Make the Game with Matt Hackett – Details, episodes & analysis

🔗 Show Notes

• Bacon and Games
• How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself
• Steam Dev Cheat Sheet
• How to Find a Video Game Publisher (Tips for Indie Devs)
• Armor Games
• Valadria Discord
• 10 Godot Features Hidden in Plain Sight 👀
• 🚫 No Stacking | Make the Game
• Heartbeast
• 🔥 Steam Game Promo Art - Photography and Fire
• Making Big Indie Games
• Game Maker's Toolkit
• Cursor Adventure
• Kenney's Cursor Pixel Pack
• Golf Story
• Game Dev Difficulty Tiers

https://www.valadria.com/the-best-thing-you-ever-made/

0:00 Intro

0:23 What's the best thing you ever made?

3:28 You didn't miss the boat

5:11 Three hours is all you need

9:48 Breaking down hard problems

19:37 Outro

📙 https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Video-Game-Yourself/dp/1736576208/

#gamedev #creative #podcast

https://www.valadria.com/make-the-game-geoff-blair/

4 main topics in this fun chat with Heart Beast (Ben Anderson):

📙 Ben's solo developer book Production Point

🛠 When to pivot projects?

🚒 GameMaker VS Godot

🎮 Ben's new game WASarD

BOOKS!

🛠 Ben's book Production Point: https://courses.heartgamedev.com/p/my-downloadable-87616

📙 Matt's book How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself: https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Video-Game-Yourself/dp/1736576208/

GAMES!

🪄 Ben's game WASarD: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151870/WASarD/

🐷 Matt's game Pixel Washer: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2572060/Pixel_Washer/

🎬 TIMELINE

0:00 Intro

1:27 Main Project Syndrome

5:01 Production Point

15:17 WASarD

27:32 Do people like it?

33:20 When to quit

35:49 GameMaker VS Godot

46:28 Outro

More info: https://www.valadria.com/heartbeast-main-project-syndrome/

Unity, owning your tools, JS GameDev Summit, Pixel Washer, & Game music: https://valadria.com/the-unity-debacle/

📝 Show Notes

• Unity Leadership
• Unity and ironSource’s $4.4B merger is now complete
• Game developers are furious about Unity's new installation-based fees
• Devs discovered that Unity removed GitHub repo to track license changes and updated its TOS be retroactive
• Witchmore
• JS GameDev Summit
• Heart Gamedev Podcast episode 32: Teaser Trailer YouTube Comments and Wishlist Numbers
• The Diary of a Modern PR Campaign: How to Plan Your Game's Promotion
• Future Friends Games Podcast
• 🏡🫧🔫🐷 Pixel Washer (Play! Washlist!)
• Joshua Morse music

• Diabolical Experiments
• I Am a Monster (Sans Vocals)
• SuluSounds
• Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia 'Sparkle' [Emerald Mist] by Joshua Morse

🎧 Music

• Diabolical Experiments
• I Am a Monster (Sans Vocals)
• SuluSounds
• Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia 'Sparkle' [Emerald Mist] by Joshua Morse

Time for another game dev podcast! 🎙

You've been so kind & encouraging about last week's episode that I just had to keep talking. Let's do this. We're discussing:

1. On loving & hating marketing
2. Ignore the "Great Attractors"
3. Failing to follow your own advice
4. Your tools serving you VS getting in your way
5. Thoughts on crowd-funding

🎸 Music

• Simple but Effective
• Phantom Anthem Wubs
• Wanderer
• Back at it
• I'm Just Going to Call it Dubstep

🫧 Play the Pixel Washer demo!

Notice me burying the lead much? Yeah, I've got a new playable demo for you!

Have a relaxing time power washing beautiful pixels in Pixel Washer!

That's the pitch! It's just gorgeous 2D pixels that you need to clean. That's it. Some of you may remember Weekend game jam: Pixel Washer – yup, this is further development of that concept!

It's early times. I'll probably completely redo how the power washing itself works, which is all the game is about, but do play the demo & let me know what you think in the Valadria Discord.

It's time for a podcast-style podcast (if that makes sense). A long conversation that rambles & goes off on tangents, but delivers an honest deep dive into my process & what I'm working on.

Topics

1. 🛠 What I'm working on
2. 🎮 Refocusing on game development
3. 🧪 Concept development
4. 😀 I hate marketing (jk, let me explain)
5. 🪑 Being authentic online
6. 💰 (Bonus: Making Big Indie Games)

Music

• Diabolical Experiments
• Joshua Morse's Waveform
• Killer Factory Retro and Evening Dogs by SuloSounds

More info

https://www.valadria.com/getting-back-to-my-roots/

https://www.valadria.com/game-trailers-with-derek-lieu/

Does anybody read the text that I type into this box? I have no idea.

Anyway here's a timecode dump from my notes, maybe this is helpful:

• 0:16: getting into game trailers
• 4:40: overflow work
• 5:15: charging not enough, less agency / more indie
• 5:15: undercharging
• 8:00: make fan trailers
• 11:00: where to post trailers / content
• 13:08: give advice about what you're doing

• 16:00: trailer categories
• 17:50 types of game trailers
• 20:42: trailer lengths
• 21:40: What gameplay to show?
• 24:56: Movie trailers

• 28:28: The magic of good editing
• 29:50: Kuleshov effect
• 31:03: Advanced game trailer problems
• 32:35: End slates
• 33:01: Logo Soup
• 33:33: Logos and branding
• 37:29: Spelunky 2
• 45:35: Game trailer courses

• 48:32: Anything identifiable from your game
• 49:56: Ice Cream Analogy
• 50:59: Outro

Thanks for listening! Support this show by sharing, rating/writing review(s), and buying my book. I appreciate it.

-Matt

🦇 Add Witchmore to your Steam witchlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2289580/Witchmore/ 📙 Read more: https://www.valadria.com/witchmore-devlog-intro/ TIMELINE 0:00 Intro 1:15 Why Witchmore? 2:47 Eggspansion 5:37 Scratch your itches 7:58 What's cool about it? 10:59 What's next? MUSIC * Electro Breaks Loop Remastered: https://teknoaxe.com/Link_Code_3.php?q=749&genre=Electro * Phantom Anthem Wubs: https://teknoaxe.com/Link_Code_3.php?q=879&genre=Dubstep

Learn Steam game marketing from expert Chris Zukowski! Find resources & more: https://www.valadria.com/steam-game-marketing-with-chris-zukowski/

0:00 Intro 0:15 Critical Steam dev marketing advice 1:51 Reliable Steam dev strategies 3:38 Translating your page 6:28 Interest-first dev 9:48 Outro