PRACTICE 2014: Jonathan Blow

PRACTICE 2014: Jonathan Blow
On Trying to Make Idea-Rich Games
November 14-16, 2014
Jonathan Blow talks about the design process behind his twenty-year game and the design benefits behind time constraints, not reaching your goals, and creating design mechanics in a long-term project.
practice.gamecenter.nyu.edu
gamecenter.nyu.edu

[@APaleDot]

"Game 3 is currently in C++, but I may rewrite it in another programming language. I probably will, because it'll be a test of whether that language is practical" Damn, that foreshadowing.

[@ExCyberino]

True

[@fennecbesixdouze1794]

Has he moved Game 3 officially to Jai? I thought so, but on the other hand I understood the Sokoban game as a test of Jai to make sure it's up to snuff for Game 3.

[@captainnoyaux]

​@@fennecbesixdouze1794Yep probably, he stated that game 3 isn't a puzzle game and the sokoban one look like a puzzle game

[@SanderVermeer]

I think that there are people who want to "go to the moon" in game design. But the question is: where is the moon? The reason why game design hasn't grown much is because it's a very new medium. I think games will become more and more interesting as the designers mature and learn from past ideas. But it will be slow. Designing a game is a slow process. One could argue that it's one the slowest processes when looking at movies or books or other media. On the one hand because games need to be programmed. You need to make prototypes and make it run in order to test the design. You can't simply write it down. And if you could, it's probably not that interesting to begin with. it's like describing a book with using only stock photos. Add the effect that jon described where you need a certain production quality to test certain specifics of a design and it becomes clear it simply is a lot of work.

[@rubberduck2078]

talk starts at 2:50

[@hyperTorless]

Ballsy talk. Keep it up based John!

[@geriburrito]

So game 3 has been in development for more than 10 years? Jesus, I it must be massive. I'm so hyped for whatever this man does next.

[@fennecbesixdouze1794]

Blow said he expects it will have a 20 year development cycle. Apparently it will be a series of chapters each of which explores the same themes with completely different and increasingly complicated game mechanics.

[@perguto]

I think he's working on multiple games at the time, but the game he's probably gonna publish soon(ish) is a sokoban game

[@tallergeese]

I don't think Jonathan's really engaged a lot with the board game and tabletop RPG spaces, which kind of surprises me. They're both much more exercises in "pure" game design, because the actual implementation and iteration of the design ideas is extremely easy compared to videogames. The design is almost always the most important thing about these games. There are also active veteran game designers in both of those spaces that fulfill his criteria about having long careers with impactful, relevant work done throughout their whole career. People like Reiner Knizia, Richard Garfield, Eric Lang,, Vlaada Chvatil, Uwe Rosenberg for the board game space or Vincent Baker, Luke Crane, and John Harper in the TTRPG space. The smaller production requirements for analog games make it much easier for a designer to have control over the entire thing, which is just impossible in a large scale, multidisciplinary project like a big, ambitious videogame.

[@TimmacTR]

MGS fits that 2-20 years description.

[@sebapunk8098]

Yeah, I played msx mg2 last year and found it more intense and better even than the later 3d ones in some degree.

[@sergesolkatt]

HARDCORE

[@mannydamus]

Seligman's : 57:19

[@splendidbeaver2027]

11:38 today accelerationism

[@toffeethedev]

44:58 didnt age well lol

[@naikrovek]

Are you referring to "No Man's Sky"? That game is what was promised, now, and more, really. upon release it wasn't, sure.

[@zedc6072]

Neither did this comment evidently.

[@nexovec]

Imagine getting rekt by a game patch

[@ReubMann]

@@nexovec while I am glad that they succeeded in the end. i think its bad that they had to fail in one of the worst ways to understand where they went wrong.

[@toffeethedev]

I take this back, NMS rocks now

[@KilgoreTroutAsf]

Someone should tell Jonathan that there were already lots of electric and hybrid cars before Tesla. Nobody said it was not possible. What most investors and manufacturers said is that they were not willing to risk until improvements in technology/costs weren't there to make the price of the car competitive with gasoline. The cheapest Tesla, by the way STILL sells for 4x as much as the cheapest gasoline car and Tesla is STILL losing money every year.

[@james-s-smith]

Tesla has had positive net income since Q3 2019, so even when you posted this it was still wrong.

[@Andres-is3lj]

I think he may be bullshitting us. Gonna bet on a big conceptual game full of content and abstract synthesis, but no heart

[@nintendude794]

???

[@nintendude794]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/hICtdGloqZl9nKM