Talking To Code Monkey About Game Dev

Matthew Gambell: If you've ever learned Unity on YouTube, there's a good chance today's guest helped you along the way. Codebonkey is one of the biggest Unity educators on the platform, with hundreds of tutorials and courses that have helped countless developers get started. Alongside all of that, he's also released a whole range of commercial games on Steam, which makes him the perfect person to talk to about the balancing act between creating games and creating content. I'm sure you'll learn a thing or two in today's episode as we discuss how Hugo got started making games in Flash, before eventually learning Unity and releasing games on Steam. including porting one of his Flash games to C Sharp, which became one of his earliest successes. Of course, we also talk about his journey into YouTube and how he became one of the most trusted educators for beginner unity developers. We also discuss our different approaches to making small games versus more ambitious projects, and the economic realities that come with each. And as both educators on YouTube, we explore the constant balancing act between spending months building games or consistently releasing educational content, because with limited time and attention, focusing on one often comes at the expense of the other. Hugo is one of my favourite people to talk to about these kind of topics because he has such a logical and thoughtful approach to game development. He's incredibly insightful when it comes to setting realistic goals, especially if your main aim is to make games for a living as an independent developer. So let's go ahead and get started talking to Codemonkey about game dev. Yeah, so ⁓ I guess we can just jump into talking about like you getting started in this space. your first game was in twenty thirteen, right? That was my first Steam game. Yeah. But okay. I mean, technically, well, I guess it depends on what you consider a game. Technically, when I started programming, I started programming when I was like 10 years old. So yeah, that was many years ago. And of course when I started programming, I immediately thought, hey, why don't I try making some games? So yeah, I started programming was by writing IRC scripts, which most people nowadays don't even know what it is. But yeah, basically just just text based stuff. So yeah, basically making some very simple trivi games, hangman games, all just with text. So yeah, back then I started doing that. But when I started making some more proper things, some things that we you would actually call games was more when I found Flash, which was in 2008. And yeah, then made a ton of Flash games for like five years. I mean like 40 flash games, that was a ton. That was a a really great learning experience for me. Yeah, it was a very ⁓ because flash games back then they were based on like prototypes. So every week I was trying out a brand new idea. So when it comes to learning, that helped me out quite a lot. So I learned a lot on that. And yeah, then in 2013, that's when I first discovered Unity. And I decided, okay, I want to make a Steam game. So yeah, start learning about Unity, start making Steam games, and then start making some more proper PC games. But so yeah, it's actually been Quite a long time. mean, it's always crazy when I think to myself, ⁓ wow, I've been doing this with Unity for like twelve, thirteen years and in general for like twenty years. ⁓ time flies quite a bit. So your first your first few were in Unity, but it looked like I mean your art was from Flash, then I'm gonna guess that you were using Flash as your like vector art package? sort of. I don't remember if I was like using directly from Flash, but yeah, basically ⁓ I I think I think maybe I wasn't just because back then Unity did not support SVGs, no vector art at all. So I'm pretty sure what I was doing was like drawing it in flash, then taking a picture, putting up on Photoshop and just making it Sprite. So yeah. That's why some of my games, yeah, they do have very much that specific style. Yeah, 'cause I was gonna ask you about ⁓ your like DX Tyc DX Tycoon. Is that ⁓ that was it? Game Corp DX, yeah. Game Corp DX, that's it, yes. ⁓ that's very like a flash game. To me. ⁓ yeah, I mean that was that was literally a flash game. Right supported it. The first version was just called Game Corp. And I launched it in like twenty eleven, I think. And then when I went on to Steam, I figured okay, it would be a nice, fun project, basically try remaking this and so that it doesn't have all the limitations of flash, so that it's actually sixty FPS, full resolution, so on. I thought that was fun. So yeah, I I made that basically that remake because of course it had to be completely redone. ⁓ yeah, action script to C Shop, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I had to literally convert everything. But yeah, it was a very nice ⁓ very nice project because back then I was able to focus just on the technical side as opposed to like the game design. I mean the game design was already done. I basically just used the exact same thing on the flash game. So it was a really great experience for learning more about Unity because yeah design is done. Let's just convert this step by step. And the final result was actually quite nice. It's still one of my I think it is my most successful game of all time. So yeah, that actually went out quite nicely. People enjoyed it. So yeah, that was an a very interesting project. So, and you've you've spoken about this. You you then made a sequel to your first game like your first Steam game after that, which you said didn't do too well. But my question for you then is like especially given the you know, as we know that that ⁓ the genre of of like Game Corp is you know is still doing well. So ⁓ yeah. Is there a sequel on the horizon for that game? Like have you ever considered that? ⁓ I don't know. I mean never say never, but I don't know. Honestly, i if I if I had time to like make a sequent one of my games, I think I would make a sequel to like Survivor Squad, like make a Survivor Squad 3, just because even nowadays, I still really enjoy the core mechanic of that game. It's all about like line of sight, you can only see in front of you, so you have to position your units very carefully. I still really think that mechanic is really nice. And of course that first game is quite janky. I mean the reviews are mixed and rightfully so. Definitely 'twas my first attempt at doing something, so quite a lot of things were unpolished, very janky. So with the skills that I have nowadays, it would definitely be interesting trying to make a sequel to that. So trying to really give that interesting mechanic a very proper game. So yeah, if I if I had time, I w I would love to do that. Yeah. That also then leads me into because your your channel is very programming focused. You know, you are the code monkey. Yeah. ⁓ but my my question to you is are you a designer who makes games or are you a programmer who designs games? Because I'm a designer who programs games, you know? Yeah. whereas I, you know, I consider programming the tool that lets me do my job. But my thing I love is is the game ideas and design and just really thinking about and I mean tooling as well. Like I I consider myself a tools designer at the same time to make that process easier. I'm just curious, like, where in that Where on the fence you sit? You know? ⁓ for me, 100% programmer. I mean, I definitely would not consider myself a good game designer. I mean, the design is definitely the weakest part of my games. I really just enjoy building systems. That's mostly it. Which is why my games are very much strategy focused, management focused, things that are very much heavy on the programming side, because yeah, that is definitely the part that I enjoy. I mean ⁓ trying to design systems, trying to design ⁓ compelling things for the player to do to encourage them to work in a certain way. Yeah, that is now really the the thing that I most enjoy. So for me, the more code heavy it is, the better it is. But at the same time, I do enjoy ⁓ I enjoy the combination of code plus visual things. So I don't think I would necessarily enjoy too much like just I don't know like software development where it's just 100% code, no visuals, nothing at all. I think that would be way too much. So even though I'm very much a programmer ⁓ mainly I I still do enjoy combining the programming side with something kind of visual. But yeah, definitely focus quite a lot more heavily on the programming side. Do you do you think about that from a programming standpoint first and and how easy a game might a game idea might be to program? Or do you think about the design as the you know, what to you, what is the the North Star for your game ideas, I guess? Because because They can go either way, right? Right. Yeah. I think for me it always starts with more gameplay. That's always been my thing. Even as a game player, I always value ⁓ gameplay a lot more than just like visual, style, narrative. Those are always nice things, but for me, usually gameplay comes first. So for that when I think about a game, usually starts by thinking, okay, what would be an interesting mechanic, what would be an interesting interaction that I can make in a game, something that is interactive. That's the whole point of game. So yeah, usually it starts with that. Then try to think, okay, how can I ⁓ what design can I apply to this kind of thing? So yeah, on on that one I basically thought, okay, it's really cool to move like units around. I really enjoyed like RTS games. That was always something that I really enjoyed. So I figured, okay, I want to start with that with the mechanics of controlling multiple units. Now what can I do more with this? Then I figured, okay, what about a nice line of sight mechanic? Okay, that sounds cool. And then I had to think, okay, how do I what is the visual theme on top of this? Then I started thinking making a SWAT game. Okay, that was a bit too complex, a bit too much AI. Then I figured, okay, why not a zombie game? Those have like easier AI, something that I can build. And yeah, basically it goes from that. But it all definitely starts very much more mechanics focused, programming, that sort of thing. And only then basically try to figure out the design to basically as an excuse to make the that programming side actually come to life. Mm-hmm. Okay, so you've you're thinking scope first and then you scope down based on the concept of what you think is going to be the easiest to implement. Yeah, yeah, basically. I mean or most interesting to implement. Yeah, most interesting, but yeah, definitely ⁓ especially at that time, like ⁓ ten years ago when I was making that game, where I was definitely not as skilled as I am nowadays. So yeah, there were quite a lot of things that I would have loved to do, but I was unable to do. So it was also about trying to analyze my own skills, where I currently stand, and trying to figure out what are some ideas that I can do, what are things that I can't do, and yeah, basically trying to figure out the did you did you spend time sort of always trying to reach a little bit further? than you can do to learn new things while you're on that project, or did that just sort of happen naturally, would you say? I don't know, that's a good question. I think it's more naturally. So I don't necessarily I always try to think, okay, what would be interesting here? And then I try to build it. And yeah, only a handful of times do I try to build it and all of a sudden I can't. Most times if if it's something even like ten years ago, when again I was less skilled, when I was trying to do something and I couldn't do it, I would always like sort of try to find a different route to sort of achieve ⁓ a similar thing. So maybe not the same thing, but sort of similar. So yeah, I guess I naturally always try to push myself to the limit, I never have to quite focus on that because I have plenty of ideas, plenty of things that I want to do. So I always think, ⁓ add this, add this, this, until eventually the thing that I want to add is kind of pushing beyond my edge of knowledge. And then I have to learn a little bit more. So yeah, I guess that's always been natural. And would you cut things either because you couldn't quite achieve it or would you scale stuff down? Like from a just you I from the pro cause from the programming standpoint, you could just keep going forever, right? ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. So I guess I'm trying to I guess I'm trying to touch on I'm trying to touch on where your design ethos comes in as you say, you know, you're focusing on systems and mechanics first. Because if you it's it's super easy to just continually try to build mechanical mechanical mechanics, but that becomes this just like nightmare or a borus that eats itself, right? So I guess the question is like, at what point for you do you say, okay, that's enough, or I've gone too far, I need to remove some things. Now is that is that like a playeth like a a game feel thing for you or or is there a sort of hard rule that you kind of like to live by? In that specific game, there was a very so like the the game isn't like a with zombies. So like start with a bunch of survivors and there are a bunch of zombies coming and you have to survive. But it did not start that way. It actually started with some my original idea ended up being way too ambitious for my current skill set. And that is why I had to actually change it. Because initially my idea was actually to make a SWAT game. Because I always enjoy the SWAT PC games, those are always so cool. Like doing breaching some kind of door, then going inside, throwing a flashbang. Always love that. I love those games. So my idea was why don't I make like a top-down to D SWAT game? That was my idea. And that is how I started. And as as soon as I started trying to do like that complex AI to like have a bunch of a bunch of units all loading up to the door, then one of them opens the door, another one throws a flashbang, another one goes inside. All of that was very complex AI that at the time I was just not capable of doing. So I I tried doing that. I tried doing exactly the idea that I had in my head for, I don't know, a few weeks, maybe a few months, until I realized, okay, I'm suddenly I'm just not as skilled to be able to build the idea that I have in my head. So I have to switch something. I still really like the top down controlling the unit sort of thing. So how can I sort of minimize the scope to something that would be achievable by me? And that's when I figured out okay, whatnot, why not zombies? I mean, zombies they have very easy AI. So if AI is my big problem, if I just make zombies, they just move towards you. Then the the soldiers, they ⁓ just stand still, aim here, aim here. So yeah, that became quite a bit easier. So that is a very practical example of how I I thought of an idea that was way beyond my skill set, and then eventually had to scale it back down little by little until I figured out something that I was actually able to build. That's that's awesome. I think that, yeah, that's I think that's such a good example. ⁓ how about in your more recent work though? Like ⁓ you know, because I think you look at something like Dinky Guardians, and Y it's it's I think bigger in scope, I would say. But but you know, that game again probably could have ballooned had you I think you know, you you did you did devlog about this a little bit when you were talking about it during development. But I'm just curious if there's anything in there that started to balloon and you you sort of pulled that back too. I think nowadays, thankfully, I'm already I mean you you're never experienced enough where scope is never a problem. No, that is always always a problem. You always want to do too much. So yeah, that never goes away. But thankfully I think I'm quite a bit better nowadays that I think I can I can easily see okay, this mechanic would be really cool, but no that is going way too much. So let's actually pull it back before I start to invest a ton of time into it. So thankfully, yeah, on my last project I was able to honestly pretty much ⁓ stand by my original scope pretty well. I don't think I went way overboard. So again, that definitely comes with experience. ⁓ it only happened that way because after making games for over a decade. So that is probably the biggest reason. Yeah, I mean, I I think you gain that experience. I I guess the another question probably would be like your scope for the game, you know, what do you use to define that? Because I think from what you from what I hear, probably your ability to understand what the scope is. Right. Yeah. Would then allow you to make that call. So I think if people are less familiar with this, how would you say you come up with a scope? Because for me, I have sort of pillars of of of like for Cabs of Chaos, for instance, I have sort of three pillars for the game. You know, it's it's like chaotic and fun, sort of Saturday morning cartoon, and you know, you know, racing like a racing driving game, like just good feeling driving sort of arcadey driving thing. And so if it doesn't fit those pillars, it it is out of scope of the game. Okay. So I'm just I'm curious if you have anything like that that helps you define your scope so you can sort of check back on it to determine ⁓ this goes out of scope, or is it just kind of a vibes thing for you? For me, I think it's more sort of a vibes thing, but when it comes to game design, that is really something that I've learned is very, very personal. Everybody makes games in different ways and every single way is valid. I mean, if you just go watch a bunch of GDC talks, you won't see everybody says I designed the game this way, this way, this way, and they all end up with So yeah. Yeah. Everything when it comes to design, basically anything can work. So yeah, try out what works for you and then figure out. For me, ⁓ I've heard the Pellers approach and I've tried that and I don't know, it always seemed to be way too rigid, so I never quite enjoy that too much. So for me, yeah, it's more like usually my my design documents is literally just a piece of paper. I just write down from top to bottom just a general rough feeling on what I want the game to be, what are the main mechanics, and then just go through them. And of course, again, I already have quite a bit of experience. So I can look at that page and I can try to see, try to guess, okay, so this list of mechanics is going to take me six months to build. So I know okay, I can't really add way too much stuff on top of it. I'll just add a little bit. So Scope management is definitely very important. And yeah, I I think everybody makes games in different ways. So my advice would be try to figure out what works for you, experiment with lots of games. That is also why making small games is always a great thing, because you can make a game, experiment with like the Pillarish format, make another game with more free form, another game with a very strict game design document, and then try to see which one of those approaches works best. Because yeah, anything can work. So it's really all about to figure out what works for you specific. Yeah, you talk about the small game thing. We can we can touch on that because I think you and I both have a I think you have a strong push for making small games, whereas I'm very much in a there is a there is actually a for me there's a there's a plus to making something that you work on for a long time. Like I worked on my my business game, like Living the Deal. I never shipped it. I cancelled it because I was then employed at Sonderlus to work on a similar you know, another business management games or like a ⁓ not business a management game, right? So I just didn't want to have to try and hold those. But all of the skills that I worked on, because it was such a big game for me, to some degree I was making lots of little games and systems. And so you know, I think that's the one bit where I'm like, there is actually to me, there's also a plus to working on larger games too, from just a personal level. But obviously, you know, you it's an uphill struggle. And I would never recommend anybody like from the very beggo do that. But, you know, my first game, RPG Tycoon, also was kind of I don't yeah, I'm not that was more just me just trying to throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks in some way. But I was I was learning kind of trial by fire. And I guess my question to you really was that ⁓ have you seen that your scope and growth of games has gotten bigger as you've got more experience? Because I guess that's the one thing that I would say is that like, yes, there's absolutely, you know, beginners, you need the small game thing just to learn how to do it. I was doing lots of prototyping and you know, I would consider the prototyping phase also the small game aspect. And so I'm wondering just so yeah, what is that space for you? And how has that evolved for you over the years? I think when it comes to scale, I think the most important thing is defining what exactly are you trying to get out of this game? Is it just education? If so, then yeah, working on a game for like two years and just building a ton of systems and trying to put them all together, they can actually work out nicely. Yeah. But if your game is trying to make games for a living, eventually make a game that actually sustains you, then yeah, spending two years working on a game is gonna make it very difficult for that game to turn any sort of profit. So the first thing starts with that. Starts with defining for yourself what exactly is the goal. Both goals are perfectly fine. Both goals are perfectly achievable, viable, doable. So yeah, it's very much about having clarity on yourself on what exactly which of the goals are you trying to do. And then when it comes to scope, that is also a question that I get every single time whenever I encourage people to make small games, which is what exactly is a small game? And for me, I like to define a game in terms of time. So like small game, I would consider anything within like six months. Maybe even up to a year you're already an experienced developer. But yeah, more than one year, I would definitely not consider that a small game. But six months, usually that's the best thing. So then of course, then people ⁓ after that they tell me, ⁓ in six months I can only build something like a flappy bird. So do I just have to make those kinds of games? And the answer is no, because as your skills improve, the amount of stuff that you can build in just those six months keeps growing and growing once the time frame stays exactly the same. Which is a great example for like my last game, Ding Guardians. It's a very complex game. It's an automation management game. It's got colony survival, defense, and so on. It has an insane amount of mechanics that if I were to make that game 10 years ago when I was more of a beginner, it would have probably taken me like two to three years to build that game. But nowadays, with my skill, with my experience, nowadays I can actually build the game with the exact same scope. But now since I'm quite a bit more skilled, that same scope can be built in six months as opposed to like three years. So that is why I always encourage people to make small games because even if you want to make bigger games, All you really just need to do is just become more skilled. And as you become more skilled, the things that you can do in those in that same time frame just continues increasing and increasing. So that is why I'm a big fan of try keep the time frame as limited as possible. And if you just want to make more complex games, then really just improve your own skill so you can cram more of that ⁓ of that sort of complexity in the same timeframe. Do you do you not think that there is a there is a critical mass to that though? Because I I think I could see I I I agree with you on many of those points for sure. Definitely I I can make things faster, quicker, easier. You know, trying to make cabs ten years ago for me would never have happened, right? So I fully agree with that. And with the the speed at which I can do so many things now has changed. But I do think there is a critical mass at which like, okay, I need to get I want to get these things in the in in the game for it to be complete. Like that's my idea for the package of the scope of the game. That's gonna take, you know, this amount of thing takes this amount of time to make, right? So for how long it takes to make a character or a level or a, you know, wh whatever that scales to be, right? Yeah. Times the amount that you need in the game, let's say you need 10 levels, that is a fixed amount of time. And some of that stuff duck can't change. You know, at some point you you've hit the limit on how long it takes you to do something. So you I would you say not to do it then or to scope the game back significantly? Because there could also be an argument that the scaled back version that game is worse off for not having the depth of the content that exists. I mean you can, but again, that goes back to what is your original goal? If your goal is to make games for a living, then you always have to keep in mind how more time equals more cost, which equals quite a bit more difficult to make that game turn a profit. So if that's your goal, then you have to constantly keep that in mind. So if you do think that with an extra six months of development, the game will go from being like a five out of ten to an eight out of ten, then yeah, maybe that might be worthwhile. But just keep in mind, that is not free. It has some kind of cost. So it's up to you to analyze your cost. Okay, spending six more months on this game, will that very real, very fixed cost will actually yield better results than not? And that is very much a personal thing. I mean, like I said, I really enjoy making more mechanics-heavy games, programming heavy games that are not necessarily content-heavy games. So that is why, for me personally, for the games that I like to make, my skills as a programmer greatly impact the scope. Whereas if I was trying to make something more narrative, something like that, then yeah, it it has quite a lot more fixed costs that even if you are Ten times better as a writer, ⁓ artist and so on. Yeah, some things just take time. So it also depends on what kind of genres you're going for. I agree. I th yeah, I think and I think it's important to 'cause I think, you know, there's a sustainability aspect to it, right? But there's also think something that makes you happy. Right. Like if working on that two year thing is also gonna keep you content and make you enjoy making the game. Right. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ and I I was talking to to Luke ⁓ in this previous video. And he said that for him it was a sweet spot of like 18 months and just trying to have more shots on goal. Right. I I've just come off of a five year thing. I don't want to work on a game for five years ever again. It's too lot. It's too lot. ⁓ I could have I I think I think, you know, to me in in my space, I think I want to work on stuff once every sort of year and a half, I'd love to be able to be putting something out because I think the more shots on goal aspect of it makes sense. But it is i you know, it's turbulent times now specifically. It's So let me ask you, so why not six months? 'Cause in theory, in in a year and a half, if you make six months games, you have three shots on GOM as opposed to just one. So when do you define that time scale? What do you define as what's best for you? That's a great question. ⁓ I for me it's about achieving the design of the game that I want to make to a scope that I think creates enough content and time played for the experience I want to curate, right? So and that that's gonna change, but for like for cabs, for instance, I've thought about this. I was gonna potentially release the game with one level, five characters, and that was gonna just be it. And this was gonna depend on how it was gonna be received at an event that I just I went to a few weeks ago. Right. ⁓ in that like if it was kind of not being received super well, then I can just get it out, that's my shot on goal, move on, start the next thing, right? Whereas right now it's like, okay, well, actually if I scope it up a little bit, work until it start of next year, maybe, get fifteen characters in, three levels, more more game modes. That's a deeper experience for the player. It potentially creates especially for a game like that that is ⁓ needs some replayability and and I can build scope for meta to get stink people that play on their own and 'cause it's like an addressable market thing too, right? I think if I can make it a deeper game, then it'll have a little bit more of an appeal to both the single like the single player who maybe doesn't want to play with friends and they can just play it on their own against the AI, but like the computer opp CPU. I was gonna that that word is tainted now, so we're using computer opponents or CPU players. ⁓ the the programmed computer opp opponents that I've built into the game, ⁓ versus you know, the friends and and stuff too. Because it could very much easily just be a game that I powered, like, ⁓ you have to have friends to play this, right? But the addressable market goes down significantly at that point. Definitely, yeah. Versus a bigger scope that can be played single player. For me, it's single player, multiplayer, or a combination of both. ⁓ And I just think that the game needs that for it to like exist. And maybe it's just a egotistical thing, but like I think Yeah, that's always a problem. I think to me there's always just like a what is the there's like an MVP, there's like a gold star, you know, million dollar budget thing. And then there's something in the middle. Right. ⁓ games are scalable to that sense of scope. But I think I've landed on like this feels to me like what the game deserves to get a true shot. Like 'Cause you can make a million shots on goal, but if you're shooting to the left of the goal or to the right of the you know, you're not so so I guess that's part of it too is me trying to figure out what is the what gives it more of a chance to hit. And Right. That to me, I think a version of this that I made in six that is just the first level, the four or five characters that I've originally made. If I ship that, I don't think it has a high chance of si I mean, maybe if I sell it for, you know, five bucks or something, sure. But even then that's still no guarantee. And at that point, the re the ROI in terms of you need to have much higher volume of sales to sort of see anything really from where I land on that. Okay. I mean, yeah, I guess you have to analyze do you think the extra six months are really going to add that much to the game? If so, then yeah, maybe that's ⁓ I mean, especially since you said that you went for playtesting. If the playtest is ⁓ positive, if the feedback is positive. That is also another thing where I'm okay with people spending longer on their games if they have validation that people do want like this game idea. So, like recently, just a game came out called Tabletop Tavern, which is from someone who ⁓ I'm only super happy to hear when people learn something from my course and then they make a game and the game is super successful. That is awesome. So, yeah, that developer followed my dots course like two years ago and then started working on the game. And then the game started actually getting quite a nice amount of wishlists. And he figured, okay, I'm going to work on it a little bit more since he already has basically that demand validated. So if that's the case, I don't mind working on a game for longer. If you have already validated, okay, clearly there are people that want this game. So the discoverability part of that equation that is basically solved because I already have those wish lists. So now the potential of the game is going to be a hundred percent dependent on the quality. So in that sense, it does make sense to spend quite a bit more time. But if you don't have that kind of validation through either playtests or wish lists, then yeah, it becomes Like you were saying, it's a little bit it can become a problem of being more like ego talking about, ⁓ I think I can make the game quite a bit better. Are you really saying that or are you really just as having an excuse for yourself, which then might actually not yield ⁓ some good results? So yeah, it's always thinking about that. Yeah, I mean do you you you know, do you have the same thing? And maybe this is this is just from the types of games that I'm used to making, but there's there's you there's two things really. There's like systems complete, and then there's like content complete, right? And those are two separate pieces. And I would argue that like I try to get a game to systems complete as fast as possible. And then content complete can scale a lot a lot more. ⁓ yeah. But having the flexibility to do that because then you can invent new content that can build on systems and become more modular in that way. Right. And so that's kind of what I'm thinking about when I'm looking at making more games. ⁓ I've got a few ideas for after cabs, but ⁓ part of this is also like just a palette cleanser thing too. But you know, we'll see. ⁓ right now I'm just enjoying the freedom of like Okay, sure. Yeah, that that sounds great. That's a good reason. Yeah. but for you, I guess then the question is, would you ever make a game that takes you longer than six months to make? I mean, previously in the past I I did do that back when when the I mean, cause seam obviously changes quite a lot. So the seam nowadays very different from seam like 10 years ago. So yeah, I think the most that I spent on a game was probably I think it was like Battle Royale Tycoon, which was like 18 months. So like I guess a year and a half. So yeah, I have spent quite a bit more, but again, that was a different seam, whereas nowadays I think seam is quite a bit more I don't know how to say it, like more fast paced. So like The quality of ideas nowadays matters quite a lot more as opposed to just the execution. Just good execution was enough ten years ago. Nowadays I don't think that's enough. Nowadays you need good execution with a really excellent idea, really nice hook. I think that is nowadays the most important thing for finding success. And again, basically with more with smaller games you can basically experiment with more different hooks until you find something that does work. Whereas if you're spending a year and a half on something, then if it doesn't work, that is quite painful. That ⁓ does suck quite badly, which I have suffered that. I have ⁓ worked on a game like my my second game, Survivor Squad Gauntlets, which is a sequel to my first game, which did decently well. So I was confident, okay, the next game is gonna do well. So I worked on that one. I don't even know. It was more than one year. And then I launched it and got like one-tenth of the sales of the previous game. ⁓ boy, that was that was heartbreaking. That was not a fun time. So yeah, I very much would not want to. Suffer through that again. So yeah, the the more you spend time working on the game, the more intense, more stressful is the release gonna be. So yeah, and if it doesn't go well, it can be very, very painful. So yeah, I would like to avoid that sort of pain. So I don't think I would spend over one year working on something. Again, like I said, unless I if I had if I work on something for like six months, I make a prototype, I make a video, and people really like it, I make the same page and get like twenty K wish list, then okay, yeah, sure. I think with that I can spend like One year, one year and a half working on that game. But without that validation, no, I don't think I would do that. I mean, like another aspect for me is that a lot of the work I do on on my games turn into YouTube videos, right? ⁓ they turn into they turn into tutorials. So an ROI in that sense is like completely different metric. And I know this isn't gonna appe ⁓ appeal to everybody or like be the same thing for everyone. Although devlogs can be a big indicator of like how interested people are in your game. ⁓ but for you, I think you you match this with me in that like There is an additional benefit to working on stuff that you can you can not only in just learning new systems and maybe turning those into unique tutorials or tutorials that are inspired by systems that you're working on for your game. ⁓ or topic topics for videos or whatever. Yeah, that can definitely impact the yeah, the calculation for that. Do you spend more time? Which you're spending more time on the game, but you're also using that as an excuse to make more videos. So you're kind of benefiting from this while spending more time. So yeah, that can also help with the calculation. To to be like that's exactly how my YouTube channel was founded. When I was working on a D O Mode based game, like all of the videos I'd made were just like, here I learned how to do this thing on the game that I was working on. Here's a video, you know? ⁓ Yeah, nice. So okay. Well, so let's talk about your YouTube a little bit more. how did you balance those two? Like which one ⁓ the games came first, right? And then you started the YouTube channel, I suppose. ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. I started making games in like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen and started YouTube in like twenty eighteen. And it only started becoming more of my main thing in like 2020. So yeah. but combining those two is basically impossible. That is my that is my problem. I mean, there's only a billion things that I want to do. Of course I would love to be working on a game right now, but how on earth can I combine working on a game, making videos, answering questions, comments, all kinds of things? It's just impossible. I've I've tried it every single time. I'm trying to figure it out. Like I'm I'm I'm trying it and we'll see. I mean if you find it, let me know what is the solution because I've tried and I can't figure it out. ⁓ boy. I really wish, but yeah, there's only twenty four hours in the day. So yeah. That is why I've I've accepted that I basically have to split my life into like seasons. So like right now I'm in a season making more educational content. Then the future hopefully I'll have a season where I'll work more on the game. And yeah, trying to go through those because yeah, doing both at the same time, yeah, that's just impossible. Yeah. Yeah. I mean So another question, especially on the YouTube side of it, you were talking about courses. And do you are you changing the way that you're teaching on YouTube or or making things on YouTube? Like you've also moved to being on camera more. but with AI on the surface of people being able to kind of just get an LLM to help them, do probably some of the basic things that they would have previously watched a YouTube video for or looked up a small blog post. Like, has that is that affecting you in any way? Are you worried about it at all? Or are you are you thinking about that at all in in your future content? Yeah. ⁓ honestly I don't know that is something that I'm questioning myself. Because I definitely do see an impact. I definitely do see views going down. Not not drastically, but definitely going on a downtrend. So I do have to assume that I mean it coincides with like the past two years. So I guess the one tricky thing is that also coincides with when Unity made that really dumb change. So yeah. It's kind of hard to say whether that downtrend is more. What are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. It's kind of hard to know what is the biggest aspect. Was it just that dumb change that pushed people off Unity, or is it AI? But yeah, either way, with those two combined, yeah, the whole thing going down a little bit. So as to what I do from that, honestly, I'm not quite sure. I I enjoy making educational stuff, so I'll continue making that. And yeah, I guess I always tell people that AI is actually really good at as a learning. tool you can basically ask it because you it is very expensive to like buy a personal tutor and have someone that you can chat with face to face that is very expensive. But with AI you can basically sort of have like 70% of that. You can basically talk to Chat GPT back and forth whenever you have some kind of questions. Whereas with a video, videos are really awesome, but it's basically passive. You're just listening to what the person yeah. So if the tutorial is not teaching you the specific thing that you have or if you have a follow-up question That can be quite tricky, whereas with AI, it does have that benefit. So I do think it's a generally great ⁓ learning tool. But I don't know, maybe I'm biased, but I would say the best thing of all is actually combining both. Just because the biggest issue with AI is it is very good at giving you answers if you know what to ask for. But there are some things, especially when you are a beginner, you don't even know what to ask for. So if you go to an AI and you ask it, okay, explain to me how C sharp interfaces work, if you ask that, it will give you a very good answer. It will actually help you learn what they are. But if you're beginner, you don't even know what is a C sharp interface, you will never know to ask that question. So that is why I do think there is still a room for like ⁓ videos where someone guides you through the learning process, and then you can basically start with that and then learn a bunch of concepts that you can then go to the eye and go back and forth trying to understand that quite a bit more deeply. So you're thinking about using your videos as a sort of launching off point then? Yeah, I think so. I think it just as more of a let's say an Aggregator of knowledge. So like you watch a video to learn things that you might not even know about, learn a bunch of different topics, and then you can go individually go to the AI and try to get more detail on that one specific topic. Whereas if you just use the I, again, I don't think how you how would you ask teach me about C sharp interface if you don't know what those are? So yeah, I think you need to be exposed to that concept in some other way. And I think videos, courses, those kinds of things can be really great for that. But is is it changing is it gonna change the way that you like things you're making? Are you th are you incorporating more of that in or you are you gonna change some of the beginner stuff that you're working on to to adapt to that at all? I don't know. That's that's tricky because again, like I said, the I I've noticed views going down slightly, but and I've tried many things to try to sort of reverse that trend and I haven't quite I haven't quite figured out what it is. So I I'm not a hundred percent sure in this AI age what people specifically want from like video tutorials or records. So I'm Constantly trying out new things, things that are more hands on, as opposed to just a straight up passive video tutorial. I've been trying out lots of different things and I don't know, some things work, some things don't quite work. So I think that's just what I'm gonna keep doing. Just continue experimenting with different formats, different things, try to see, okay, in this new age, how do people like to learn? I I believe that people will continue wanting to learn, wanting to gain knowledge. And me personally, I will continue wanting to learn things myself and then teach them to people. So yeah, I guess I'll just continue doing things and trying to figure out what are the formats that work in this brand new age. Yeah. Is that part of why you also sort of move to some more of the on-camera stuff as well then? ⁓ is just experimenting with new things because of the view changes. ⁓ I wouldn't say it's me necessarily due to the view change. It's more like when I started my channel, I've always been a very ⁓ painfully shy person. That's basically it. So when I started my channel, I was literally incapable of using a camera. So yeah, it was more it was not necessarily a conscious choice. It was more of a personal limitation. So over time I sort of got more comfortable with just microphone. So then I had the camera, then I did that. And of course, with the camera, then I can do more varied formats. So yeah, that also helps in again the same thing. Experimenting with tons of stuff and trying to see what works. Yeah, YouTube is a very personable format. Like I've even I've found as I've started to do more on camera stuff, thumbnails where just have my face in them. those videos are performing way better now than and I you know I would always put so much work into a thumbnail that was like didn't have my face in it to try and make it look really pretty and clickable and stuff. But like then I put something that I put a lot less work into, but it has my face in it and that does so much better. And I'm like, ⁓ no. Yeah, that is something that happens. But honestly that's something that happens with everything. Like ⁓ sometimes there are ⁓ like an entire game that you work on for like work on a game for one year, then you work on a game that is meant to be something quick on like two months. Like that's like what happened with with Pink. Massive game, so millions and millions of copies. Like before that, they worked on ⁓ what's it called? Agrocrab, something like that, a game about a crab, something like that. Yeah, they worked on that for like two years and it was very successful. But then they work on this, which is meant to be a quick side project on like two months, all of a sudden makes like ten times the amount of money. So yeah, that is ⁓ the amount of effort that you put into something, whether it be a thumbnail, a video, a game, anything, it does not usually correlate very well to the output. So yeah, that is ⁓ You have to live with that frustration of knowing, ⁓ I spent so much on this. Does that not just like just completely destroy you when you think about it? Like does doesn't make you become somewhat nihilistic. That is the yeah, that is it it is frustrating sometimes working on a video for so long. Okay, I think this is great, doesn't do well. Yeah. Then I do a random video where I'm just talking about like some piece of news and gets like 10 times the amount of views. ⁓ I just have to accept it. That's it. I think. I think the big thing, especially with YouTube, is they talk about the three pieces of content, right? Of just like having some hero content. I think it's like tutorial not tutorial, but like help content or something. Yeah, the and then there's like the three categories. I can't fully remember what they what the middle one was, but ⁓ and it's just having something there for people that are for you and come back to you and like are regular viewers and want that big stuff versus people that are just sort of drive by viewers. Yeah, it seems to the drive-by stuff does tend to do quite well, but maybe you don't necessarily keep the sustainability of the channel. It's interesting. YouTube is a whole ecosystem that like probably isn't super interesting to too many people listening, but I'd always love talking shop with other YouTubers because like it is an experience. It is, it is. And it's very difficult and it's constantly changing. So yeah, I I'm constantly always trying to learn about YouTube, trying to research what is working nowadays, trying to apply it. But yeah, it is ⁓ Definitely just as difficult as like making games, learning about Steam, yeah, learning YouTube. And we're doing both. Yeah. So yeah, that is quite difficult. Yeah. Yeah. The Steam. How do you how are you feeling about some of this new changes to Steam? So the the calendar thing looks interesting and I ⁓ people seem to be mixed on that. But to me it seems like it's gonna be discovering making discoverability better for people in like types of games they're interested in mean, I hope so. Right now, it is still too early to tell. We still have to wait for some data to come in. But thankfully the ⁓ preliminary data that is coming out, that one does seem to be positive. So ⁓ there have been some reports that say people launching games after that change, they actually had quite a bit more success. Now, of course the question is, is that success just because it's a new thing? So lots of players are experimenting with a personal calendar, and over time basically those people will level out and it won't actually be as good, or will it actually stay this good for the long term? So yeah, ⁓ I really hope that it's a positive change. So yeah, I guess we shall see. But Definitely something big. I mean, previously you had the goal of like hit seven K wish lists and that is like the bare bones for success. And nowadays you don't quite have that. Nowadays in some cases it's easier. Some cases you can get on the calendar with like two K wish lists. Other cases you need like twenty K. So yeah, whether this is better or worse, yeah, it just needs to wait a little bit of time to get some more data. But yeah, I I I hope it's better. So yeah, I hope so. What would you say you use as indicators for your games? ⁓ because I'm I'm thinking about it in terms of playtesting. feedback and just like wish lists coming off of those, you know, if I do a couple of devlogs, I'm planning on doing those now that I've got some more time. and just seeing how the spikes 'cause even from the like announcement video I just made of, you know, leaving my job, that massively spiked my I mean, I hadn't really announced the game at all on Steam. That you know brought wish lists in. And so using those as in would you say using those as indicators is a good factor to determine like how long to continue working on something? What do you use personally? I mean, wish lists are the main thing. Those are definitely the gold standard. I mean, ⁓ playtime, that is also very important. Playtesting, ⁓ having playtest feedback, that is good. But I would say raw number of wish lists, that is definitely the most important thing. So I think it's I mean, nowadays making a demo is very important. So once you get the demo part, if you do the playtesting well enough, if people are playing your demo for like one hour, guarantee that won't get you a ton of wish lists. So at the end of the day, wish lists are the number that you want to Optimize for because wish lists then eventually lead to sales, which is the whole thing that Steam cares about. Steam just cares about making money, that's basically it. So if you're making Steam money, if you're making money, you're making Steam money and they are going to continue promoting that. And yeah, usually wish lists lead to sales. So that is very much the main metric to go for. But yeah, then when you when you make a demo, of course, if you have wish lists, but then the game ⁓ nobody enjoys the game, that is not going to work. Even if you like a hundred k wish list, nobody likes it, it won't do very well. I mean, there was like the example of the ⁓ the game CuffBus that came out and had like a hundredk wish lists, massively successful, pretty much guaranteed success. But then the game was not what people were expecting, was very unlimited. So yeah, it launched, it actually sold quite a lot, but I assume it actually had quite a lot of refunds and then basically died off very quickly. So yeah, wish lists are extremely important, but of course, then you actually actually convert the game behind it. Yeah, you have to actually deliver on the experience. Yeah. And How would you say you you go about trying to do that? So with Dinky Guardians, did you play test? Did you have people playtesting it? I'm I would imagine you did ⁓ a little bit, but actually not too much. Because again, that one was a very ⁓ compressed time frame. So I was very quickly building the game, put it up on Next Fest and so on. So my playtest I think I play test just a very small amount before Next Fest, but then I published the demo and then got quite a lot more feedback and constantly I think I was putting out updates on every single day. So I did that. Then after that I continued putting out more updates. So yeah, I I I definitely should have done more playtests before Next West. I definitely recommend that. But yeah, in my case I didn't do that just because I was doing on such a short time frame that there just wasn't time. I was literally literally adding features by the time that the game was coming out on Next West. So I didn't quite have time to do that. But yeah, I definitely do recommend that. Spend time playtesting so that when you do put out the demo, it is as solid that you as you can make it so that you actually get more benefits from ⁓ demo in Next West. So this would have been three years ago, right? That you were doing the Nextfests. Yeah, twenty-three. So yeah, yeah. Three years. So it probably different climate or also too. Cause I think the Nextfest numbers have like tripled since ⁓ yeah, yeah. That is constantly increasing. Yeah. Yeah. I think the meta for how to navigate Steam just changes every six months, basically. So ⁓ I think that's the one thing that I'm trying to figure out is what what my plan is moving forward. ⁓ I I mean, I was gonna ask like Yeah, so sounds like next the next thing you make, you're planning on doing playtesting a little bit earlier. Yeah. Maybe getting the demo to a small polished point before you hit the I mean, I think the the next game that I make before all that comes what I think is the most important part nowadays, which is basically idea selection. Nowadays I do think that is very crucial. I mean, yet another example, a game that just came out, Mecha Chameleon. Yeah. It's a game that was made in like ⁓ two months, something like that. Very small game, but the idea is insanely clever, very nice, very interesting. So the game sold literally millions upon millions of dollars just based on the concept alone. So I think nowadays the power of good ideas, something that actually has a nice hook that can be delivered through like a normal YouTube short, I think that is very crucial nowadays. So whenever I start working on my next game, I think I will do that. I will spend some time literally just testing like twenty different prototypes, twenty different ideas, and just making videos trying to see which one of those seems to have ⁓ captivating audience. And then basically trying to double down down. Because I do think the difference between making a working on an idea that does have potential right from the start and something that doesn't quite. Yeah, it's basically you're going to be pushing a boulder uphill as opposed to basically just going on easy mode. So I think nowadays that is probably the most important thing. Yeah, I think I agree with that. I think ⁓ I don't know whether I'll end up doing that. I I may in terms of prototyping things. I think I've got a few ideas that I want to work on next that I'm just kinda I'm like If I don't get this out of my head, I would drive myself insane, you know? Yeah. but I do think it's a really great piece of advice and I've seen a few people try that and it seems to work. So are you thinking then prototype and then like YouTube shorts? And then s and like have ⁓ have a selection of three or four? Like what are you gonna do? Are you gonna spend like six months just working on lots of different prototypes? Or are you gonna spend like how are you how are you gonna deliver how are you gonna deliver them? I guess is the is the question there. Like, are you thinking All in one go or or do one put it out, do one, put it out, do one, put it out. ⁓ I think do one put it out, but of course you need multiple in order to compare them. So yeah, just basically work on a game idea, put out a bunch of shorts, try to see if they work, then after a while work on another idea. Like I said, these are meant to be prototypes, so not meant to be like six months working on it. So like literally in like one weekend to one week, just work on this one idea, try to see do people like this hook or not. Then on next week, work on another different idea. So with that in like One month you can make like, I don't know, five or six. Then you can compare it to all of them. You can try to see, okay, this game idea. I made four videos for it, and the videos got on average, let's say, ten views. And on these other ones, the videos on average got like a hundred views. Very clearly, this one has quite a bit more potential. So I think that is how I would do idea selection. So just sort of viral marketing early on. Yeah. How? I mean, not necessarily viral that you don't need like millions of views, just seem comparatively. Okay, this one is getting 10 kid views and this one's getting a hundred. That is a very clear sign, a very clear indicator. How will you decide to draw the line? That's true. Yeah. I guess you make I don't know, decide for yourself, like I'm going to make ten and then analyze the results of all those ten and try to see that. Because yeah, of course you can take it to infinity. You can make like a hundred and try to see which one. So yeah, at some point you gotta draw a line to send. So yeah, I guess I don't know, maybe ten is good. So maybe working on for like two months, make as many ideas as you can and then at the end of those two months analyze and see which one has potential. So in in some ways that's kind of your research and development budget, so to speak, for the game. And in scoping and designing the scope of game what is this? Gonna be game six, game wait, no, ⁓ seven for you? I guess it would be game ten Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So game ten, right? Then you're building a budget for game ten. You've got two months ⁓ pre-production. Yeah, basically and then six months production or like a month of prototyping and development and then production after that. I don't know. I think nowadays I'm good enough that in just one week I can build a solid enough prototype that at the end I know roughly how to translate this into a proper game. So I don't think I would need to make basically an idea prototype and then an actual prototype and then the actual game. I think I could just go from idea prototype to the ⁓ final property game. Yeah. Do you do you prototype mechanics in separate scenes and things? Because that's something I've been doing is like whenever I want to and maybe that's partly just because I'm developing a more modulus system, like a modular game where I can be adding components. But I've I've found recently that just having playgrounds for things, so having just a vehicle controller playground in a scene, and then, you know, the vehicle traffic vehicle, whatever. And if I was building a tycoon game, just having a sort of player builder game. Yeah, yeah. Visual prototype scene. Is that something you sort of explore yourself? Or do you just kind of ⁓ yeah. Do you just do you just mainline the main No, no, definitely. I mean, game development is all about iteration. It's all about building things over and over again, trying to see what works, what doesn't work. So yeah, doing those kinds of test levels, like you said, depends on the game. But yeah, in most games, in most channels, you can probably come up with some kind of like test level, something where you can experiment with a bunch of stuff. And yeah, that is definitely crucial, especially if you're making something more modular. So you can try to build out the system. And yeah, either make a complete separate scene or just have a scene that doesn't have like cutscenes, nothing like that. So you can just go straight into gameplay and like position all the objects for this one mechanic over here, then all the objects for this mechanic over here, and you basically just do that trying to identify what exactly which mechanics might work so you can then ⁓ incorporate them into everything else. Yeah. So then is that is that what you think you're gonna do? You're gonna just finish your course that you're working on now and then dive into the next thing? Is that kind of your current plan now? ⁓ probably not. Okay. Just because I've got again, I've got so many ideas for like educational stuff that I would like to do. So yeah, I I I I initially at the end of last year, I was thinking to myself, okay, at at the second half of this year, I wanna get started working on a game. Yeah, we're already on the second half of the I I think that's what you said to me when I spoke to you last year in Barcelona. You were like, Yeah, I gotta do I gotta do tutorials for like another year or like half a year or so and then I'll start working on something new, but again, things just go all over the place. So yeah. Now yeah, I I can't imagine starting to work on something like that. So yeah, there's still quite a lot more things on my immediate plate right now. So yeah. I don't know, maybe next year, maybe. Is that more appealing to you because you can get videos out faster? Because that's one of the things that I realize, right? Like I can I can work on a video and release something within a week and you get that little dopamine hit of a release and seeing the numbers go up and stuff. Versus a game that I think, yeah, you have to put yourself into for six months' time. So would you say that that is the biggest challenge for you? ⁓ yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's part of the reason why I started YouTube is because before then I was making games and on average my games were like one year. And yeah, it's it's fun to work on a game, to work on a project for one year, but it's also A bit frustrating because at least for me, the way my brain works, I gotta build an ideas for all kinds of things, all kinds of different systems, things that I would love to build. But when I'm working on a game, I gotta be focused. I gotta be okay, I gotta make this game, I gotta finish this, and then I can work on a different idea. So that is part of the reason why I started my YouTube channel. Because I was like, okay, I can keep working on my games, do that on the background, and then like once a week I can make a different mechanic and just make a video on that mechanic, then next week work on different mechanic. So part of the reason why I started was just for that, just so I can explore all the ideas that I have in my head because I do enjoy that quite a bit. I mean, I that is that is also part of the reason why I would probably not spend like two years working on a game because yeah, again, it's almost painful to me to focus on just one thing for that amount of time. I really like building tons and tons of stuff. I mean, I've got my my to do list for like potential video topics and like I don't know, like three hundred video ideas and it's constantly increasing as opposed to decreasing. So so yeah, trying to imagine pausing that list for like two years as it continues growing and growing, growing. Yeah, I don't know that That sounds very, very difficult. So yeah, that ⁓ the way my brain works, yeah, definitely I want to keep producing lots of new things all the time. I definitely prefer that as opposed to something quite a bit more big. So is it an economical argument for you then as well? Is it just sort of which one is easier to generate revenue for you? Because you don't do you do you do sponsored videos ⁓ that frequently? ⁓ very rarely, yeah. I just usually like just the unity asset source. So I make like, I like Five sponsored videos in an entire year out of like 150 videos. So yeah. Usually usually my videos are basically sponsored, quote unquote, by my own courses, my own thing. So yeah, usually that's not something that I focus on too much. So yeah, it's more like, I wanna cover this, I wanna cover that. And yeah, if people want to see it, that's great. Yeah. And so then I guess you just have that freedom. Cause like YouTube is somewhat unsustainable for many people, right? So it's yes. It's ⁓ and I've you've spoken to me about this before that your courses People tend to be driven towards your sort of, you know, that there's the classic like funnel of just you have these things for the audience to spend money on and and help support you, which, you know, is the way you make a living doing this stuff. Yeah. and so it if I recall you said that that that is thankfully sustaining you enough that you don't ha feel the need to have to have this big hit video game that can bring in, you know, ten X, hundred X the numbers that you would potentially be able to see from a YouTube channel. Yeah. The thankfully the way that I've The point that I've reached right now, after like 10 years of doing YouTube, technically I've reached a point where like the educational side is, I think, quite a bit more stable. Whereas with games, yeah, games are all over the place. I mean, even the games that I've made, like the difference between the top game and the lowest game is like, I don't know, like 100x, something like that. So yeah, games are very spiky, whereas the educational stuff I found to be also spiky, of course, but quite a bit more stable. So yeah, when it comes to, I don't know, like like my mental health. Not having like, okay, I'm working on this game, now of a sudden I'm making ten times more money, now I'm making one tenth the amount of money. Yeah, that can be tricky. So having a little bit more stability, that is also an argument for being more on the educational side. Yeah. Interesting. No, that's that yeah, I I can I can understand that fully. Yeah. do you think you're gonna expand into other engines at any point? Like is Godot attractive to you at all? I mean I ⁓ yeah, I've dabbled in Unreal, I have no interest in I I thought about it, but like it's just a beast that and the way that that seems to be going. But Godot does seem interesting. It feels to me like Blender, like you know when Blender was kind of coming up and you were like, Yeah, it's kinda it's still a little bit undercooked, but then but now and now Blender's like, no, you to. ⁓ yeah, no, they're fantastic. I feel like Godot is gonna maybe cross that threshold at some point. How like do you think you would move into a space where you're trying to maybe do both, or you're just kinda sticking purely to the right or diet? Probably not, no. I mean, ⁓ one thing that only says that it It it ⁓ it is much more worthwhile to know one tool very, very deeply as opposed to have just very surface knowledge of like ten different tools. So on that I do think part of the reason why I think I'm good at teaching things to people is because I've literally been using Unity for like over ten years. So if I now jump to Godot, I would need quite a lot of time together, quite a lot of experience until I felt that I was confident enough to be able to teach people things. So yeah, that would basically be a pretty massive shift. I don't think I could do both at the same time. I think that would be quite tricky. So yeah. I would love to try out Godouin and Real just just basically as a one-off thing. Just spend like I don't know, like 10, 20 hours working on it, just trying to see how does it work, what are the things that it does that are maybe better than Unity, maybe worse than Unity, trying to compare those. So I would love to do like an overview video trying to experiment that. But yeah, as to like switching more specifically. No, I don't think so until I don't know, until Unity dies. That's basically it. So yeah. Yeah. If that happens, then yeah, sure. I guess I won't switch probably to Godot. But yeah, ⁓ until that happens, yeah. I I already have like ten plus years of knowledge of like this one tool. So yeah, giving up all that knowledge, yeah, like I said, needs a very very serious reason. Like literally it's software dying. Other than that, yeah, it's very tricky. I think I feel very similar about it. I think that was where I ended up landing, especially 'cause I I experimented Cabs was a good example to try and be like, okay, how what is this like to put into Unreal? I just had such a and I I've had experience working on Unreal games in the past, and I just had a very similar, it was just running up against, I was like, this is going to take me twice as long to do just to get back to where I was when I was already in T. So there's like a there's like a comfort and familiarity aspect. ⁓ But I do see the appeal of Godot, especially for me, it's the the language, right? Like I love, I love C sharp. One of the reasons I hate Unreal is I hate C. I hate how heavy Unreal is, especially in the Coping a project, opening the engine project, it just does not ever compile on anything I've ever ran that on. Okay. And so there's like no prediction predictions or anything. You just have to you just like raw code. It's supposed to have all of that stuff, but I've never managed to get it working with Unreal. ⁓ whereas in Unity, you you download it, you install it, you have IntelliSense working and it's just also C and dealing with all that stuff. And so for me, that was one of the things for Godot is just the language aspect of it. but you know, people say that there's C sharp support. However, it feels to me like the way that Unity handles C sharp is unique and appealing. I mean, I quite like it. So yeah. I mean, I went to I went to C sharp after Make Games in Flash, which was using ActionScript 3.0, which was very similar to C sharp. So for me, the transition was very easy. But still, I don't know, I don't remember the details nowadays, but I do remember seeing, ⁓ this is quite a bit better than ActionScript. So it was familiar and I already enjoyed ActionScript 3.0 and C Sharp was a little bit better in a bunch of use cases. So yeah, so far it's it's definitely my favorite line. I mean, I've written code in I don't know, like over a dozen different languages. And yeah, C Sharp is definitely the one that I most enjoy. So the fact that that is also an important point on those on the game engines. Yeah, if you go with Unreal. Chances are you gotta use C. I mean, if you want, you can use blueprints, but yeah, not for long C. Yeah, again, that's the thing of them deprecating. So yeah, I've no idea what's gonna happen with that, with like verse or whatever. Yeah, I guess we shall see. But yeah, so within Real you go to C with Unity with Go with C and with Godot, technically do have C support, but most of the likely tutorials, the educational stuff is in their Godot script. So yeah, yeah. I guess that is also one of the ways to choose an engine. Which language do you prefer to write in? And me, I really enjoy C sharp, so there's also a reason to stick with DMD. Yeah, I'm very similar to you. I came from I came from ActionScript. I was also doing Flash games. ⁓ my first game, RPG Tycoon, was written in ActionScript. It was compiled in whatever the ActionScript like IDE was at the time. I can't remember what it's called now. But this was I think it was Flash compiled flash developer. Flash builder, I think or f yeah, flash ⁓ flash develop or something. Yeah, Flash builder or something. Yeah, and so I was using Starling, which was like a a flash for an ActionScript 3 framework. ⁓ I think it's still around. I think people I think people have sort of revived or like moved the ActionScript thing and then it was built into Adobe Air and that came with all its own problems. And yeah, moving was the name moving into moving into Unity, I was like, wait, you can do what? And C sharp as well, learning C sharp. I agree that I think going from a 'cause I guess ActionScript is like a JavaScript. esque language. So going from that web kind of framework of languages into C sharp, I think is yeah, I would I would have always advised that. Because I think I did at one point try C from ActionScript Land. And I was like, I'm so confused by this. Because there's just so many things you have to handle. So it's interesting to hear that you had almost the exact same experience as me. Yeah. ⁓ on that note, do you miss Flash? Do you miss Flash and ActionScript? Because I miss Newgrounds. I miss like those small micro games that were free to play that you could just idle Yeah, I do miss that. I do think it's ⁓ it's a great shame. Why did Apple have to kill Flash? Why'd that happen? ⁓ that sucks so bad. I mean, because Flash was generally great. It was Yeah. I mean, as a software, sure, it had a butt a bunch of limitations, but that's really just web-based limitations, not necessarily specific to Flash. But it had a lot of benefits, like you literally just go to a web page and you can play literally a hundred different games. That was awesome. And so it was awesome as a player. So when I was a kid, like going to school and there were like some computers in school. So we'd go to like mini clip, new grounds, and just play a bunch of games. That was awesome. That was cool. You don't need to install anything, just go to a browser and works great. So as a player, it was awesome. And as a developer, it was also awesome because players were used to playing these very tiny games. So you could make a game on literally just one week and all of a sudden had a ton of people playing that game. And you ⁓ especially on new grounds, you were basically guaranteed if you upload something, you will get, I don't know, I think it was like a thousand people basically guaranteed to play your game. So when it comes as a developer learning, trying to get more feedback on your things, I think that was insanely valuable, so good. And yeah, it really sucks how in the years since then, nothing seems to have replaced that one. So yeah, I mean people talk about itch, but yeah, if you put something up on itch, you are not going to get a thousand people on playing. Absolutely. So you will not get that feedback. So sadly nothing has replaced Flash as it was, so I really miss it. Yeah, I miss it too. I mean, I think from an educational standpoint, for me, the way that I learn, because I, you know, I I would sit at lunchtime on the computers in the in the computer lab and I would make little like flash animations, right? ⁓ so my gateway into programming and learning how to program was I was like, okay, I can ⁓ make a little play button at the start of my animation. So you just learn the basics of programming that like what happened? How do I take mouse input over a button and then you know make that and then you go, okay, well, what happens if I learn how to make left or right work on the keyboard? And then that's like, ⁓ well now I can move a thing. And it's just this sort of step by step modular learning tool. And we don't you don't kind of don't have that gateway in the same way that I think Flash was magical for stuff like that. Because I think that was a way that was a shared experience for a lot of people. I think it was flash animations into like, wait, you can program things in this. That is literally the same thing that I learned. I mean, like I said, I started working ⁓ programming with IRC scripting, which had no visuals. So when I discovered Flash, I discovered literally that thing that you were talking about. I'm like Holy crap, I can combine programming with visuals. That is awesome. So I can actually write the code that I already know roughly how to write. But now instead of just working with text, now I can actually take like an image on screen and move it left and right. That is awesome. That little combination of like visuals and code, that was so awesome. And yeah, Flash made it so easy. So yeah, that is something that yeah, ⁓ very much ⁓ sad that it was destroyed because yeah, that I think helped myself and helped quite a lot of people get started and try to see, ⁓ it's possible to make games. So yeah, ⁓ that is ⁓ it sucks how it died, but yeah, that's it. Yeah. I yeah. Yeah. It's ⁓ it's definitely sort of an era that I think a lot a lot of people mourn. And it's a it's a shame for people growing up without it not to have that like access. I mean, it's now easier than ever, I think, to learn. And I think th thankfully with engines like Unity and Does and Unreal. but I do think the barrier to entry is a lot higher in terms of ⁓ getting started, right? Because yeah, with Flash it was so easy. And I think I think that's an interesting an interesting challenge. So ⁓ okay, well I okay, I have I have one one more sort of game development question for you. And I think I think it's like I like digging into this because it's it's always a learning moment. And so I would say to you, out of everything you've worked on and specifically maybe your games and your YouTube video, maybe you have a story for both, what is something that you've struggled with on a design or a You spoke a little bit about this earlier, but maybe in a more recent example that you'd say is sort of a big like obstacle that you had to overcome, or a design mistake maybe that you feel like you've made that you would maybe want to correct. The hardest part is since I make educational content, so the hardest part is when I try to cover something that is like brand new, something that Unity just put out, and there's basically no educational content out there. So that is always the toughest part. So like the most recent thing was probably when they started talking about dots. And there was like no educational content, nothing on it. So trying to learn how dots works just by reading documentation, just by looking at the samples, that is definitely very, very difficult. But thankfully, that is not something that is a skill that you gain with over time. So yeah, if I was if I was to try learning how dots works just based on documentation and samples like 10 years ago, I don't think I would have made it. I don't think I would have managed to learn. Whereas now that I have quite a bit more experience, even though that is quite difficult and took me quite a lot of time to reorganize things in my head, especially because that's you need to think in a different way. Because that, yeah, reading documentation, going through the samples, that was quite tricky. But yeah, thankfully nowadays I'm I'm already pretty good at learning new things. So even though it is difficult, yeah, basically just keep pushing through it, keep learning just a tiny bit, and over time, yeah, you eventually gain quite a bit of knowledge. So that is probably the most recent thing, ⁓ how it was something that is quite a bit more unique. Because when it comes to like general things, thankfully nowadays I'm already Good enough and confident enough in my own abilities that I know any game idea that I think of, I'm pretty sure I can implement. So yeah, I I I might not know instantly what to build, but I know, okay, I can probably find the answer. I can Google, I can figure stuff out. So now so nowadays, thankfully I've already reached that ability, I guess, of anything I can imagine. I'm confident that I can build it. So when it comes to like limitations of things, ⁓ thankfully not too much. Yeah, I guess again, that that speaks to the power of experience. So that is why I constantly tell people. Make more things, write more things, because over time, yeah, you develop this skill where you are suddenly able to build basically anything you can imagine, which is a very great thing to have. Yeah. So you'd say the Dinky Guardians went like as smoothly as planned, or or did you find any sort of topping like tipping points for that? I mean, there were definitely there were definitely challenges, of course. I mean, every single game has challenges, but yeah, I think it went pretty smoothly. I mean, I think the the biggest challenge was ⁓ so basically on the gardens you are ⁓ populating one planet, but then you've got multiple planets. And each of those planets I intentionally wanted so that you can actually colonize those and you can set up orders on those. So like you got on this planet, you've got a dinky garden that is basically ⁓ the dinky is ⁓ mining for some stone, and then another dinky is basically carrying some stone. So I want that to work even when I go onto this other planet. So when I'm on this other planet, that logic, that simulation is meant to still be running exactly as intended, but of course you can't run it a hundred percent. That would not work. You can't keep ⁓ I don't know, like five hundred dinkies on Seven separate planets in memory at all times, that doesn't really work. The game would not run at all. So that was probably the biggest challenge trying to figure out how can I simulate that in a way that literally does work. So yeah, that took quite a lot of iteration, quite a lot of thinking, what were the various ways. And eventually I came up with basically just using just raw C sharp objects. So they had no visuals, no animations, nothing whatsoever. Just a vector three, just moving stuff around and just some timers as if it was making some kind of animation, but nothing visual. Then of course, that was not enough. So then I also had to like limit the the scale of that simulation. So run it on like ten times per second as opposed to six times per second. So yeah, that was a very interesting like optimization channel ⁓ challenge. How do I make all of that work? So yeah, that was very tricky. But again, thankfully already have quite a lot of experience. So even though that was difficult, over time just going at bit by bit until eventually the system works pretty well exactly as I wanted. Yeah, that's a pretty common like optimization trick. I mean, I just did video on like culling physics and making sure that 'cause there's no point even like Trying to consider physics objects that you're nowhere near, right? Like the engine does handle this stuff, but it's just like just turn it all off. You don't need it anywhere near what you're doing. and yeah, so I I I and I think that's one of the things that comes with that back end of game development where you're just like, okay, well, this needs to run smoothly. And you're just trying to optimize, you're just trying to find the wins where you can get them. And what the thing I find most fascinating about optimizing is just how aggressive some of the jumps can be from like ⁓ yeah. thirty like a fifteen fps to like twenty fps but then trying to get those last like when you're at when especially when you're up at like if you're trying to run at 60 and you're currently at 55 you have to do a ton of optimization to get those extra five frames. Right. But if you're at 20 and you want to get to 30, you can do a lot less optimization and get those extra 10 frames. That is a nightmare. It is but honestly that's that's one of the parts that I most enjoy. Yeah. Optimization for some reason for me, I don't know, the way my brain is wired I really enjoy seeing numbers go up. So yeah, I mean that's also it's also funny. I I remember back when I was playing World of Warcraft, when I was playing that with my games, with my friends. And I remember for them, they really hated the grind. They ⁓ back then it was basically going up to level 60, and what they enjoyed was basically being at level 60, doing the heroics, the raids, all those things. So for them, basically that was punishment until reaching level sixty, and that's when the game started. Whereas for was literally the opposite. For me, I really enjoyed going up level, seeing level up, level up, constantly going over time. And as soon as I hit 60, all of a sudden the game lost their ⁓ lost its interest to me. So yeah, I think for some reason my brain's very much wired towards trying to see numbers go up. Yeah, so for the numbers optimization. Right, yeah, right, right. For me, optimization is great. Just profiling, trying to see, okay, this function is running in like two milliseconds. Let's get it down to like one point eight, one point five, one. And yeah, I really enjoy that. So yeah, it's it can be very frustrating when you're like, I tried everything and I still gotta come up with like ten FPS. I don't know how. It can be very frustrating, but it's that's definitely a challenge that I always really enjoy. Well, okay. ⁓ I think we're sort of close to wrapping up here, man. ⁓ is there anything like what are you working on now? I I think you're you said you're working on your your like Yeah, my practice lab. Yeah practice lab course. Do you wanna just talk about that a little bit more and then and then we can maybe wrap up? Yeah, sure. I mean that's something that I started like it's been like three months now, so it's actually been quite a while. And it's actually an idea that I've had in my head for literally like I don't know, like five years, something that I've really wanted to make, which kind of goes back to what we were talking about a while ago. How part of the reason why I started my channel was because I want to experiment creating different things every single week as opposed to being married to one idea for one year. And this is kind of it. I always thought, okay, why don't I make some kind of program where I come up with like mechanics and you have to implement all sorts of mechanics? And basically I give the starting project files and you have to implement those. And that is basically what I finally was able to do. So yeah, it basically works like that. I come up with the starting project files. So, like the current one is the worker task system, which is meant to be in like a tycoon game where you've got like workers and they're meant to do tasks. Like this one cleans up the floor, this one carries some boxes from here to here. So that is like a standard thing in some kind of tycoon game. So I basically prepare the starting scene, which has a worker, and the worker can basically move around. And it's basically up to you to take that starting scene and implement those objectives, try to make it okay, there's some dirt here. The worker should go up there, clean up the dirt, should go to this box and move it around. So yeah, it's something that it goes back to basically my thing of trying to experiment new things. And with this, I basically have an excuse to come up with a new mechanic challenge every two weeks. So that has been really nice for me personally to come up with those. I mean, there's a billion things you can do. I mean, ⁓ when I first started this, I came up with a list of like what were the mechanics that I could make this just to know, okay, is this something that I can do consistently or is this something I just have like ten ideas and that's it? And no, as soon as I started thinking about there's like a billion different ideas of mechanics in every sort of game that you can build. Yeah. Game mechanics are essentially infinite. There's no no limitation on that. So yeah, I I've really been enjoying making that. So yeah, every two weeks come up with a new one. And then of course, trying to see people how they actually solve that one. That has also been really interesting, trying to see how people solve these challenges in so many different ways. Like one of those was like a ⁓ making a C C T V camera system. So the starting project files just had like ⁓ one area, like a warehouse, and had a character basically walking around. And the goal was basically for ⁓ the student to implement some kind of C T V camera system. So they had to place some cameras, and those cameras had to basically see something, and the player had to be able to see all various cameras at once and be able to click through those cameras on one place or the other. And yeah, some people did it very straightforward, just using like a render texture, and that's it, just one here, one here, one here. But there were some people that started using like some post-rossing, making it real look like CCV. Others had like some very cameras controls, adding like zoom with like different ⁓ text on the on the screen and so on. So yeah, it's also been really nice trying to see how. Different people starting from the same challenge, the same project files, and they all achieve those in completely different ways, both in terms of ⁓ visual output as well as in terms of the code that they define, those kinds of things. So yeah, it's ⁓ been really nice for me to make all these challenges and really nice to see how different people install them in various ways. So yeah, that has been a really nice ⁓ part of my past few months. It sounds like really you're kind of just designing little micro game jams for people. Yeah, yeah, kind of. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's very limited 'cause I intentionally don't want this program to like, I don't know, take an entire week of someone. I want to be something that people can combine with like their own projects and something like that. So it's meant to be very small, but yeah, it's essentially kind of like a instead of being a game jam, it's like a game mechanic jam. You just make one mechanic and that's basically it. Yeah. Yeah, I I think it's just it's interesting how you're taking you know, you said you you You're taking kind of your love for making games but just applying it into educational like scope related games. Like you're design you are design you are still designing games just in a yeah. In a ⁓ you know in a puzzle that you say you're calling them challenges. To me, that is still an aspect of game design, right? You're creating these you're just making entertainment games ultimately, right? Like to some degree. It's definitely different, but yeah, I do have to come up with like a list of what are the objectives that they have to do. So yeah, I do have to think a little bit about game design. How do I start from easy challenges, easy objectives to more hard objectives? So yeah, it does require a little bit of a design brain. Then yeah, building the starting scene, making sure that it actually works, because the entire purpose is not to be like some throwaway thing. It's meant to be for people to learn something from these mini micro mechanics that they can then apply to their own actual games. So yeah, it has to be something that is built decently and not something throw away. So yeah, ⁓ I mean like I was saying one the most powerful things is experience. So my goal of this program is to help people gain that experience. You just go every two weeks, just make a challenge. And if you do that consistently over time, I guarantee you will gain quite a lot of more experience that you can then apply to your own games. That's great, man. It sounds like it's working really well. And so you're just gonna be doing that now for then the next The next however. Yeah, I don't know. Sounds like can just do this forever. Yeah, in terms of content, I can definitely do. So yeah, let's see if I can do it. But yeah, so far, yeah, every two weeks making one. So I'm currently up to challenge number seven. And I started on zero. So technically there have been eight challenges already. So yeah, so far it's going well. Like I said, in terms of ideas, there's no ⁓ no end inside. So yeah, I will continue doing this as far as I can. If they start now, can they have access to all the challenges? Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so it's just gonna continually grow then over. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's ⁓ it's a community, so there's like a place for people to submit their solutions. So that part, the active community part, that one is limited to the last challenge. But all the previous ones, they still exist in the library. So yeah, someone can can join right now and go do challenge number zero just by themselves, just learn. Of course, they can see the solution because obviously every single challenge has the start the challenge where I give you the starting project files. And then I record the video, basically just a standard tutorial where I explain how I solved this challenge. So yeah, all of those exist forever. So yeah, it's definitely possible for someone to join right now and just binge through all the challenges or wait one year and binge through, I guess, twenty five challenges. Yeah, I guess ⁓ that is possible. Well, that's great. It sounds like it's going really well. So ⁓ yeah, so where can people go to do you have a URL that's easy to get to for that? Or ⁓ usually the one that I use is c monkey.co slash practice lab. That is the one. But if you if you just search for Game Dev Practice Lab, yeah, it will probably show up on Google and I've made some videos on my channel. So yeah, just Game Dev Practice Lab and it won't show up. Great. Cool. Well, I wish you the best of it. And it sounds like it's going really well for you. So it's always great to chat to you. And thanks for joining. I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Thanks so much for inviting me. I mean it's nice to be here in the beginning of this new adventure. So yeah, thank you. I hope this goes very well for you. Nice. Thanks so much, man. I'll see you again next time. Bye. Yeah, of course. Bye, man. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of About Game Dev. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you did, be sure to follow the podcast if you're listening on your favorite podcast app or subscribe here on YouTube so you don't miss future episodes. And if you'd like to support the show, you can join the Patreon where you'll get early access to every episode completely ad-free. along with all the other perks from my main channel. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.