Ranking every game I designed

[@hedgehogsonic11]

Homer trying to decide if The Odyssey or The Illiad was better

[@anahibemol]

D`oh!

[@bask6588]

i was about to say the same thing​@@anahibemol

[@BillehBawb]

bitmoji party bonded me with multiple of my high school girlfriends. thank you for your service

[@Slymeball]

this is like finding your teacher in the middle of a walmart and as it turns out they're also just a regular person

[@Redish89000]

@@Slymeballhaha

[@temlem1]

Was not expecting to see you here

[@alteredishere]

@@Slymeballreal

[@AJcantwin]

Didn’t expect to see a rec room KZbinr’s sonic channel

[@some_antics]

Loved this video. I would love to see a sequel where you talk about all the games you designed that didn't see the light of day or that were just prototypes. Stuff like your early solo-dev prototypes or Tank Tactics from your time at Halfbrick.

[@lukemuscat]

Ha that would be a fun one to make! I wonder how much stuff I could dig up to show. Off the top of my head there would be at least 10 games ranging all the way from a board game about coffee to multiplayer tamagotchi, haha.

[@anderstaylor6694]

@@lukemuscat I second this idea! And if you can't find footage, I know I personally wouldn't mind if you did some MS paint style descriptive art just to give us an idea of game flow, etc.

[@lukemuscat]

@@anderstaylor6694 Oh thats a good idea for filling the gaps!

[@bigfin20]

I think the laid back less editing is fine. I think that the importance of snappy editing is definitely overrated

[@Sky_The_Dragon]

Luke, thank you so much for your incredible games. Jetpack Joyride kept me, my brother, and my father entertained for YEARS. It was probably our FAVORITE mobile game, and we had so many awesome times, beating each other's high scores, and arguing about the items in the game! One of my fondest memories was when I bought my dad the Barry Box skin for the Crazy Freaking Teleporter (We're big Doctor Who fans) and he was so happy. I can't thank you enough for being such an integral part of my childhood. I didn't know that you were the creator of Jetpack Joyride, but when I found this channel, I HAD to leave a comment. You are seriously so awesome and we can't thank you and the team enough. You are a LEGEND. Thank you so much ❤

[@89odev]

Fish Out of Water may not be very deep but to me, it represents such a golden age of mobile games... I absolutely adore the visual style of that game, glad you went with fish instead of rocks.

[@winkeywonkeygaming]

It used to be one of my favorite games

[@lukemuscat]

It's hard to not question all the decisions you make during development, so it's always nice to hear when people liked the ones you made :)

[@peytongorham8701]

I loved this game as a kid but it’s not available anymore

[@bartham9285]

fish out of water was actually the fucking greatest game, i remember me and my sister taking turns trying to out do eachother, different strategies, the gemstones, i'm so upset i can't play it on my phone anymore. i need to find a place to pirate it! EDIT: C??? A!!! it is elegant and fun :D EDIT EDIT: ITS ON GOOGLE PLAY HOLY FUCK MY CHILDHOOD!!!! THANK YOU LUKE!!!

[@lukemuscat]

Hahaha, sorry! My perspective is going to be warped by my experience making it and also what I hoped/dreamed the game may eventually become. I'm so glad to hear that it resonated with other people though, it makes me genuinely happy to hear :D

[@ahmadjamous1122]

I remember when it came out it was a banger. Is there a way to download it on the App Store?

[@wj11jam78]

It sounds like Snapchat hit gold with your team honestly. You understand casual mobile games, but have a true passion for game development.

[@gonnsolo8506]

There's a game called Data Wing for mobile that seems to be kind of like the Rocket Racing games. I haven't played RR but Data Wing is one of my favourite games of all time for android, it even manages to tell a touching story.

[@lukemuscat]

The whole Rocket Racing team is listed in the credits of Data Wing under Special Thanks - Inspiration

[@gonnsolo8506]

@lukemuscat damn I'm glad. It was an extremely fun game, glad I can play it on the go. Have you played it? Did you like it?

[@lukemuscat]

@@gonnsolo8506 Yeah it is great! It really solved a lot of the problems that Rocket Racing had, and packaged it in a way more compelling way. Dan (who is a friend) did a great job.

[@pasmoluiso]

I had been thinking about that since Luke first mentioned that he made Rocket Racing, and I was wondering if it was plagiarism or not. I'm glad the credits are complete. I really liked it when I played it a few years ago, maybe I'll play it again.

[@NedInYaHead]

​@@lukemuscatI know suggesting a THIRD Rocket Racing after what you described in the video must seem a bit ludicrous, but seeing that footage with that art style makes me realise how much I want to play an arcade party racer with the controls of Data Wing/RR. Add a few more obstacles, some powerups, and maybe a round-based upgrades system a bit like the game Rounds (catch-up mechanics on the tracks like mario Kart doesn't seem to make sense on such small, high-competition maps), and you've got something that could probably break free of the series' curse, especially in the modern, indie friendly market with more promotional power.

[@wipeoutjack209]

Enjoyed this a lot!! It’s genuinely interesting to hear about the work you’ve put in and all the projects you had a part of! Would love to watch more, maybe on specific challenges/glitches/etc. that you’ve encountered in your work over the years.

[@lukemuscat]

I could pretty neatly summarise that video as "developing multiplayer games causes pain", haha.

[@thatoneskinnykid]

My favorite is probably Jetpack Joyride, mainly because that's the main one I played growing up.

[@macksnotcool]

34:25 It's in both Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros. for the DS

[@ysfchn]

Land Sliders was one of the games that made me addicted to it (not counting FN and JJ since they are already well perceived), since I was finding it rewarding to collect all collectibles & characters etc, and it makes you wonder about what the next stage will be. It is really awesome to coming across a video of a man behind it! It is though saddening to see the game got taken down, but still, thanks for having me good moments back in the day.

[@epicgeometro]

Question: what do you think about Jetpack Joyride 2? Do ypu think the more level-based approach fits the game? What would you have done had you decided to stay at Halfbrick and make the sequel yourself?

[@lukemuscat]

Good question! I honestly havent played a huge amount of JJ2 so I'm not sure I have a very informed perspective. But my rough first impressions were that the level based structure means your goals are always pretty prescribed. One of the things I loved in JJ1 was there were all these overlapping objectives that you could focus on whenever you wanted (e.g. save up for stuff, beat challenges, beat your highscore), meaning it was open and you could kind of decide HOW you wanted to play at any given time. I also personally think that adding health meant the game was a bit more flat. Having health reduces frustration for sure, but also means it's a bit less "spiky", which I personally think is a good thing. It means when you have close calls or a really good run, its more meaningful. I actually DID try making a "level based" JJ semi-sequel however... the bones of which you can see in Jetpack Joyride Test Labs (which is what my version was called as well). The big difference was that my teams version of the game was async-multiplayer. You would set challenges for your friends using cards like a deck builder. When you beat friends challenges you got new card packs etc etc.

[@GuyEinhoren]

I REALLY loved Land Sliders back when it came out. It’s fun to see someone actually talking about it, let alone it’s creator

[@snekhuman]

Crash Club reminds me of another game I used the play the shit out of called Crash of Cars. iirc it came out around the same time, and had a very similar premise. I believe it was also real multiplayer, as I never remember “figuring out” how the enemies worked. It also had a feature that let you host games and invite friends privately.

[@lukemuscat]

Crash of Cars came out the week before us! It was actually a fellow Australian developer as well, and we apparently both had basically the same idea at the same time! When they released we were freaking out because we felt like our "no one has really done this before" idea had just been scooped. The Crash of Cars team (NotDoppler) are great and we have laughed about it together since then :)

[@VanillaSpooks]

Didn’t realize this video was 40 minutes long, it felt like 10 xD. Love hearing your stories of developing games! I bought Feed the Deep on steam, I haven’t really played it much (I’ve got a bunch of games I want to play through) however, I recently got an ROG Ally on sale (portable pc like steamdeck) Feed the Deep seems like a perfect fit for when I have 20-30 minutes of waiting. Best of luck, can tell you’re a bit burnt out on development, take your time as you need. You’re incredibly talented, the only 2d games I’ve ever enjoyed were led by you!

[@nalujuk]

nice video, i enjoy seeing behind the curtain style videos like this where we get to see the thought process behind decisions or deciding factors that went into the game

[@HalfDrankOJ]

Great video! Even though I still like Jetpack Joyride today and played a bunch of Fruit Ninja back in the day, I genuinely think that I enjoy Feed the Deep the most out of the other games you've lead development on. Bonus points for it being the game you made on your own!

[@Wapcvm]

10:00 I think I remember coming across a mobile game in the mid 2010s inspired by Rocket Racing, where it has a mechanic where you go faster if you jet off of a wall? It had Vaporwave or Matrix style graphics and music. It was short and you were like a little pointer and it had a story. Played it back when Apple gave out free paid games. I don't remember...

[@turquoise7817]

it's been mentioned just above you, but i'm pretty sure you're thinking of Data Wing!

[@seedlesspizza3877]

This guy designed my teen years

[@Quertyuiopable]

Thanks for making this! It was fascinating to hear about everything you achieved and what went wrong! Honestly your work at Halfbrick was one of my inspirations as a student game dev many years ago, especially seeing such a successful designer from my home town. I've been in the thick of it for 10 years now and still loving it. I love the format though and this is similar to how I like talking about my experience in the industry too. If you ever want to start a podcast I would love to pick your brains 🤣

[@cjgj]

I absolutely agree that Jetpack Joyride is S++ tier. Fruit Ninja was incredible novel and fun for quite awhile, but JJ was the one that I kept coming back to. And the coin doubler absolutely wins my personal all-time value award for IAPs, that was a dollar well spent :)

[@simonnordon8421]

Feed the Deep was an amazing example of a solo developed game, you should be very proud.

[@tritonis54]

The fish game occupied me during multiple driving theory tests, thanks for it !

[@Sebboebbo]

Da gamedev king is back baby he neva miss we're eating good today y'all

[@FanStudioCoUk]

A truly inspiring game dev journey, Luke! Thanks so much for sharing it with us! ❤

[@gonzalolo]

great video mate, plz do more detailed videos about your other games, cheers !

[@pelaajacreeper]

I LOVED LANDSLIDERS!!!! Please bring it back, I am begging you!!!!

[@theak56]

I'm really interested in why you say that game design documents are a waste of time! Is it because games change so much over the development cycle?

[@zazka2241]

I'm wondering this too. Never heard any dev say that before :O

[@anderstaylor6694]

Loved this format!

[@mitchell9687]

Great video, excited to see what you work on next

[@kierangainer]

Dude you made Bitmoji Tennis? I mean the aquistion as a whole is very cool but Bitmoji Tennis?? My friends and I used to duke it out all the time, it's an A/S for sure. I would kill for someone to remake it as a standalone, bitmojis don't have to come too haha

[@lukemuscat]

Ah thats awesome, I am so glad you enjoyed it! It definitely is one that doesn't look that good on paper, but was a total blast to play. Better than the sum of its parts.

[@Metiskt]

There's a ftp mobile game called Tennis Clash that doesn't have the gyro control but is otherwise very similar.

[@cindella204]

Really enjoyed this one! I’m always curious about the processes behind making these very different styles of games.

[@avtv6438]

I actually played Marvel Super Hero Squad back in the day on my DS, I don't remember it being that terrible but still I was very little at the time lol. Love your work on Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja, the last one also being pretty good to recreate as an exercise in game dev, I actually tried remaking it in a flash style engine and it was pretty fun to do 😂. Good luck on your future projects!

[@1qqa1sddlpfds]

You forgot to add our childhood ❤

[@Himersos]

You are a very talented man. Good job on building your career, Luke! ❤

[@Milark]

Easily one of the most legendary mobile game designers

[@jasonyu2845]

Crash club is actually the sickest! I remember playing the game and it was so fun!

[@29988122]

Hey really happy to see your histories on making games. You really deserved all the praise from the games you made. One fun(?) fact: I live in Taiwan, and my univ once invited Halfbrick's CEO to our school to introduce Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride and sorts. This is really uncommon, because my univ is like some random local univ - there's usually 0 interesting and famous ppl who'll want to do presentation here. I remembered that I was so excited, and asked a lot of game design related questions at the time. He did not answer them - at least not in a great detail. I couldn't see the passion within him - at least that's what I remembered. All I saw was the growth of halfbrick as a company in the slides, nothing related to game design. Now we all know why : ) The company really owes you a lot Luke! Wish you a success on Feed the Deep. It's very fasicnating to see the progression and design changes on this game during the years! Thanks for sharing the insights!

[@cocoasprinklez]

fish out of water was designed by you?? god damn i loved that game as a kid

[@Cats-TM]

Seems your best games tend to be like Tetris. Just something simple done _really_ well.

[@SnoFitzroy]

Me opening this video: "This should be quick, there's only like five of them, right?" > first frame shows over a dozen games Oh, I'm about to find some new favorites!

[@joelpetersmedia]

When I played Feed the Deep the biggest thing that drew me in and made me interested in fully beating it front to back was the lore. I love the aura of mystery and all the clues from the journal entries. I'm curious-at what point did you decide that adding narrative was going to be a big part of the game and how did that all come together in your head? Also, do you think you'll add narrative in a similar fashion to the next game you'll make as well?

[@lukemuscat]

I'm so glad the lore was so interesting for you! Originally the game had absolutely zero lore or explanation. During playtesting, I got a lot of comments basically to the effect of "but why, what the hell is going on?". Narrative is a huge weakness of mine, so I contracted a writer to help me flesh out the idea. Originally it was just going to be really small, just enough for people to be satisfied that there is an explanation and a reason everything is happening. But we had so much fun coming up with the world and these experiences that people may have in it that it just kinda grew organically on its own and turned into something much larger than I had originally planned. It was so much fun to develop the narrative, that I would definitely like to do more!

[@rigatoniryan]

i love rocket racing on the psp!!

[@critarc]

every comment is gonna be about fruit ninja and jetpack joyride but finding out you designed crash club and the bitmoji games was so crazy i played so much crash club... bitmoji party was kind of insane for the time but would turn phones into toasters lol

[@lukemuscat]

Oh I totally forgot about the heat issues with Bitmoji Party! I remember that coming up especially for us in the Australian Summer, haha. And glad you enjoyed Crash Club, it's one that holds a special place in my heart :)

[@speed_bump5]

Jetpack Joyride is peak. Many hours of boredom were cured. Phenomenal game design

[@santiagomc5851]

I reaaly like your tierlist aproximates a normal distribution

[@RealTal.]

I think you should definitely explore the youtube side of things more. With 166k subs you have massive untapped potential. Just as a starting point, I think you would be great as one of the devs on the "6 devs make a game without communicating" series that blackthornpod does.

[@mistymysticsailboat]

the ironic thing about land sliders was that there was an option to change the sliding direction to be reversed...which RUINED THE ENTIRE GIMMICK OF THE GAME because you were back to just moving the character. Still a great game

[@lukemuscat]

Yeah, we added that super late because so many playtesters struggled with the controls and demanded a reverse mode! I agree though, it totally messes with the concept of the game.

[@dinofrog926]

I love these behind the scenes looks of what is actually going on during development of games! What advice would you give someone who would like to start developing indie games? Were do you start?

[@lukemuscat]

My advice to people is usually just start making lots and lots of small games. A mistake often see beginners make is they work on one huge project, thinking it will be more impressive on a portfolio. But making lots of small projects means you get to learn and improve faster! Game Jams and the like are great for this. Your first few games will not be amazing, so you may as well get them out of the way as fast as possible.

[@stellanovaluna]

I know you said in the video that you think Jetpack Joyride is the best game you have or ever will design, but actually, I disagree. Jetpack Joyride is certainly a REALLY good game. However, I actually enjoyed Feed the Deep more and I think it deserves S tier. The idea of exploring a dark, dangerous underwater environment filled with terrifying and deadly monsters has captured my heart since I played Subnautica for the first time. Plus, it feels less unfair in its design, and I only ever got trapped in an unwinnable situation because of my own stupidity, rather than the game just trapping me with lasers Actually, that was something interesting I noticed in some of your devlogs that I respectfully disagree with. Occasionally you say that you want to give the player something other than themself to blame, or else they’ll get frustrated, but I’ve actually seen and experienced the opposite myself. Whenever I play a game that’s entirely skill based, (for example, Celeste,) where any mistake is my own fault and not the game’s, I don’t get frustrated. The same goes for Ultrakill, or really well-designed Mario Maker kaizo levels (with no trolls in them). It doesn’t really matter how difficult a game is for me, if every death is my own fault, I won’t get frustrated. As my evidence for this, look no further than my over 800 deaths on Minos Prime. I beat him in the end, and only got frustrated around the 400th death. The same is true with most of my friends and siblings, and some KZbinrs I’ve watched. For example, one guy named Foekoe mentioned in a video where he brought up Ultrakill that every mistake feels like his own fault and not the game’s, and therefore he feels less frustrated. On the flip side, whenever I play a game and it just kills me for something that’s not my fault, or if it has bad controls, or if it traps me in an unwinnable situation because of poor design, it frustrates me to no end, and I ragequit instead of continuing. (Jetpack Joyride is, of course, the one exception to this, because it’s so well-designed that it barely even matters to me that the game just put me in an unwinnable situation and I have fun anyway. However, this is the only exception for me.) An example of me getting frustrated due to something that isn’t my fault is in the infamous game Sonic ‘06, where, in several bossfights, the game will just randomly crash or you’ll be stunlocked in a collision crevice with no escape. And as evidence that I wouldn’t have gotten frustrated if I’d only died by my own hands, I beat Sonic Generations and had a lot of fun with it, despite it also being a 3D Sonic game. The difference was that I usually only died when I made a mistake So far I’ve only brought up universally agreed upon good or bad games, so now I’m gonna bring up a game that is good but I sometimes find frustrating because it feels like the “mistakes” I make are not my fault: Detroit: Become Human. Now, I love this game to death, and Connor is my pookie bear, but sometimes you’ll make a choice like “intercede or give up” where “give up” sounds like a wrong choice because of it’s negative connotation. However, when you intercede, Connor gets shot and dies, just like that. Some may argue that this doesn’t count because he just comes back to life and stuff, but this poorly framed decision has negative consequences. Connor may be my pookie bear, but Hank is also my pookie bear and I want them to have a good relationship. However, Connor dying and resurrecting immediately downgrades your relationship with him and then you have to regain those lost points. There are dozens other examples in this game that are far more egregious than this, but I wanted to choose one that isn’t particularly spoiler-y because I think everyone should play Detroit: Become Human because its really good. It’s just flaws like this that really annoy me and make me come close to ragequitting Anyways yeah this is not to tear down your philosophy or anything, this is just something interesting I noticed and then rambled about like an old man because im autistic. Plus, I think it’s good to talk about and politely debate these topics so we can either come to a mutual agreement that betters the both of us or makes each of us better understand each other so we can better know when to use these game dev techniques and when not to so we ultimately make better games for the consumer and improve quality of life for our players! I know the both of us only want to make the best and most fun games possible for people to enjoy and have a good experience. Sorry for the wall of text, and feel free to completely ignore my advice because you clearly have game dev talent regardless and make really good and fun games! Happy holidays :3

[@anonymouscrouton7726]

my lord i was not ready for this when i pressed "read more"

[@BlazevicJosip]

@@anonymouscrouton7726 Me neither, but you gotta respect them for taking the time and writing all that

[@lukemuscat]

Thanks for taking time to write it all up! It's always super interesting to hear others experiences, and I believe there is no right or wrong answer here. For a lot of people, any randomness or unfairness has the opposite effect and frustrates them. A lot of the time it comes down to both the context and the person themselves. I remember being strongly influenced by Daniel Cook's article on different players responses to competitive games: lostgarden.com/2009/11/04/testosterone-and-competitive-play/comment-page-1/ I strongly associate with the "pro-social" player archetype here and find winning among friends stressful! So for me, having elements of luck reduces the stress of the situation quite a lot. And of course plenty of my friends have the opposite reaction and find the randomness means the end result feels meaningless to them. Of course its different when its a single player game, but I think it still goes to show that we all have really different reactions to the fairness of games!

[@stellanovaluna]

@lukemuscat OOH AN ARTICLE!! Im totally reading that, thank you so much! Honestly, if thats how you feel when designing video games, you should probably continue with it. One of my personal philosophies is that you shouldnt just make a game you think other people would enjoy, but rather, you should make games YOU yourself enjoy. If adding a bit of luck and randomness helps you to better enjoy a game, I say go for it, because if you don’t enjoy your own game, how is the player going to? Of course, once again, this is just a personal opinion, which is not my goal to force upon others, but rather present it to give people more worldviews to study and learn from and to come to their own conclusions

[@stellanovaluna]

@anonymouscrouton7726 I am a world class level 9 yapper

[@benjattkk]

honestly one of my favorite youtubers on the platform rn, you're just such a joy to watch and you can tell you love games and gamedev. thanks for being such an inspiration too anyways expose those Snapchat numbers 😈

[@lukemuscat]

Aw thanks! Snapchat may have released the numbers somewhere at some point, potentially in a press release or an earnings call maybe? In the edit I just realised that I have no idea where the numbers I had heard came from (or even how accurate they are), so I should probably just avoid saying anything :)

[@puppetponguin]

I played a mobile game called DATA WING which is mechanically identical to Rocket Racing, it was actually quite good, wish xbox servers were still up so I could get my hands on your version

[@darqed]

one of the first games I played was fruit out of water.. and maybe its nostalgia but I really enjoyed it and the calm of it id put it A tier (I replayed it like half a year ago)

[@SeaHorseOfYoutube]

Bruh Rocket Racing graphics don't suck 😭they're incredibly slick, especially the particle effects they're so good, reminds me a lot of the style in Patapon or Ex!t. Kinda wish it had art for the pilots, for relatability, marketing and worldbuilding.

[@lukemuscat]

Haha well thank you! I think I am biased because when we were working on it, we had an even more wild extreme look that went way harder on the negative space and neon colours, but we had to ease it back to make it more accessible. So for me I always think it looks a bit weak compared to the concepts we had!

[@JJ.747.gt.]

This man is the hero of games

[@simongruer525]

You know how I feel about Crash Club Luke! Instant S tier for me! I would love to visit the alternate universe where Prettygreat were never consumed by Snapchat, Crash Club would probably be bigger than Fortnite! 😎

[@chidam333]

❤️ wow man its surreal to hear about all of it. btw i hate yt premium because it thought that editor cut for disclaimer is an ad 😕

[@hazflat]

Imagine saying so casually "I made fruit ninja"

[@CharlesKudrow]

Didnt know obi wan was such an accomplished video game dev!

[@kcr8056]

been waiting for an upload

[@stray1239]

This guy is totally milking the Fruit Ninja/Jetpack Joyride thing and I love it.

[@hmzzz4621]

Considering he didn't profit that much from those games, I'd say it's good that he's getting his flowers

[@macksnotcool]

Or it's- you know- the biggest thing he's known for and you're picking that out of the video biggest that's what you know about him even though those two games have just as much attention as his other games in this video because his channel is about game designing

[@MaximumAxiom]

I like the style, I'd be more curious what you want to work on now, post feed the deep? Also I personally kind of like it better when you're less scripted.

[@lukemuscat]

Thanks for the feedback! Honestly I'm not really sure what I want to work on post Feed the Deep yet. I have a few game ideas, but I'm also torn by wanting to explore the KZbin side of things a little more. I think next year I might switch back to making the ~100hr playable prototypes and making videos about those, like when I first started the channel.

[@tommie03]

Please make a video on Bear vs art!!!

[@bordum2]

I liked this video a lot!

[@rohitpardhi3924]

NGL, making video game is not hard but making game is harrrddd...!

[@mikey1036]

I loved avatar into the inferno

[@chip8874]

amazing vid. I'm curious about your html comments. 1. were the performance issues on bitmoji party a function of mobile web graphics tech at the time? Or like a Conway's Law problem where you weren't integrated with the snap team well enough regardless of tech choices/requirements? 2. why can't the html5 games exist anymore? Sure it's not a single rom or swf, but there could be a single zip! ofc any heavily online game would need a lot of server work

[@lukemuscat]

From memory, I believe the whole Snapchat app was still loaded in the background while the games were running, which meant we just had less memory and resources available to us compared to a standalone app, which made things run a bit slower. The Bitmoji's themselves were also pretty high quality with lots of individual textures and a decently complex rig, which meant having 8 players run around on screen was costly. Not if you had the latest and greatest iPhone, but plenty of Snapchat users were on pretty old devices which made things extra challenging! I'm not sure if anyone ever tried to rip or save the html5 games, but they had a lot of server stuff they connected too so I wo uld imagine it just wouldn;t run unless someone was to invest a lot of time and energy!

[@fuseboxjackson2789]

Good stuff!

[@chrisoshea9093]

I did the arg and got the usb stick for Land Sliders in London 😊

[@lukemuscat]

I remember!!

[@MatteoAquila]

I really miss the prettyGreat era, loved all of thos games! Sad they are all offline now

[@willkaan9837]

I'm just happy that he didn't reveal he made temple run too

[@AshrZ]

24:06 you spelled architecture wrong LOL Editor Luke is silly

[@lukemuscat]

Ah crap, haha. Can we pretend that this was a calculated decision to optimise engagement?

[@AshrZ]

@@lukemuscat Oh of course, you got a comment from me because of it! (and a reply now too!)

[@Willio20000]

Find my friends reminds me more of that one game in wii play called find mii

[@hurrdurr7861]

You mentioned you've gotta make more games that actually come out, do you have many games or ideas you've been developing that haven't seen the light of day, and if so could you make a video about them? Thanks. edit: looks like someone already had the same idea in the comments lol, anyways I agree with that guy!

[@FBNL]

Missed your videos Luke, hope you are well :)

[@razboy2032]

You mentioned how because "they were HTML5 games, there is just no way for them to even exist anymore," but honestly, I think HTML games are *very* portable (provided you are somehow able to obtain some distribution of course). You mentioned they were running in an : if so, all you would need (besides backend server infrastructure) would be to plop it on a website, and it should theoretically just work on your phone! After all, it was just using web standards.

[@Tjthegamerking]

Wait you made Slide the Shakes??? God, I remember playing it a lot when I was younger; I didn’t know it had THAT many levels. Too bad it no longer seems to be on the App Store 😭

[@dinofrog926]

Wait, you created that smoothie slide game too!? Did you create all my childhood mobile games??

[@BenBevan66]

I am getting into game design and I am interested in the pitch design documents you showing. These included character art and screenshots from the games but what would these GDDs include before the game was made? Would they be early prototype images? Sketches? Or would these not be needed for the document until late in development?

[@lukemuscat]

For these projects, pretty much all of the images pre-development would be mock ups that the artist would help me with. An artist would be working on the visual style as well as working with a programmer to figure out what our visual budget would be (especially on the DS you had to plan things out very intentionally). And so even before the game had started we would have a pretty decent idea of what the game would look like. It was super time consuming to build these documents, often it would take a month or more. As we had to update and resubmit the document as time went on, it would slowly get replaced with actual screenshots when needed.

[@brunosales7973]

This is what I need

[@nicolasmosko7579]

I love fish out of water

[@rohit8953]

Will Land Sliders be back sometime on App Store? It is a prettygreat game (lol) and I would love to play it on my Phone or iPad

[@Pepeutra]

Why is everything that comes out of this man's mouth interesting?

[@andyknapp]

What are your thoughts on the Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja Board Games?

[@lukemuscat]

I've never actually played most of them! The main one I am familiar with was Fruit Ninja Slice Of Life, which I was developed while I was still at Halfbrick. I did not enjoy that one, even though I was tangentially involved in approving some of the assets, haha.

[@colinrowe2262]

[S] is for Slide the Shakes!!

[@MrBrian-mp9dz]

Hello I know you didn‘t create it but what do you think about Dan the Man?

[@pura8898]

Picking favorites, the video

[@watson483]

Are you going to put feed the deep on switch? I think it would definitely do well there

[@alurma]

cool video, thanks

[@arandomguythatdoesntpost]

theres a game on the playstore that is the exact same idea as rocket racer, i do not remember the name tho, the game had a story and leaderboards tho

[@whamikaze]

What do you think about Halfbrick+ and locking old games behind a subscription?

[@lukemuscat]

Hmmm good question. I'm happy that the games at least exist again, prior to Halfbrick+ they just were not available or playable at all. But I am personally not a huge fan of subscriptions and already feel like I have too many, haha.

[@whamikaze]

@@lukemuscat I liked how previously all you needed was an email to be able to play the games

[@VoresKanal]

Make a video where you rank scraped/failed games

[@lukemuscat]

Great idea!

[@abod_bios2]

30:07 is this from davici resolve TV break?

[@lukemuscat]

The visual is Resolve and the audio is actually a track from the Feed the Deep soundtrack that seemed like it fits nicely :)

[@Martin-delta]

The fact that several of the these games no longer are available is quite sad. 😞 No way of playing abandoned games of the 2010s..

[@lukemuscat]

Until Halfbrick started bringing back some of the old games, 10 of the 18 games were not available at all :( This was actually one of the reasons I wanted to go solo, I wanted to make sure I had total control in preserving the next games I make!

[@alangregoryvitek]

Fascinating hearing the behind the scenes on the Snapchat games and kudos shipping a 3D HTML5 game running in an on top of an app! I can’t even imagine just getting the interaction/gesture recognition to work consistently! Hats off Also, I really enjoyed fish out of water when it came out. I downloaded it again recently and it seems like a lot has changed, but you’re spot on with the cozy feel. I think that’s why I liked it originally. Also, the weather system was a really nice touch in it. And the water shaders/art design I thought worked really well.

[@softwarelivre2389]

What a balanced tier list. Does that mean next game will be S tier?

[@lukemuscat]

To keep the balance I assume it will either be S tier or D tier (:

[@StefanLopuszanski]

2:04 : You say game design documents are a waste of time. What do you advocate for instead?

[@lukemuscat]

I wrote this to another comment, but pasting it here for visibility :) Probably they make a lot of sense for large teams! For small teams though, I have always seen 2 main problems: 1) Just because you write them, doesn't mean people will read them. And the bigger they are, the harder it is for them to read or find updated areas of information. 2) When you update your design, the document needs to be updated as well. This means the cost to making changes and pivoting is higher, which means you are less likely to make changes! In the end I think that simply prototyping something or mocking it up, and then actively showing and discussing it with the team is a far more efficient use of time! Sometimes the way those things are explained is in a written format, but having it be a part of some big document that is supposed to somehow encompass every aspect of the games design is crazy to me. We always had to do it this way simply because thats what the publisher demanded from us.

[@StefanLopuszanski]

@@lukemuscat : Yeah, I generally agree. I do find that just writing things down and having a central spot with clear goals / objectives can be helpful in codifying things, but that's less like a traditional game design doc and more just like a "vision statement" type thing.

[@dedededamanam4919]

I don't know if this would have worked but if you are going to design a co op game that is reliant on people owning two copies maybe sell two copies in one box and have in the instructions a very prominent "How to play two player" because a ds game that isn't linked with nintendo ip or is a lego game is probably not going to be so big that their would be many times where people meet up with a person that also got a copy of that game.

[@lukemuscat]

Yeah totally agree. With this project we sadly had no control over decisions like that, and I think it was broadly over-estimated how many people would buy 2 copies of the game! There was actually this pretty janky little volleyball game included that was single-cart multiplayer, but there was no way to make the whole campaign work on a single cart for technical reasons that I'm struggling to remember haha.