The Games That Designed Themselves

Quick correction: I'm quoting Seth Coster from Butterscotch Shenanigans here, not Sam (who is Seth's brother, and also works there). Whoops!

GTA was famously originally Race N Chase, until the police AI just started ramming the player's car, and the rest is history

Basically, make games like you’re Cave Johnson in Portal 2. “We’re throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks. No idea what it’ll do.”

Notch: screws up dimensions of model Notch 10 seconds later: "it should be green, it should explode and destroy your hard work"

For those who dont know, the spy from tf2 was from a glitch in the original tf where players could disguise as the enemy

Stepping outside the realm of video games, anyone who has run a game of Dungeons and Dragons (or a similar game) will understand that while you may start out with some idea of where you want the narrative to go, in all likelihood the actions of the players aren't going to align perfectly with that idea. As the dungeon master, it's your job to "follow the fun" and adjust what you're doing to work with what your players are doing.

Being able to drop ideas that aren't working takes true courage for a game developer.

I'm not a game dev by any stretch, but a few months ago I had a dream in which the entire world was flooding, and I was constantly trying to get to higher ground. I met up with people on the way, sometimes the tide stopped rising and we'd try to build something or prepare in some way, then it would all start up again. I still think that would make a pretty rad game, but I can only imagine what it would evolve into over time!

It’s not a GMTK video without a section about Into the Breach.

I want to know more about the bugs that became features in Spy Party.

4:08 Capcom basically created the concept of “combos” in fighting games this way in Street Fighter II. They initially weren’t part of the base game but later discovered extremely high level players were finding ways to “link” attacks and create chains. At first they were working to find a way to keep players from doing this in later revised versions but discovered it created more depth to the gameplay and opened up more options and an entirely new world for fighters. Then they actually started working combo systems into the game and the rest is history.

So glad "Journey" made it into this video. In his soundtrack commentary on YT, composer Austin Wintory said that the whole game creation process was iterative. He'd get a description of an area, compose a rough song, and the game designers would listen to it. They'd change the level design based on what they heard. Then Wintory would play the new version and end up changing the song. They'd keep going back and forth between soundtrack and gameplay like this. He said they probably would STILL be doing this if they hadn't had to commit to a release date. That's why the music and gameplay mesh so well in Journey!

The Ape Out example at the start was just an excuse for Mark to use it's style for the rest of the video. No one can dispute this. But I can't really blame him. Ape Out looks and sounds smooooth. Such an awesome game.

In the board gaming world it's "rush to prototype". Same philosophy, if you've got a game idea then build something out of paper and play it by yourself to see what works and what really doesn't.

One of my favorite things about gmtk is that even though it seems that he only talks about games, (to me) he's actually talking about something more fundamental, something that (for me) apllies to any kind of storytelling. Be it film, book, music etc etc. It's the reason why I still watch them even though I have no intention to be a game designer.

It's like tasting your food continously throughout cooking

>"Games that designed themselves" >starts video with jazz music Brilliant.

Love how I can spend 2 days straight working, fall into a lull that'd usually result in a depressive few weeks of not making anything, but instead watch a GMTK video, and immediately be like 'aight back to it' <3 Thanks big boi

That monologue starting at 10:35 is such an important message. Not only for game making, but all art. It's a very significant lesson for poem or song writing, painting, sculpting, prose fiction writing, choreography, cinematography, etc. Don't wait for some eureka stroke of genius inspiration. Don't wait for inspiration at all. Just keep working, even if you're slugging through bad ideas. Then, if you keep working and keep striving for improvement, the good ideas will happen. Find inspiration, don't wait for it to find you.

I find it incredibly hard to “drop an idea” once I’ve started brainstorming/creating it. Game Jams are really good to get these out of my mind and actually let them go once I’ve seen what they’re like. Thanks for the great insights as always!