Is The Indie Game Industry Broken? (w/ Jonathan Blow) — Ep 70

Many game devs are 55... no man, 36 is not old you cannot feel tired. 😆

Has Jonathan Blow ever responded to Joseph Anderson’s theory that the Secret of Psalm 46 puzzle in the Witness was literally created just to see how much bs he could get away with and still gain universal praise for a game? I’ve always wanted to know the answer to this because it really is hard to justify forcing the player to watch an hour-long video, in-game, just to solve one puzzle.

Really good interview! Always interesting to listen to Jonathan Blow

Scripting language 🤣🤣🤣

Isn’t Meccha Chameleon basically a prop hunt game?

A lot of deep experiences are lost when coop is added—games like Mecha Chameleon simply grant people the crude tools to hang with online friends the way red and blue flags and coloured clothing let kids play capture the flag.

A bigger discussion there might be that report comparison on how Roblox clones of Mecha Chameleon are collectively making way more money than the actual Mecha Chameleon itself.

52:00 maybe add square highlight under character? visual trick i guess

It seemed a bit arrogant to me.

Here's a HUGE reason why AAA is failing. AAA studios have too much management, marketing, pencil pusher overhead, and that's why they are failing. People at the top are getting paid way too much, where the pay should go more evenly across the whole thing. Also people at the top are making HORRIBLE decisions based on money, but not including themselves in that money problem. I worked for both Microsoft and Warner brothers, and hey look where WB is now. They paid their pencil pushers (non gamers) too much and thought it was good to cut corners in making fun and new ideas, reducing QA, squeezing the life out of their developers, cutting everything else that was actually doing the work, leaving them with no limbs and effectively eating their own tail.

I wouldnt describe meccha chameleon and among us as completely new genres when they have more marketable labels like "prop hunt but you paint yourself" or "werewolf but in space" which I think are more useful as inspiration for how to make your own unique ideas being "this thing but that"

"AAA is less good at making games"

Thank you for another excellent episode. It's a real pleasure to hear Jonathan Blow talk about all these subjects, he's such a legend.

Looks nice. Used to play this on python , look forward to it

his mouth movement is so efficient 😭

Loving the Jonathan Blow talks! So good every time

I thoroughly enjoyed the interview, thank you for that. Please do not show solutions to puzzles while the interview is happening.

Wasn't Meccha Chameleon inspired by the Garry's Mod game Prop Hunt?

15:30 - Simplicity works. Sometimes simplicity is best even

35:25 - I just wana make enough to fund the next game ='(

"edmund mcmilan is making games in flash"
Edmund uses flash for animations, yes, but the game engine is custom and they actually have their own implementation of flash in it. So its much cooler than just that

2 indie legends. im glad JBs game is doing well, i hope both their games sell well over 100k.

Thomas, play the freaking demo!

Why did Jonathan decide to go with the samey DOTA 2 Pixar PBR no texture granularity slop artstyle that I can't stand to see anymore? I'm sure the game is amazing, and I'm sure Jai is probably amazing, too, but I just can't stand to look at the same artstyle anymore. It's everywhere, and I just feel like World of Warcraft barfed all over everything then somebody added an actual lighting shader that barely gets to do its job. We need to bring back greebles and texture contrast and sharpness.

They never said what are the 4 games the Order of the Sinking Star is based on.

One of them is Sokoban, what are the other 3?

I was left craving for more once I finished the demo, that's a great sign.
I want to know how the story of those characters unfold and how the game design will subvert my expectations, cause I know there's gonna be some twist with that overworld size somehow😭

Buying it 100%

I'm glad to have the analog be improved. I played with my Xbox controller on the demo but I will be using my pro controller on the switch when the game comes out. The dpad felt good but analog is in a more comfortable position for my hand

I played the demo of this game and to be honest, it just plain sucks. I know there are a ton of people out there that think Blow can't do anything wrong, but this game isn't going to do well financially and will be seen historically as a failure.

With a puzzle game you have to ease and engage the player early on into your system and this game is just too hard right from the start. Who is going to play the first 15 minutes of the game and think, "I'm really looking forward to feeling stupid for the next several hours of playing this game."

The reality is that it will have it's niche amongst puzzle enthusiasts, but most gamers are going to pass on it in the end or regret their purchase.

Hi @thomasbrush, this is unrelated to video. This is simply to propose to make an interview with @cghow which is a gigantic helper in the unreal community

I just realized Jon sounds like Bear of Bear in the Big Blue House.

29:25 Lol, I will gladly take a developer position for $45,000 right now. Granted I'm just self taught at web dev.

Jon has worked so long on this game he actually developed a cell shaded outline on his head.

19:25 - I mean, there have been TONS of "prop hunt" games before mechacemeleon that have basically the same premise. Not sure I would classify this as a "never done before", or a "new genre". The painting yourself is new and cool though.

"Scripting language"... amazing

We will see AI "slop" games outperform indie titles within 1 year.

jai is the python killer

A gamer buys a linear game, plays it and then goes back to the online experience they like the most, gamers aged 12 to 18 have a lot of free time to complete 1 linear game each week. If your game has reached a particular threshold of quality and marketing gamers will eventually buy the game.

However, something that can harm you is the way you dislike friendslop, I recommend you to stop talking about that, at some point a famous friendslop creator could ask his audience to just review bomb your channel and start a massive campaign against you like they have done with other youtubers, because it feels like you are not only disliking the genre but also you think low of the people who play these games. And maybe people attacks you because "you should be doing friendslop", simply ignore with humility, they're envious, you have nothing to prove them. Pride is the worst sin

The whole "AAA vs Indie" debate is like splitting music into "classical music" and "pop music". Any serious music listener would laugh at this categorization.

yea sounds in game are cool

i wish i was still 36...

jonathan blow should stop botoxing at this stage dude. it is too much