Let's Talk Game Dev: With Goodgis

[@shavais33]

I used to hate looking at other people's game dev efforts, because it was just showing me how lacking my own work is and how unimaginably enormous the volume is, of games and people making games, and how infinitesimally tiny my teeny little part of it all is. In the past, seeing all that has just kind of made me want to throw in the towel. But then as I continued to sort of sample the indie dev waters from time to time, and gradually more frequently, I began to realize that.. yeah there are whole lot of games and game developers, but there are lot of people playing games, too, and they constantly consume new games. People want to know what's being created *now*, and they're interested in things that have been released recently. It's like the sci-fi/fantasy novel scene - There's this sort of bottomless pit of appetite out there for new material, even if it's pretty danged similar to the old material. Even if old ideas have fallen out of style, they can sometimes be resurrected and discover new fervor. So these days I'm finding myself watching game dev related content creators like Sasquatch B and Lost Relic, and instead of making me feel like tossing it in, it's actually helping me keep my head in the space and providing me with inspiration and hope. Instead avoiding this stuff to prevent me from quitting, I'm heading to it whenever I feel like quitting. I can't thank you enough for your persistent encouraging voice. I especially enjoy these interview videos. I remember in past efforts, that phase where I had the mechanics and most of the important systems and so on in place, and I had created the game world, and I was just filling things out more. Yes, that is definitely the part of a project with the least pain and the most fun, for sure. Being reminded of that makes me look forward to getting there with my current effort. As a result watching of this video, I started watching a playthrough of Hallow Knight. It's easy to see why it has been such a popular game. The quality of the artwork (graphics, animations, sound, music, text/lore, etc.) is certainly quite high, and that level of quality might be kind of hard to achieve for someone like myself... on the other hand, there are specific things you can kind of pick out about it, actually, that could be at least attempted, or something along similar lines could be attempted. The background has distance and parallax and is clearly visible; there's no.. large blank spaces, although there is this sort of mist that makes more distant things more sort of vague and fuzzy. There are some kind of strategic animations in the background that give it a sense of realism, or of sort of being alive. There's a light around the avatar that lights up the background and reveals the mist. The avatar's animations are ever present, but sort of sparse and.. not.. easily identifiably repetitive, so that the avatar kind of seems real-ish and alive. Like a cartoon character in an animated short or something. It's like the whole game itself is one big animated short. That is super cool, and it seems like it wouldn't be all to hard to at least attempt. I see that 12.5k subscriber number, now! Congratulations, and may your channel's subscriber count continue to rise. It's been a long, hard row for you, but that just makes you that much more of a hero for persisting through it. You deserve every ounce of success you get!

[@bior87]

I discovered (or the algorithm showed me) your channel 3 days ago and I am amazed by the quality of your content, you deserve way more subscribers

[@Rakadeja]

This interview was awesome to listen to. I appreciate both of you a lot for doing this!

[@GermanCoronel]

Me gustó mucho la entrevista, gran trabajo!

[@ArtofWEZ]

This guy is great, I was warned against making platformers but it was the best decision of my life, it;s helped in all parts of my life doing a genre I love.

[@yoko_bby]

Make the best damn platformer there is

[@gamedevjourney4231]

Thanks for this really cool and inspiring interview. I first thought: "Puh. More than 1,5h." But it was worth watching it till the end. It again gives me the motiviation to start my dream game I'm thinking about for 3 years now and I still haven't started yet. Please continue with this good content. Hope you find more subscribers soon to reach the 10k!

[@shavais33]

re: "At the end of the day, I'm making this game for myself." I could not agree more with that sentiment! I don't make games to make money, I make money to make games. I don't make games that I think others will want to play. I make games that I want to play. And, well, they are a form of artistic expression, and making a game is kind of a game in itself, it's a sort of crafting/puzzle solving pursuit. The code is part of the art. When I was about 15 years old I went through a suicidal period. There was a moment when I loaded a shotgun, turned the safety off, put the butt on the ground and put my forehead against on the end of the barrel, and put my thumb on the trigger. I slowly began to press down. I heard a click. It was just about to go off. I thought to myself, what if I blow my head off here, and then I find myself in spirit form, standing over my dead body? Still having all the same pain, still being stuck with all my whole load of perspectives and emotions.. but now I don't have any physical body. I can't interact with the world. I can't do anything at all. I can't even make and play video games! I can't even.. .. so I took my thumb off the trigger, and. Put the gun away. In a very real sense, video games, at least in part, saved my life. So game dev is not a way to make a living. It's a way to make life worth living.

[@PlayWithFurcifer]

Great interview! Very relatable

[@SharpDressedBear]

Amazing interview! Goodgis was full of gems. I can't wait for the next interview.

[@veosotano]

Mark is a perfect first interviewee

[@ChristianMarcellOliveira]

I have been watching some interviews about game-dev, this one was probably the best so far. And I totally agree with his vision about, go for what you want to do, but I also have the mindset that you mature your skills over time, so maybe on your 5th game, you gonna know enough about enough to just do better, and keep going from there. I would be fine doing 100 games that are really simple and "bad", if each iteraction I could make them better then the one before.

[@rubpty]

Wow, I loved this interview! Every minute of it was a gem. Superbly inspiring content and great questions!

[@owdoogames]

Brilliant discussion, with two great indie game devs, that is criminally under-watched.

[@KHodow]

Very good talk! Inspires me as a game dev and small youtuber! Definitely taking notes!

[@xderpassassinx7779]

2 of the best in the game come together! Gotta love it :D

[@camlampam]

i tried game development 3 main times, each time i quit cause i wasn't motivated, but after watching this i found a way to stay motivated to keep going

[@gatheringwolves]

Gotta take a break when you get burned out, for your mental health.

[@Bryanox7]

it dont take motivation it takes discipline

[@CouchJumperGames]

This is my new favorite podcast!

[@Zyjin]

Definitely enjoyed this, interesting to hear from Goodgis, one of my favorite fellow Godot bros :)

[@sealsharp]

Great podcast, bois! Watched it all, took a few notes. The part about game hooks is encouraging. The topic still gives me a hard time, because everyone is telling you to create a unique gameplayhook and that it is required for a game to get recognized. Actually, i want my first person shooter to be a rock solid quakelike, no gimmicks. During next fest i played a lot of fps games and it seems like parcour movement and grapple hook ( ah-ah-ahhh it's a hook ) seem to be everyone's ...hook. It didn't...you know...hook me. It was rather bland, especially if the rest does not synergize with those mechanics. Like my grandpa said: When you kill someone, make sure they're dead. No, wait, it was something about if you do it, do it right. Feedback is another interesting topic in general. Valuable feedback is "what did or did not work for you?" imo. Not "what would you do different?". Obviously "what didn't work for your?" is hard to answer without having played it. So feedback on games based on screenshots and videos has it's limits. One thing people told me as a kid was "if you criticize something, you need to bring a better idea" and that is so bullshit imo, because it makes the issue about someone elses ideas and it's not like you have to have ideas to give feedback, just tell me if it works, and what didn't work. It's the whole "you don't need to be a chef to know if it tastes good". Finding solutions is the designers job. I work with a JRPG-crew and there's a lot of "do this, do that" in the test-protocolls we get. Especially in the past from people who were developing the same type of game. And usually, i would recommend to view that feedback through the lense of the designers intent. Not a native speaker so i hope that's not to gibberish.

[@avionblacksmithwannabe]

Very interesting podcast! It was a pleasure to listen to this conversation! It kinda reminds me of the power of charisma. Sadly I am not a charming game dev. Creating a devlog and sharing game development experiences is not an ideal thing if one is an older person. If I would do such devlogs and videos then people would hate on me. I am not an artist and not a charming person either. If I would be like 16 years old then I could get away with it. But in my 30's I'm just gonna get despised I'm afraid. Here in Hungary people love hating each other, especially if one is not a pro. And also, if the people would like what I do, then they would just steal it, and if they don't like what I do, then they would just look down on me.

[@michaelofstjoseph]

Goodgis sounds like a great guy.

[@queue_free]

Damn you’re such a good interviewer wth

[@madmanga64]

Awesome collab!

[@RockyMulletGamedev]

Great talk !

[@Pinkman3000]

Sick interview 😎

[@shinkouhai919]

40:52 people asking so what's your game? and then they played it said like damn it's so good, it might be better than zelda me = ...omg, you are so nice, thank you for giving me 3 seconds of dream, where it just suddently rejected by my left brain which always reminds me of reality... and you know what funnier? this kid never played zelda before ^V^).... yeah he was nice...

[@NuraxInteractive]

Very interesting interview!

[@Bearmaser]

How about interviewing Lana Lux, Trent Kaniuga, and BrandonJamesGreer?

[@bananapeelonhead]

very inspiring!

[@dekingking315]

you should try and get miziziz or garbaj for an interview

[@KoltPenny]

Me like interview. More.

[@BigDaddyGameDev]

Trigger warning at 48:33 (in the game footage) !!!

[@Coco-gg5vp]

First