Game Developers Are Doing It All Wrong

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Hey Thomas, that was my question! Thanks for the conversation, was good talking to you!

That's the actual meaning of "steal like an artist" It means that you must treat a game ( or any work of art ) that you love so much, as they were made by you, your own victory, then understand why it was so good. And then, you must think, "now what will be my next masterpiece after all that i've learned from my previous work?"

Thanks Thomas for your videos. With the help of my ahem ahem 10 min demo of my game Sky Harvest, I was able to get to front page of Steam and landed an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH IGN.!! Now, all I am waiting for is that sweet publisher deal, and I can call my indie game dream a reality. Thank you for your guidance and inspiration brother! 💪💖

This question is 100% spot on with where I’m at. I know how to program game mechanics, but I have zero creativity to create a story and how to design a game around a story. Your answer makes a lot of sense but it’s not what most of us want to hear. Lol. You can teach logic and programming that logic but you can’t really teach creativity but you can learn creativity through experience (I.e. playing and watching games and trying to reproduce what they did).

Literally the most real and on-point information I've ever heard come out of a Thomas Brush video. You're at your best when interacting with other designers/devs and not just trying to be a video faucet of obvious or subjective views on game design.

‘Designing Games’ by Tynan Sylvester 10/10 book

In my opinion what most games lack is answer to the question: why would I play this when I can go and play zelda or whatever game you try to copy?

The best way to learn about game design is to play games, watch other people play games, and listen to other people who like playing games talk about games they like, and don't like, to play. Video games are a very special artistic medium that is centered around giving the player an experience via a series of interactions. The more experiences and interactions that you expose yourself to, the more you'll be able to combine different interactions, or maybe even create new ones, to create newer and/or better experiences.

Personally, I think anyone that would tackle a book about game design, without specifics to a certain type of game, would be going down a humongous rabbit hole that would be very hard to get out of.

A good foundational knowledge of Game Design is paramount to creating a game. Knowing how to make your players do the things you intend them to is through a better understanding of the fundamentals.

For someone who is just getting started, start simple. You're likely learning coding and game design side by side (along with many other things). Recreate the simplest games. Make Pong, make Minesweeper, make Tetris, make Blackjack. As you get a foundation work your way up to slightly more complex games, focusing on games you like. Eventually you get to a game that's complex enough that instead of just copying the game, you're adding your twist. At some point you'll find inspiration for something that's not just a clone, start building that.

Circles back to the always promoted game design document. Writing up the features of the game early can seriously hinder the needed experimentation part. Especially if there was a lot of effort into compiling a long document. Its a psychological barrier to put effort into deviating from it. But that deviation might be exactly what is needed to have the better outcome. So better write your document after the prototyping stage when there is a gameloop to judge, and the rest is the production phase.

4:02 BRUSH BROTHERS!! Thomas you should totally have you’re brother on sometime!

Writing out what they do is the equivalent of transcribing music to learn what goes on "under the hood" of your favorite songs :D

I come from opposite background. I come from art background and know how to develop story , narrative, art style, model , texture etc BUT I can’t code . All my knowledge is kinda limited to unreal bp tutorials existing on YouTube. XD

I find that, once you have a prototype, it becomes alot easier to (quite literally) play with design and test out ideas, though building a prototype can take time and is intended for a different use than building a demo, although a lot of the systems from a prototype can usually be refined to work in a demo too

It's hard to stay motivated when you have a 40h job and family besides game dev, content like this helps me a lot to just keep going and gives me inspiration for the weekend, when I finally have 3-5 hours to work on my game. Please more Game-Dev Podcasts etc. , I can listen to them on my commute to work and keeps me dreaming about, some day, releasing my game - even if it takes a decade!

While I'm just starting game design as a hobby, I've done some design work on TTRPGs and such which I feel like translates fairly well into the ideas for designing video games (while the engine and medium itself is obviously different). I still have to come up with what's fun, what the loop is, what themes I want the mechanics to convey, what emotions I want it to invoke. I just then have to take that and play with it in a video game space and say "okay so this works well in TTRPGs because of the slower nature, but it's not so fun so sped up, how can I fix that?"

I’d recommend studying the history of this art form, not just games you enjoy. Try everything. Play and analyze games from every era/genre. You’ll have better ideas and designs if you have a broader perspective to draw inspiration from. I would even recommend studying as much art, storytelling, entertainment, and anything else you can outside of games too. Since video games are an amalgamation of every art form ever, anything can give you inspiration.