How This Game Dev Sold 1,000,000 Copies of His Game (In A WEEK) — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 007

Jay dude thanks for taking the time to chat man this is going to be I've been looking forward to this conversation for man how long's it been two months of planning to talk about uh I want to talk about cold to the land but before we even get into it let me know about this new update with cult to the lamb and by the way guys the link is in the description Thomas Anthony Andrew Maas brush it's an honor to chat to you um we've done this a couple times and I always love it it's always great and um as I said every time it feels like we sort of came up together because we both had games uh with the same publisher at the same time so it always feels like you know talking to an old friend let's talk about sins of the flesh which is this new update coming out um the day that we're recording this actually it's coming out now so this one's been really exciting because um we did we did One update already um but our updates tend to be like just huge so the last one we did was called Relic to the old fa and we doubled the length of the game we added like 12 hours of content um and kind of a lot of people sort of saying like shouldn't you be charging people for this um and we just felt like no we wanted to we wanted to get it to people because we know you know it's it's you know we're lucky to keep working on the game a lot of the time you know if you have a game and it doesn't find an audience you just have to like send it off and it's like y you know it's like sending a kid out into the world like un you know without all the necessary you know things that it needs to survive where we're lucky that we can kind of keep making Cult of the Lamb closer and closer to what we imagined when we started it so um so we've done that one and this is the second one and again we're just adding so much stuff it's so cool um and it's made quite a splash uh we've been quite controversial with it uh with our media our social media uh Team have been amazing um and um really got people riled up turns out there's a lot of horny people on the internet which um news to me I've been seeing your post dude and it's like what is he doing um but I think it's brilliant because it gets it I'll be honest man I'm super duper jealous because when we're going to talk about this in this conversation you guys have figured out verality and that is an amazing achievement for any game developer because it means you guys can just you've got eyes now and I don't see it ever ending um as long as you don't make a major screw up and you let's say you become AAA and just start making terrible games um yeah you've got a really like strong future you know we got um we got an awesome um uh social media and Community um manager um who've joined team Josie and Lor they're both just amazing and uh Josie particularly has a very um like an evil sense of humor and I think she enjoys um kind of winding people up but also is really good at and I think this is key is like knowing how far you can take it and then like going okay don't worry it was a joke because we um we've caused all sorts of issues this year we um we said we were going to delete the game uh when Unity announced its pricing change yeah we upset a lot of people um and it turns out um you know it was a joke it was a joke we're not deleting the game but we were upset you know and it was like and maybe we'll talk about this later but you know a lot of a lot of developers would be really hurt by the changes they were proposing so was cool to be part of that conversation um and it felt good to be able to kind of you know um speak up for people um but also kind of in our in our way which is to kind of be funny about it and and um right yeah so it's been really good I mean the key learning with sins of the flesh is that yeah again sex cells um news news to everyone shocking um but that's been the that's from the key I think what's really core to what we've learned is definitely you know we're making the game we're game designers so we want fun core systems but really you need to have some kind of hook that you're tying it all together on so like at the moment we're talking about our next you know the what what update we're going to do next and we've got all these cool ideas but we're sort of like right but how do we how do we tie that together into a coherent package and that's really crucial and I think a lot of um indie game developers don't like that sort of thinking where it's like well it shouldn't be about the marketing it should be about the brilliant idea but it's like yeah it should be about both and they're both really important well I asked I pulled my audience on Twitter I said um would you rather make half a million dollars every year for four years making a game you hate or would you rather just make a game you love with barely scratching by and the majority of game developers said I just want to scratch by and make something that I love yeah and I thought to myself I thought and I'm not saying there's a right answer here but if you want to be a full-time game developer and do what you and I are doing you've got to be willing to suffer a little bit through it's not that you sell out you just have to figure out like how what what's like my the suffering that I'm doing lately for our next game is I'm secretly pulling my audience to figure out like what's actually a good hook here for our next game yeah and so it's it's a painful process of like looking for the ideas that people really latch on to because the ideas that I think I'm going to latch on to aren't necessarily the ideas that are going to sell and make us money because at the end of the day when you're making decent money for your game there's this sort of as long as you don't treat it as long as you're not Addicted to Money there is a freedom that comes with that you know and you can you can make anything you want um and I I think that that all starts with a really really great hook yeah you know what I mean absolutely and I you know your question I've I've done both now um I would say um the it's it's almost like that's not that's almost like not exactly the that's not the choice you make unless you're going into to like make some kind of like very of the- moment mobile game kind of super casual thing where you know the the goal is to make as much money as possible you know um it's not so much that I would say you know we definitely didn't sell out we made something kind of edgy and that we really wanted to make but it's more about it's more about like how do you present your ideas so it's not like it's not selling out because I I don't feel that that's what C Lam is I think it's like it's a very to to me it's a very cool game that I'm really proud that we've made but it's more about we were just kind of we conscious about how do you present those ideas in a way that like people can consume immediately I kind of tell the story a lot about when we started the game we the core of the game was the the loop so it's like you've got your base and then you go out and you Dungeon Crawl and you find resources to come back to build up your base so that you can go get upgrade your character and go further and you know that that's the that was the core but the cult thing didn't come in till much much later because we spent about nine months kind of arguing about what the game should be about we had all these crazy ideas one of them was like you know you're a lost God on the back of a flying whale and we would go to conventions and talk to people like yeah we're working on this game you're this lost God and you and people's eyes would just like glaze over and they just be like I don't but then we so we we knew it wasn't right we just kept going when we found like you start a cult it's like three three words four words four words and um and people would get it straight away and it's just that power of communication so it's again like it's not it's not like choosing to sell out at all it's it's just like take your great idea but you know think about how you're communicating it how you you know how are you showing people and getting people interested how you getting people interested because again like I've done both and it's a lot more fun when more people play your game let me tell let me tell you that straight up it's it's not fun when You' poured four years into a game and you the next day you've got to go right I need to bring in the next deal because there's no money um well you you you told me this um I think it was a year and a half ago you were helping me sort of do some ideation with Twisted Tower which is our current game and you helped me so much with that and you formulated for me something that I in a lot of my audience has heard me say this but I call it the big butt principal and the the big butt B okay not B all right um yeah my mind is not as much in the gutter as yours you'll get that'll get right um but it's called the big butt principle and you were sort of the impetus of this uh the big butt principle is blank but it's it's for idea cre idea ideation for a game idea in a hook so blank but blank okay so for hollow night it's Metroid Vania but with bugs yeah right right with with with uh with portal it's firstperson shooter but with portals um with your game it's Binding of Isaac but cult s cult management St right or Rim world you know yeah exactly I mean that's how that's how we came up with it that it was like you know you know so much of it was like looking at what didn't work with our previous game and and saying and and responding to what didn't work and you know there'd be no Cult of lamb if we hadn't had our our our other games because we saw you know that you know people would see our previous games and think things like oh it's a kids game and write it off so we're like oh God we got to go we and we saw holl night which came out similar time or like we got to go darker and um things like single use content and it's like okay well you know you have 120 levels but once you played it once that's it and it's gone and and that's incredibly timec consuming expensive to make and um and in like you know with streaming it's like you don't even need to play it yourself you can watch someone else play it and then you've consumed it you don't need to buy it so like it's just so so you know looking at what are the things that um what are the games that aren't single use and and they were like Colony Sim Farm Sim games you know starg Valley Rim world and the other one that was biger at the time was the Rogue likes and you could play Enter the gungeon over and over and over again and you know the content just kept getting used and used and used and like Okay so let's let's take yeah like your idea stue Valley but enter the gungeon and I think you're absolutely right it's like seeing what works and giving it a unique hook and and the other point about why I think that's such a good idea is that it's that level of newness but familiarity so you're saying like um it's it's this game but this and people like oh I get that I know portal or like sorry I know firstperson Shooters and I love puzzles okay it's a first person shooter puzzles I get it and that is like but when you're like you know oh it's a it's a game where we do this and this and that and I'm sorry I can't think of a good example off the top of my head well I think the idea the original idea you had is a great example of that where you're a God on the back of a whale it's like it's hard to explain yeah you know it's really hard to explain and I I you helped me so much because I I that that call we had a year and a half ago because it I realized that the shorter the description of your game the more likely it is that it's going to be a good idea um that's a good way to look at it yeah because if it's kind of like it's like sales it's like a Salesman needs to be able to get his point across he needs to knock on someone's door and be able to sell someone something in 15 seconds or they're out you know and the same is true with games and and and it you know people might be hearing this and be thinking like the light bulbs going off and they're like oh it's that easy no it's not easy at all like to be able to make a threw description of your game that is actually uh creates an itch in somebody is so difficult and you you did it uh a previous guest Gavin who created choo choo Charles spider train he actually beat you in terms of the shortness spider train like it's like that's all you need y that's all you need um and I I just think it's such a it's such a sad it's a sad piece of advice to say f like to obsessively focus on a hook it's sad because I think most game developers they don't know how how to to obsessively focus on a hook because they want so badly to see their product come to life and so they start too early and so I wanted to ask you um you mentioned this I think it was in our previous conversation you said I don't think I'm ever going to make a game where I don't obsess about the hook first ever again yeah um yeah do you remember saying that or do you believe that still um yeah I think well you know Ju Just to go back to the Choo Cho thing I think like SPID trained but spider you know so it what your definitely holds true I think Thomas the Train Thomas the Tank Engine but he's a spider train but spider um and I think simple is hard simple is really hard because it's easy to get complicated it's like well that's not quite working okay throw on another system and then let's over engineer this until it gets to the you know but keeping something pure and and and simple is very hard and yeah I think I think definitely um I would I would not like i' probably differentiate it in like if I had the time and an idea where I didn't have a hook I might Tinker with it and and kind of come up with something but I would never push it forward as like a proper massive monster project I would never take it to the other guys without either accepting that they'll make me turn it into like a clever hook or I've got a clever hook kind of thing because I just think that that was the I think there was like two really powerful things with Cult of lamb and which which led to a success aside from just timing and and amazing um PR team and and just the whole team being amazing you published with devolver which devolver did an incredible job with in marketing efforts I assume yeah it's like their bread and butter um oh that that's so great um so well can I ask you you know do you feel like your previous projects had a hook but not not to the the same extent no definitely not and it was never something that we thought about I mean so our two commercial games were the adventure powers and never give up never give up was a sort of more of a sort of work for higher project where we we collaborated with a publisher the adventure P was kind of our baby and it was kind of the game that we kind of imagined you know the the IND the game Dream were like this is the game we're throwing our hearts and souls into it for like three four years this is the one that's going to going to take off and of course didn't but you know uh we needed that to get to Cult of the Lamb you know so um it its Hook was really like jimmied in at the end and it was sort of like you know it was 2016 so the hook was really like L random you know it's like h l random back then that was kind of still interesting now not so much now but it was kind of like we would tell people this we would we learned like by going to Convention after convention after convention talking to thousands of people trying to pitch it looking at their faces when we talked about it and seeing when they would smile and so you know it's like it's a you're a young boy with a magical giraffe in your backpack and you're on a quest to rescue your dad before he's turned into a hot dog and you would kind of see the sort of like smirk with the giraffe and then the hot dog thing you'd sort of see the like oh smile kind of thing so yeah there was definitely that maybe that's where we learned it I I would probably wouldn't take so much of the credit Julian who's um so Julian myself and Jim founded massive moner and and he Julian was definitely the one who's like marketing first is kind of drilled it into us and I was like I sort of came to them and I was like hey look at my cool loop you know the the the base building in the D and he's like that's great but it sucks because what's your Loop like what's your what's your what's your what's your hook sorry so I had the loop he he insisted on the hook um and then so the adventure Pal's hook wasn't it wasn't a hook it was it was silly but it wasn't a hook silly as a hook which isn't great I think um there was no like you know you had the giraffe in the backpack who would have cool abilities and things but it was you know it was just um not strong enough a player fantasy um and then you've got the other the other aspect of it um where you promise the player so in the cult of the Lamb okay you're you're you're starting a cult and the player goes okay that means I can sacrifice people I can have rituals I can you know and for a long time we knew we had to have those things in because that's what the expectation is but you know there aren't a lot of games that do that so we didn't really have anything we kind of you know like if you're going to make a Metroid Vania you know what you're making right and then it's up to you to make a really really good one um but you know the format right you you find your double jump here and then that allows you to go open up that area and you know you know what the structure is but for the majority of cult of the land we didn't know what it was we didn't know how it work now we do which is which is great but at the time we didn't and we were figuring it out so we knew we had these promises to the players that we had to fulfill which was right how do we make a player want to sacrifice these followers and you know such a core of the game is making people care about their followers um that was absolutely you know it was almost like when the game got um uh marketed as a rogue like I was almost surprised when that first happened because I'm like it's it's not about the Rog like it's about the and it's about the followers it's about the game is about the followers that's what it's about and it's about making you do increasingly evil things Without You realizing it until you go you know oh my God I'm a monster because you you've got the story of the game but you've got the meta story which is the player becoming you know becoming evil essentially um and so yeah and so that that's kind of you you have your hook which helps you but it also holds you to account where you have to provide you know it's it's crazy Jay that you bring that up because I was just sort of mentoring somebody today about YouTube uh because he's interested in starting a YouTube channel and you know I make games but I also make YouTube content about games and I said do you know what the two most important metrics in a YouTube video are and he didn't know so I said it's click-through rate and retention so clickthrough rate being your thumbnail AKA a really good hook a really good title really good hook right yeah then the algorithm doesn't stop there the algorithm goes okay they clicked but are they going to watch right how how long are they going to watch and that's retention yeah and that's that is exactly what you're talking about yeah you can have a great hook but if you don't fulfill the promises of the hook you're going to get mostly negative reviews or or even mixed you know sometimes I would prefer to get mostly negative over mixed um just because at least there's some some polarization going on there but the the point is is that I I wouldn't even know where to begin with a a creating a cult management Sim um or you know it's it's so so so difficult to fulfill that promise of that hook yeah um my question to you is is that I mean I kind of want to move this into the the creation of the game the the technical aspects um let but let's start with that fulfilling the promise of the hook was this a difficult uh yeah let's talk about the the design of it so like the game design document and and how you crafted this because I think that was your primary job right like the design of the thing yeah yeah yeah like mechanics and how it worked together and then let's also talk about the technical side of the tools and and how you created this thing so but let's start with the your your part of the job here okay yeah I mean absolutely it it was very hard it it was very very hard and we didn't know for the longest time and we knew we had to do it it got to the point where we wrote a list of like we went on these websites like what makes a cult kind of thing and we came up with a list and we went through it like do we have this do we have indoctrination do we have like um you know uh belief systems do we have um rituals do we have you know um all of these things that we were like had to like tick off and we had to make it meaningful in the loop of the game which was really hard so um I think the sacrifice is quite a good example where we put it in quite early because we knew we needed it right um and that's kind of why you have like it's the sacrific like these tent tentacles come out of nowhere because it was still early enough in the game to think oh yeah we might have like you know culu tentacles all over the place and we we didn't really end up having that and really it would make more sense if like the one who Waits came up and grabbed you know it but it that's just to kind of illustrate how early we put that in before we had any meaning to do it um and you would lose a follower which was you know we wanted you to invest in the followers we we looked at the followers as crops and Stu so you we wanted you to maintain them you know that's why every day you can go up and um and interact with them and you know improve them and stuff you and then you get something back out of them so you know crops and St Stu was how we looked at at the followers but so we we didn't have anything and for a while it would give you gold but there comes a point in the game where you know you've got enough economy that you don't need gold and so the loss of a follower isn't isn't worth it and it wasn't until like really the last minute that we thought actually what if it means you automatically level up your character and it and it was such like a like oh my God that's fantastic because I think jimp came up with that actually and it just meant that suddenly You Not only was it like a meaningful thing to do but you were directly doing it for your own personal benefit you were you know you were being very evil you very um uh self uh what's the word you you you're doing it for your own self-interest right it's you become extremely self-interested you're willing to you know hurt and kill your followers so that you can do better and it just it was fantastic when that when that went in um so did you plan all this out in a gdd oh God no and the reason being tell me about that cuz I you know a lot of game developers right now are probably listening thinking uh you know how how what's his design process here because the professional quote unquote way to do things yeah is to write all this out before you even start your game um what was your process like I think um well I it would sum up in one word um iteration it was just brutal iteration and being brutal with each other and so making stuff you're making the game and then you spend all this time and money making something and then you scrap it and then do something else exactly we we got to the point where we were like a AB testing systems so we would just have a Boolean and we just say like you know is are you you know another good example is the sermons um hooking them up to leveling up your character again came very late which is crazy right because um the whole Loop of the game is the followers make you better in the dungeon and the dungeon makes you better for the followers because you've got resources kind of thing and we just didn't see that till till right at the end so we had like for example we we just have Boolean that you know uh is it like is the sermon mode play a level up true or false or is it you know or you getting gold or you know something whatever yeah and we would just get so into that process where we just be like right a like rather than we argued so much that we would just be like rather than arguing let's try both that's that's where we got to where it was just like okay you got that idea you got I I don't have the time or energy to argue put them both in and let let's try them and we got to we started saying let the game tell us what it wants to be and that man yeah yeah so so I'm sorry to interrupt you like the I'm just fascinated because are you opposed to a gdd like what are your thoughts on a gdd because like I feel so guilty when I do what you're saying and I do it all the time which is it's it's it's quote unquote wasteful um you know like the the the fiscally respons responsible person in me who is greedy with time I want I I I feel guilty because I'm like I should have been able to plan this better I should have been able to plan this game design better and then I sort of slap myself on the wrist and and think I wasted my team's time and what you're saying is no this is a necessary process of any great game to to build it out as opposed to write it out um yeah I would say because we were doing something um that we were doing a lot of things that we hadn't come across before so again going to that like Metroid Vania it's like yeah write it out fine that's I don't I'm not opposed to gdds but we were moving so fast that we didn't have time to write and maintain a gdd because it just wasn't right so we had to write stuff for Publishers to get funding and things but from that point on we would like I I do I do a lot of slideshows or I use a tool called Miro uh where I'll like plan it all out and stuff and just but then like that's what we're doing now this week that's what we're doing and then that's like scrapped and then next week it's like right this we're going to move this around and this is going to go here um so no I'm not against gdds um at all but they've just never they didn't work in this case because we just couldn't um we just didn't have a time or Manpower or energy or needs because we were we were such a small team as well and so kind of moving so quickly that you know ideas would be scrapped before people had even heard of them you know and well it reminds me of um it reminds me of like um like dietitians or like um weight training or you know everybody has the right way to do something and for me like you know I've I've met people and even for me personally I can do a specific diet because it's told I'm told this diet's going to help you right um because for me like I have stomach pain and I don't really know why so I've been trying different diets and I I've been finding out that all of these solutions that you Google they're right for specific people but sometimes you have to figure out what works for you and for your body and I think the same is true I think the same is true with a game some teams function better I think with with that collaborative sort of destructive I I don't know what the a better way to put it it's almost like just this messy destructive process of building and smashing and building and smashing yeah um and I'm that way like I I I talked about it in one of my videos um like five months ago about how I felt so bad because I kept changing things on my team I have a 3D artist and then a developer and I'm just constantly changing stuff and I feel guilty because I'm like you guys put so much work into this but we're going to scrap it we're going to scrap this entire level U we're going to scrap this entire mechanic it's gone we're just going to delete the code and they put they would put in weeks of work yeah and it's encouraging to hear you say this because in my in my core I'm slowly learning that every time I create a gdd it becomes irrelevant because we're just we just move on without it you know we just leave the Train's left a station we it's just we say goodbye to the gdd and we forget about it becomes this sort of document in a dust bin um and so I'm encouraged to hear you say this yeah because I think for my next game I just want to sort of just feel it out you know as opposed to try and type it all out definitely and you need that and you need to be responsive to what how the game is feeling and and coming together I think the the maybe the caveat that I would I think and I think you're doing this as well and this is probably why your team is okay with you scrapping it is is you all know where you're going or what maybe you know where you want to end up so we had very very clear like three design pillars so the design pillars like it's quite a common thing where it's like um you know it's like the the combat the cult and the experience of something other you you pick three like defining principles that become your pillars of the game um and the power of that is like every decision you then make going forward has to must reinforce one of those one or more of those pillars and if it doesn't even if it's a cool feature you You' got to get rid of it because it it muddies the vision and the more we simplified again the more we simplified the um the game the better it got um the more focused it became the more we could like you know hone The Experience so I I would say yeah absolutely that that has to be the process and we have something at massive monster that drives uh producer crazy and it's called team sneaky boys and what it is is um it's similar to that thing about like you know there's no point arguing it let's just try them both and everyone will clearly see which one is better be then then there's no argument because like well obviously this is better it's a similar thing where like for example the the the the way we have weddings in the game so one of the rituals is you can marry a follower you can marry as many followers as you want it's your cult you know and rather than me try to convince the guys that this was a good idea I just put it in and I didn't even tell them about it so they came across it when they were playing the game and love that my feeling was like look if we talk about it it's like what's the morality here like is this okay what's this mean what what about all the you know I don't and someone's going to go I don't think it's a good idea I'm not you know but if it's like well it's done it's in like what do you do you want to take it out because we need like six rituals and that's one so great we can now do F you know it's like it's like a fade compete it's done so like it's more effort to get rid of it you know and that's um but that's like brilliant that's so we caught team sneaky boys and it's very uh stress inducing for everyone who isn't on team sneaky Boys on team sneaky boys is really fun because we're just like the game needs this and everyone knows it's right you know everyone knows the game does need this but there isn't time for it so it's like well we can do this in an afternoon if no one is watching us let's just get it you know and so it's it's a Force for good but it does Drive the The Producers uh well one producer that we have um insane and Julian was producing during the development of the game and he but now he no longer produced because we have a very talented producer called Zia and but now Julian has joined team sneaky boys so I you know we're slowly winning everyone over but the the idea is like you're not you're not pushing out deadlines you're just like quickly getting something in that wasn't scoped but everyone knows that it makes the game better for example sins of the flesh we um we have a breeding mechanic in it with the followers so you you take them to the mating tent and you invite them to breed and it's consentual they decide if they like each other or not based on a relationship status um and if they do then uh they come out holding an egg um and that's all I'll say about what happens in there it's just for racings and stuff I love that that's so fun and I'm just thinking mechanically what what you can do with that yeah it's really cool well we had um the egg would just hatch and You' have like a fully grown follower but we realized you know right before the deadline it's weird we need there should be a sort of baby face there should be you know children or babies or whatever and so that was a that was a job for team sneaky boys there was no time for it it wasn't scoped in but we knew we needed it and so we got it in and there are some interactions you can have with them uh you've got to sort of um you've got to sort of check in with them if you don't and they're a bit neglected when they grow up they'll leave the cult um so you've got to make sure you're checking in with them and stuff um you know nothing bad can happen to them they're not part of rituals it's all you know but um that we knew that had to had to go in um and so we just kind of snuck it in and again that's like you can't gdd that because um you you don't know that you need it until you're playing the game yeah you know this came playing the game and going oh it's weird that we don't have this so I don't I don't see how in a very you know system complex game you can have a gdd that covers every eventuality yeah and you know this this really brings me to something I want to talk about which is the the benefits the benefits of working with a team versus working solo um I think the majority of the listeners right now are aspiring solo developers um and I was wondering if you could give me a few a few reasons why you love the opposite of solo okay um and I'm get I'm getting there I used to be a solo developer uh for pinstripe then with Never song I brought a developer on and then now I've got a much bigger team and it's so oh clearly it's more expensive but is it I mean it can presses time down so I mean yeah there's a whole conversation about there that is it actually more expensive but would you mind giving me some like some positives and maybe trying if you were to convince somebody if they had some money to spend why they should work with the team well first of all to all you you know developers watching good luck um it's it's tough out there but keep keep going and um you can do it um and it's an amazing industry to be a part of um um so so being solo so I started as a solo developer making like small little mini flash games and I would sort of collab with other people so I kind of did both and I found that um working with someone else and this is not like hiring a team necessarily I'm talking about like finding Partners which is very different um you know so you've got like people that share the vision with you um versus like you know hiring hiring a starting a company and having you know and they have a revenue stake yeah exactly so people who you know this is like starting a band really you know you you find people who do different things to you but also you know are insanely talented so what I did when I was making Flash games with almost every game for the first sort of year or so I would partner with someone different and then out of all the people that I partnered with um Julian and jimp were the ones that stood out as like amazing and so that's why when we started massive moner those were the two guys that I thought like I wanted to work with and you know that we were already you know we'd already started like the adventure poers and jimp and I were kind of already um you know talking about already like collaborating a lot like quite frequently by that point but finding people who I kind of always thought like you you wake up and they've done this incredible artwork that just inspires you to to be better at what you do um is just amazing and it's like it's not like you know one plus one it's like you know or one time one is still one but like it's like a multi it's a multiplier right having people who are like better than you at stuff and coming up with you what you you never want to be the smartest person in the room you because why are you in that room you want to be surrounded people who by people who are better than you and you think wow why am I in this room how did I get how did I manage to like wangle my way into this room yeah that's and are you considered the team lead Jay I think all three of us would answer yes to like okay ourselves being the team lead uh we we we found um an amazing kind of like balance with the three of us where we all kind of have our own strength and our own responsibilities and and we're kind of remarkably always on the same page with stuff and if we're not again it's that thing of just like well if there's an argument let's just try both and see what works kind of thing and I think that was sort of forged in the fires of um a very very stressful development during a pandemic um so the three of us are thankfully in a very good position in terms of the partnership um but yeah I think all three of us would would say that we are the leader so well what what about so you've got you've got you know skill skill you've got that in the bag and and you're said like you said it sort of exponentially increases the the the quality of the game because everybody's working off each other's energy yeah what about what about drama and arguments um like you said it's like a band right well every band breaks up yeah because of drama right and and um so so I'm curious can you can you give give me some thoughts on any drama with the team and and yeah you guys manag that because you mentioned arguments yeah so what's really good about the three of us is we all live on different continents and so we don't interact with each other very often um which is good because I think when we're all together it's just this insane energy insane party that just like wrecks us um so for we're all in the same room I don't know how well that would that would work you'd have too much fun have too much fun and you know being able to just have your own space I think we all kind of like having our own space working on what we we do and then try to impress each other certainly a lot of C of L was me feeling like the game Loop wasn't there but the artwork was incredible and I kind of needed to hold up my my end of it um and you know really feeling that pressure of like not wanting to let the others down and I know having spoken to um jimp that he felt the same with the artwork he felt that you know so much of it was him trying to impress us with with the art and feeling that we were maybe being a bit harsh on him coming back and being like you got to make it less cute you got to make it you know and there's a lot of that so I mean that's you know such such a big part of it and I think so you guys critique each other oh yeah yeah yeah but you know less now because we're our role now is changing more into directors of the company but certainly during development it was like yeah brutal like brutally honest with each other um no holding back because again we all knew that it was like for the best of the all three of us wanted the same thing right we all it's not about like you got to leave your ego at the door it's not about how clever your idea is it's like does this make the game better going back to those three pillars and the three of us knew we all like had this amazing opportunity with devolver we had this game Loop that you know was familiar enough to be recognizable and understandable but new enough to be interesting you know we kind of knew we really really had to make this work in our previous games of flop so it was like we knew this had to be it all three of us were on the same page and all three of us would you know check in every day and go well this is not good this is a problem this and you know it got really depressing like really in the middle of it it was brutal um you know as I mean it's video games at the end of the day I have to get some perspective but you know when it's your whole it's your whole world you know it was hard because you throw your heart and soul into something you work so hard and then the next day it's like right well there there was no there was never any like a well done you fix that it was like right next problem next problem next problem and um that again you all have to be fully committed to the mission um to weather that storm um did you ever have situations where in the past where you've worked with a team where where members weren't committed to the mission and you didn't really know how to handle it yeah um we so one point in massive monster we had a lot more people as part of it and we were much more of a sort of collective where there were much more games going on and different teams working on different games at different stages and it the idea of the company was very different to what it is now um and that was really hard because you know when you are working with people and things aren't going the right way and you've all got different Visions um you know no matter how much you like everyone that's really not a good situation to be in so I I would say maybe go go slow when you're finding your team if you rush into things and you're committed to to situations and people you know no matter how amazing they are and talented they are and they've all like doing amazing things and gone on to make amazing games um um it's it's like I again sorry going back to my story of The Flash stuff it took like a year for me to like just work with people see what works see what didn't um and then you know landing on these these two guys that um it's it's not easy to find amazing people um or no let me say that again it's even when you find amazing people you might not have the right project or you might not be quite aligned so I think been very lucky with jimp and Julian in that we the three of us wanted to make this thing and we had a very clear Vision once we finally settled on it so well speaking sorry speaking of vision um one of the major concerns I think with solo developers this used to be a major concern of mine before I decide like when I was considering whether to build a team my concern was I'm not going to get a cohesive Vision here um I can do it better myself you know I'll write the music and I'll do the art and blah blah blah and I didn't I didn't believe that I could act as a director and and I was kind of scared of acting as a director um of a video game and I that's what I do now is I mainly just direct I spend most of my time just creating Concepts and and putting together task lists on cck clickup where certain people are doing certain things I I spend a lot of time in the documentation um I Source music um and sort of basically outline the vision of the game to each individual contractor that's working on the game and I found it to be an incredibly cohesive game um and so my question to you is is that have you ever felt or what are some things that you do to ensure that the vision is cohesive do you guys just click or do you really have to work like really overc communicate with each other about the vision of the game because it sounds like there's nobody at the top right no director so how do you how do you ensure that cohesion exists well we're very much like I mean there is there we're sort of like you know the three-headed dog you know this Cerberus or whatever um you know it's it's we know where we want to go with the company I think we know what we want to do with the game now that the game it's it's I think there are like two answers if you'd ask me this during the development of the game versus now like a year and a half afterwards you know it's a very different company it's a very different state of the project where the game exists and everyone knows what it is and everyone understands the vision right so we've got like people got an amazing uh writer JoJo who like takes what we've done and you know elevates it and makes it more you know and we have amazing programmers Harrison Anthony who like take you know are able to kind of go and run with the things we might say oh we need some more traits for the followers and the next day Harrison's kind of like oh look I've done these five traits and they're like wow that's wow amazing so you know it's it's it's it's trusting people finding the vision again like we everyone knows what the game is on the team so we all know which direction going and then it's a case of like say like from my role would be like right for this update the theme is about getting the dungeon better so like say relics of the old Faith that's what the idea was because that was the criticism we had was you know the the dungeon side of the game's not as deep as Hades kind of thing and you're like well obviously it's not because we've got two sides of the game and they've just done one game so how you know but that aside you know I'm not bitter about it um that was the kind of focus and it was and then we could sort of delegate and kind of from that stru overriding structure it's like well how can we hit that okay let's introduce this Relic system and then like as you get more and more granular you can hand over more and more stuff and and then people come to you with great ideas again again mentioning Harrison he came up with the photo mode by himself he just presented it to us and I think we're really part of the sneaky boys oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely definitely he's like if he's not he's not allowed to do that right right actually yeah you sneaky boyed me with the phot thought about that no G have to have words with them watch out Harrison yeah um so I don't know I I don't know if I'm answering your question but it's a case of like yeah being clear on the vision and then yeah you know for for example for this sins of the flesh we started out in a very different direction uh we thought it'd be fun to have like um like seasons and we thought like hey it'd be cool if you have a winter and you have a summer and blah blah blah you know um and it was just turning into and that everyone was on board with the vision and and then then we had to like we realized it was becoming too big and we had to kind of have a have a call with everyone explain that despite the fact that You' just spent months working on all this stuff we're going to completely pivot and we're going to make it about this instead and actually everyone was amazing everyone was like okay great that sounds I'm excited about this new idea and I and hopefully that's because everyone knew why we were doing it everyone knew that like we we all want what's best for the game which is what's best for the company which is what's best for everyone on the team because you know the game does well the company does well everyone does well and you know sharing the success kind of thing so um yeah hopefully that's that's what we're going for well you know I that's my my biggest fear before I started a team and I think a lot of listeners who are are they're probably afraid right now to consider building a team I think what they're afraid of is sort of steering the ship into the ground or constantly making mistakes as a a leader um and that I think that causes a lot of people to just say I'll just do it myself so I can avoid the social pain of you know because you become really good friends I'm super close with my team now like I the other day I was thinking about like sometimes I keep tabs especially when you're 30 years old it's good to it's good to be think in your 30s it's good to be like okay do I have friends you know cuz you can get so caught up in work and you can get so caught up with your kids I know you have two kids I've got three the third one on the way and so you get so caught up in family and so caught up in work that you go okay do I now how are my friends do I have friends and I listed out all my friends so I do have friends uh just so everyone knows congratulations at the yeah congratulations it's it's not easy but at the top of my list the people that I immediately thought of were was my team um and so you don't want to let let your friends down you know uh and so whenever you whenever you spend like you said like a Seasons mechanic um for us it was like um an entire chapter of our game that looked like uh sort of designed like maybe the Teletubbies would design this entire hotel and my my 3D artist Felipe spent I think it was a month on that and I just one day decided you know what I don't want to I don't like it you know I wantan to I want to sort of scrap that and do something else and I just felt so guilty you know it sort of racked my brain for weeks just feeling guilty um and so I just I guess I'm trying to figure out because you've been doing this longer than me with a team I'm just trying to figure out should I feel guilty about that you know like at what point is it at what at what point is it abusive to your team and their time when you're constantly making changes you know yeah I think there's definitely a balance there I think what probably I mean I don't know was was was Philip Philipe pretty pissed off at you or did he take stride no he he's dude he's that's the problem is he's so kind about everything that I can never fully know um I don't think he would I don't think he would ever be mad um and so you want to make sure that that's that's that's the kind of team member you want but it also means that you never really know as a leader if you're doing a good job okay because my team is so cordial and kind to each other okay and I'm thinking man you know am I am I being am I taking advantage of people's time because I'm so flippant with ideas well Filipe if you're listening you gota you got to start roughing up you gota you got to hold time to account for this stuff because this is great no no I mean I I assume he's not mad because he knows you've got a vision and he trusts a vision um there's this amazing movie called touching the void and this guy basically is mountain climbing gets cut loose from because he's like sliding off so they the people he's climbing with have to cut him loose and and he falls into this um into this cave or whatever and he wakes up and it's just this nightmare situation and he says I just had to choose left or right and it didn't matter whether I was right or wrong I was making a decision and that's what you have to keep doing making decisions because really you know it's it's probably not you know the individual decision is probably not going to be life shatteringly changing you just got to keep moving and you have to give guidance and you have to feel everyone has to feel like well someone's steering this ship right it's it's you know I'm I'm doing my bit but someone's steering the ship and they're making those decisions because you know the the island is that way so we're we're moving that you know we're making this decision to cut that loose and turn that way a little bit um and I think it's just having that overarch ing you know and you know the overarching direction overarching vision and then everything comes down from there you know it's like you you yeah got a big big painting that you're making big watercolor you start with big clotches of color and then you fill in the details right so as long as you've got your you know you know the sky is going to go there and the mountains are going to go there um you know the actual details don't matter so much and they can be filled in later as long as you've got that overall Vision that's that's kind of what I what I what I think um and I think that's what people want and they're looking for they want to enjoy their job and they want to know that they're contributing to something that's moving in the right direction right well let's let's let's sort of you know finalize this thought process because you talk about Vision a lot um oh do I so in in Orit yeah yeah so in order to in order to make sure the team is is is happy and everyone's work working and and and um sort of multiplying each other's skills it's good to have that Vision so I know you mentioned the three pillars yeah so can you can you again clarify those three pillars and those those are correlated to your vision right yeah I guess they are how would you sum up your vision in three bullet points like what are the what's your vision for the game in in three bullet points I mean what like we could do it live now like with um Twisted Tower what's what's the three pillars yeah so for for me that my pillars are I sort of think of them as the hooks so I I have three hooks for the game okay um so visually it has to feel like Bioshock without a doubt but with a Twist so with like a Willy Wonka twist so Bioshock but Willy Wonka there there you go there you go that's number one yeah number two uh mechanically mechanically um it just needs to be just solid halflife firstperson shooter mechanics I don't really think there needs to be any other twist there the only twist is like sometimes you can move the tower and change the tower and change the Halls so it would be something like halflife Half-Life mechanics or or halflife Gunplay but uh you can change your environment that kind of thing you know okay and then the third one would be the uh the story and so the story needs to be um uh it would be something yeah it would be it would be Willy Wonka meets Bioshock so similar to the first one but it has to be a tearjerker story at the end so highly focused on story which is not necessarily the smartest wisest decision for today's market but that's what I wanted to do that's my forte so I said I'm going to focus on the story so really it's going to be it has to be a tearjerker story um despite it being crazy and violent and gross and weird and strange there needs to be an emotional through line okay um that's like the three Vision points yeah emotional because then you've got every decision you make every conversation you have with an NPC can feed back into that you know can set up this tear jacking moment and um yeah every every weapon you put into the game has to reinforce the halflife combat uh weapon play thing and then every yeah every visual design you you know you're not going to put pirates in it because it doesn't fit your Willy Wonka um aesthetic right so every single every single decision you make um has to has to trickle back down to one of those um right you know and if you come up with like oh but what if you go into space for a bit like no no cut that out make that another game um you've got to just stay focused um on those three things so and so the team will as long as the team sees this sort of simplified three bulleted sentence you feel like that's a great way to unify the team yeah definitely because everyone knows where you're going right I think um when they were making the God of War reboot they famously hung the three pillars up like in um somewhere like as you came into the building or something this is like a story and so every single day you were just seeing that and reinforcing that um everything comes back to these three three points what whatever they may be well to add Clarity to these three points do they this is just helpful for for for people listening because they might they might have trouble coming up with their three pillars are they do they have a a category each one like mechanics story and visuals or is it just anything it's the way we do it is just anything I think like for us it was like one of them was like player fantasy we had to you know the feel like you had a cult kind of thing um God I can't remember off the top of my head at this point what our three are but there was a point where I could recite them yeah um but yeah it was like yeah cult combat and player fantasy or something like that um gotcha or like yeah so it's it could be theme it could be I think maybe it's different for each game but it's um yeah it's just having those three points that you can go back to cool okay so let's let's um speaking of speaking of leading a team um and and and making great decisions for your team and picking a left or a right let's shift gears to Unity versus unreal okay um okay you guys you guys were pretty outspoken on Twitter about the unity debacle um what what are your thoughts on on this whole situation with unity and then finally what are you going to end up doing for your next game if you don't mind me asking and if you do mind Jay we can cut this we can cut it yeah so um one thing about so so the context is Unity uh announced that they would be charging something like 5 cents for every install um which I think was um a very shortsighted and very greedy uh decision because I I believe it was going to be retroactive as well so if you've already sold a bunch of games you suddenly owe them you know potentially millions of dollars depending on how successful your game is um I think ended up saying that wasn't they ended up saying that wasn't going to be the problem is how do you measure that you know it's so it's such a convoluted mess and so at first I was like Unity can't retroactively do stuff and so they ended up taking that they that away but then I realized how are they supposed to measure that they can't even measure it they had their own they said they had their own tools um but then I don't want to trust them you know it's I don't want to trust their algorithm they they yeah absolutely I mean it was just this big big mess um they had to backtrack on a lot of it I think they they are still going to introduce pricing but it's much lower and their CEO has has since stepped down um I well after we put out our tweet Unity were very quick to reach out to us and say hey can we talk to you um so what was your Tweet if you don't mind me asking uh we said that what so the the changes were supposed to come in in January and so so he said like buy cam now because in January we're deleting it um because of unity's changes and we we had people like crying and people took us seriously and I I totally understand but I I feel like it was um you know it was a joke that was said kind of through gritter teeth because we we were Furious like we were all like Furious and you know even even if it's like doesn't affect us which it would have done and then when they said it wasn't retro active it would wouldn't affect us so much um uh we still thought about like you know all our friends who make games like this would absolutely destroy people and people who like were launching on uh Game Pass and things like that that oh yeah that one was tough they would make they would launch a loss you know it in it's just crazy crazy um and so yeah so we we they were very quick to speak to us and we kind of let them know we we we felt very very upset by these changes that they were being that were being proposed um and I'm sure they were completely understanding because they reached out to me too and were like they were almost embarrassed they were like I we don't know what's going on Thomas we're sorry this wasn't our decision something happened please like basically just like forgive me but it's not really my fault CU I don't know what happened but but that was also such a waste of time right because it's it's like well they're just putting out PR people to kind of calm people down and it's very they like the person I spoke to is extremely Charming very likable but it didn't change anything and it was kind of what what are we even what are we doing here like why are you like speak to someone meaningful or don't don't waste our time um and so you know fortunately they've backpedal the fee they are introducing a fee it's much much lower but it is still you know quite a change and I feel like if they'd introduced this first we would still be outraged but because we were so outraged um we kind of letting this slide I don't I don't know Jay like I looked their new pricing model is on the surface and well I should say currently it is better than unreal's um pricing model yeah however the the big question here is how long is this going to last you know are they going to pull the rug out from us yes in a year yeah you know and that that makes me wonder like what are you guys going to do are you like cuz like dude my blood runs with unity like I understand it so well yeah and I open I opened up unreal and it's not unreal's problem it's my problem it's like there like the English language versus like Spanish it's like well they're both great languages you know what you just like one over the other because you were raised in it you know the same is true with unreal I was raised in that way of thinking and you know you were a flash guy I was a flash guy yeah and so going from flash to Unity maybe you disagree but like for me it was a smooth transition cuz there they were similar in a lot of ways um whereas I I opened up unreal dude and I was so confused I didn't understand the Paradigm it it was so bizarre yeah um what about you have you checked it out or gdau I haven't um checked out but I've been seeing great things about good um the thing is we are such a sucker for um you know bribery and so quite soon after we had this uh falling out with unity they had the unity Awards and they awarded us um oh there you go so you have to use Unity now so now we're we're like locked in um so we're going to stick with unity for for C of lamb of course and then for the new game we'll have to explore the different pricing models um I yeah like you I've kind of got like no like it would be a big a big change to change but we could um and we would um so you know I don't want to commit too much to one way or the other but you know this this award definitely sweetened things a little bit with us I'm obviously joking but in but but seriously um yeah I think it the trust has gone but the CEO went as well and that guy was um you know at EA I believe and was controversial for similar kind of you know Money Motivated reason I told uh I told my audience I you know I I got to meet John and we got to hang out for a little bit and they you know they it's kind of probably what they did with you which is like let's let's sort of let's sort of uh warm up to some of these developers you know and so they they I got to hang out with them and it was nice they were nice it was great I appreciate it Unity um but uh yeah I got a lot of flak for saying that uh you know Joe's John's a nice guy because he was yeah he's a really nice guy but it doesn't change my opinion that that was a terrible decision and it was asine yeah um but it brings me to sort of this thought which is what is it about Unity that works so well for you and your team is it just because you understand it because you've used it for so long or is there something about Unity that you do you genuinely do love it's a very good question um in some sense you know we we moved from flash we went to hacks which is like a it doesn't have an IDE so you're you know you're writing the game in like a text dock um and then you're compiling it to see if like and then you have to move you know the the health bar 15 pixels to the right and then recompile it and check you know um and that was so painful we did that for two games um and so oh you did that for Adventure Pals didn't you yeah Venture Pals and never give up so oh and then you had I remember this dude I remember talking to you about this I think we were at PA in Boston yeah and you said you you were thinking about moving it to yeah so in the end what we did was again don't be the smartest person in the room we found um a guy called Matt Tha who's runs dude games now and who was Far clever than I am and was able to somehow create some kind of interface between hack and unity and so we exported the hacks game to console through Unity um I have no idea how he did it he's he ped he ped uh pinstrip for us thanks to you by the way oh did we you introduced us so he's done Cult of the lamb as well so kind of yeah long term yeah yeah never give up and stuff so all our games so um yeah so it just seemed like the next rather than having this insane you know hacks to Unity let's just do it in in unity so Cult of the Lamb was our first Unity project um and so we've obviously learned a huge amount there's so many things we did wrong at the beginning so it just feels like we we are using it we are comfortable with it everyone on the team you know when you look for new team members or or programmers most of them are kind of got Unity on there um yeah we haven't looked I mean the other thing is um we have such an amazing you know Jim Julian and now we have Carlos as well amazing 2D artists um and so we you know we need to have 2D as like a core of what we do um so I don't know unreal is primarily 3D right but I don't know what theu the 2D is not there yet it's it's it can't it can be yeah uh like like anything you know like for example gdau is an incredible engine however in my opinion it's not there yet for porting to like Xbox and switch and Playstation which is a big deal you know uh so yes I might get some flak when I say gdau isn't fully there yet because so many people are passionate about gdau rightfully so the same is true with unreal it's like I I just think every engine it has it has pros and cons and those pros and cons are uneven so like unreal is it is such a great engine for for High Fidelity 3D games whereas you're right like Unity it's just it's built it I think it was originally maybe built for with 2D in mind um I'm not so sure about that but it feels like it the the 2D tools are really strong um and intuitive you know yeah yeah I mean and that's so cool to us like we've I think we are a 2D art studio whe whatever you know obviously cold flam is like a 3D world but with 2D Sprites in it um so we we need I think we'll continue to emphasize handdrawn 2D sort of art assets because I think that's one of our biggest strengths cool well dude let's let's wrap this up here and let's have you give me one final sort of quick thought here what's it like uh reaching this sort of escape velocity where escape velocity you know yeah where it's like it's like you you're not scrambling anymore you know I don't think you are no no no no um you know Tom it's such a good question and I've spent the last year and a half thinking about it quite deeply quite seriously because you know everyone goes into the indie game thinking like you'd be lying if you said you didn't you know hope you'd find your golden ticket right like every everyone you know I I watched indie game the movie and that like resonated so much with me I love that vision of like you struggle really hard but then you have this huge success and and um I think I was extremely naive to to to sort of do that and pursue that I think we've been um oh yeah yeah well yeah I mean yeah I me we' we've managed to do it which is incredible you know um but there it's just I've just you know a million thoughts going around my head I'm trying to like give you a good answer but it's it's overwhelming it's have you become a better person or a worse person oh I don't think I could get much worse I think I was already I was already bottomed out you don't get much worse than Jay Armstrong um yeah well the reason I ask is cuz I found that when things go really really well for me I become very uh thoughtless about other people okay um I don't really I don't really think about what because I'm so comfortable you know like I've become very comfortable because things have gone really well for my YouTube and for games and signing with Publishers and so I get so comfortable that I start to forget what it was like before you know you know um and I forget how much of a grind it is and how much of a struggle it is for for people who who want to make games and they like for example they hate their job or they they don't want to go to college and they're just in a bad situation and so for me I become I can become jaded or you know um just too comfortable too comfortable you know what I mean I I don't know I do hear you I feel like what was quite good was I had a baby at the launch of the game so no matter how successful we became I was still just a fat dad in the middle of the night changing nappies like and my wife would not let me have a big head um there was no chance I was going to turn into this like you know egotistical Rockstar game developer as much as I had hoped I would I think um the first thing that we did was like sit down and say right how can we help our family members with like the money that we've made and stuff and and we've done a lot of that sort of thing I I think like uh getting a bit emotional um um the struggle got quite full on for a lot of years with um game development and um you know we're so lucky that we came out the other side and we've had the success but it could have easily not happened something could have gone wrong um there was definitely moments where the game was not clicking and um if we'd released you know 3 months four months earlier the game wouldn't have been what it is um so you know and I know um you know Jim Julian are doing a lot to think also about like how can they help other developers you know be be more successful in things um I think like the the the the tough times were like quite tough very tough and especially like you know again we had kids so like the the the pressure was really there like what the hell fin pressure Financial pressure like what the hell are you doing Jay you have children like what what is this risk you're taking because the last two games the last five years have not worked out and you've been really struggling um and so like this was really the last shot or we we did you ever feel like did you ever feel like you're you're just a kid living in a fantasy still it's time to grow up and support your family I was very worried about that like have I because you set yourself on this road like 10 years ago and you have to keep walking that road that you set because it's like what else am I going to do like how how can I get out of this and there really was no exit like I couldn't see the only way was through there was no backup so um oh wow so you dug yourself a hole kind of yeah I really felt that way and I think Jim felt that way as well um I think Julian maybe a lot younger than us as well so I think he had and he'd had some other games that were a bit more successful but definitely I think he said to us he knew we needed a win like we needed a win for this one um yeah yeah so i' um no so I think like it's still you know maybe in five years I'll be kind of like I'll have forgotten all of this maybe and forgot the struggle and I'll just be like well why isn't anyone everyone like a successful developer like you know um but it's still it's still raw like I still remember like you know two years ago like the fear um it got very very tight very scary and the game got delayed a few months which really was tough because the second baby was born in April we were supposed to launch game in March just beforehand but it got pushed to August so we had this and I broke my foot and I was sleeping in this small room with the baby trying to work all night and um dude it was uh it was a crazy old time so like yeah um I'm so glad so [ __ ] [ __ ] grateful if you've bought Colt land thank you I love you um and we're going to keep making this game as good as possible and we're going to keep pushing and and making amazing things so um yeah it's it's just yeah it's sick so here we areat the future yeah I know right um dude so proud of you um getting a little emotional here too because we've just we I mean you we we have totally different paths you know I haven't had a gang busters game but I'm just I'm I'm grateful for for for YouTube and and what it's what it's brought in for my family and it's amazing it's so cool to see both you know I remember first meeting you at the hotel at I think it was Pax in Boston thought this this guy is so freaking nice um and I love his British accent and I I just loved you so much and so I'm just so happy and so grateful that you've you've found this success and you really really deserve it so and by the way everybody listening link is in the description for the update oh yeah uh it's it's free right uh as long as they have a copy of the game it's free update with the just God awful perverse update that you've created yeah um just to get clicks gez yeah I know you really have sold out it sold out man and you know it's great I love it um all right yeah well dude this was great thanks so much for your time and that's that's it that's it let's do it again let's do it again soon all right cheers 100% cheers get over [Music] here hey thanks for watching by the way if you haven't downloaded that free 2D game kit below click below it's my treat to you I used this game kit to make a game for PewDiePie in 14 days and I actually got to play it with him in front of his audience which is really cool this game kit is totally free it's my treat to you and you can use it however you want you can make a commercial game and make a million bucks off this game kit I don't care or you could just use it for a hobby project it's my treat to you and by the way if you haven't clicked like that would mean a ton to me hit subscribe and also this is important hit that notification Bell here's why if you get notified of when I'm live you can watch me make my next game and let me know in the chat what you think about the game or any ideas you have and you might just show up your chat might just show up in the next video that I upload all right I'll talk to you later bye I love you too

Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 30,708

Keywords: thomas, brush, make a living from indie game development, marketing with $0 budget, Daily Deal on Steam, going viral on imgur for indie games, marketing, full-time indie developer, marketing first Unity game, cult of the lamb, interview, podcast, game development, making of cultic, jay armstrong, unity, unity vs unreal, unreal, 2D game, 2D art, 2D illustration, photoshop, platformer, how to make games

Id: kodquYtxXd8

Length: 76min 49sec (4609 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2024