIncredibleAverage at some point the Elon simp would appear, and it finally did

[@dandymcgee]

Intelligent people can separate an individual’s negative actions from their positive impact on the world. Nobody disagrees that Elon Musk is just as imperfect as the rest of us, but his (and his team’s) work is undeniably some the most important and impressive work in the history of mankind.

[@m-is8mm]

DIsliking elon musk is fashionable, just as disliking jonathan blow is fashionable. All the stereotypical generally-leftwing sillicon valley technologists dislike both of these men.

[@Muskar2]

@@PabloGnesutta So can you neither believe that anyone "still talks positively" about Howard Hughes and Thomas Edison? You're acting like your opinion is somehow superior and nuanced and should be held by anyone smarter than you.

[@____uncompetative]

Unlistenable.