I've noticed that a lot of new creators dont have other hobbies than video games. While its good to have a spread of video game knowledge, I feel like it stifles creativity. Same for anime production, I remember a documentary a long time ago showing that more and more animators were just people who grew up with anime and comparing the rise of moe style to this.
@@chaserseven2886 research is part of it, but being engrossed in something different for its own enjoyment is the best way to find what makes it enjoyable, and the best way to develop a unique style and flavor to your work.
Exactly! Creation is a synthesis of all of our internalized knowledge. If all you know is video games, you can only ever re-make what has already been made.
Well here’s the thing if u wanna work in the industry you’ll find they want u to go down one branch if I wanna make a 3D show I gotta pick what interest me the most rigging, texturing, modeling. I used to be that way where I’d only watch cartoons very little movies in my house after my dad passed away, to me there is so many different mediums out there it’s good to dabble in a few other things or have open tastes for things n try to expand your pallet. Just at the end of the day know it’s probably better people stick on one thing they r interested in purely if that is the medium they r going for ur bound to stretch yourself too thin it’s better they play a buncha games get what they like inside and out know what good game feel is then just binge watch a buncha let’s plays while reading 10 books n trying to peruse a music career that’s where most people who work have ADHD but if u can find one thing to hyper fixate on that ur passionate about n just pick 1-3 projects u can fixate on and study what u wanna create then good! I just don’t think that’s where u get the creative burnout ur talking about I think that’s better for creators in a sense
Miyamoto is a go to example of this for me, with his games being very influenced by his non-game related hobbies, and just how fresh they feel as a result. I've met a lot of game devs that don't have any other interests than games, and it really shows when their games are just derivative of other games, and lacking any real spark of their own.
Also worth noting Miyamoto came from art, not programming... like another notable Japanese game designer Fumito Ueda, who was an animator. There should be more artists doing design as they clearly bring a very different sensibility, and we get to enjoy a much wider variety of games.
Nintendo in general is a great example. They have lots of people like this. Anouma studied carpentry before going to Nintendo, now runs Zelda. They’ve got lots of people from different weird backgrounds like shoe design, physical fitness, and radiology. I think as a previously successful toy company, rather than tech, they just inherently understood that a different discipline can come at making something fun in a very different way.
What amazes me always is how some tabletop games distill some complex simulation concept into a very simple rule and as a player you look at that rule and think:"This makes so much sense!"
@@HungryHungryB As it usually happens I don't have many examples when caught on the spot but here's what immediately comes to mind: there was a TTRPG that I unfortunately didn't enjoy playing because it was a "Dungeon World" derivative (but in space!) and I'm not a fan of "Dungeon World" approach. But it was interesting thing to try. Anyway. In that system rules for space combat said that your spaceship's hit points are your spaceship's systems. You take one point of damage - you cross away one system. You take two - you cross two. The more damage you sustain the less systems you have online. Eventually, if combat goes not in your favor, you will be forced to take hits into vital systems. It is beautiful, extremely simple and what's most important - it makes sense.
@@HungryHungryBits not 'simple' as in a single sentence rule. But i think Worlds Without Numbers' Faction Turn system does manage to distil the complexity of faction interactions into a pretty easily digestible set of mechanics. So much so, a lot of people use this set of mechanics in other systems as it is pretty devoid of setting specific interactions, with a few changes like changing the magic stat to technology in a scifi setting. Its essentially its own game, one if my friends running a game has me and a few other friends not in the actual game get together every so often to play the faction turn system, each of us having our own faction. Which then dictates what happened between the factions in the actual sessions he runs with the players.
Mise en place is the term you're looking for. It means things in place. You gather all the ingredients and tools you need before starting a recipe. That way you don't run into your scenario of not having salt. It's a great concept for so many things.
Agreed! I performed a whole frame-by-frame analysis of the video in order to understand what caused that facial expression. And I concluded it's part of the cut footage, before or after what's shown in the video. (You can find my related report about it in this comments' section, if you're interested in my findings... LOL!)
You are incorrect. When I upload a video to TH-cam, it produces the thumbnail for that video. In fact, it produces three, and I pick the silliest one. So whatever thumbnail you see, it's in the video somewhere.
@@CainOnGames My idea did actually take that into account, to a degree: I thought you could have uploaded the whole unedited recording, and then you could have clipped off the excess at the beginning and at the ending straight on TH-cam (more time dedicated to the upload, less time to the use of an additional software? it seemed possible...). If that was the case, there was also a chance for the thumbnail auto-generation (which you already mentioned in another video I watched) to have included the cut off footage as a source... Anyway, I really watched the whole video focusing on your face with an uncomfortable degree of attention, and I didn't find the thumbnail: the two instances that got closer were - the "how" face at 8:45 - and the "having" face at 9:36 (as I already mentioned in my own comment). ... That's an unsolved mystery! EDIT: By making use of the 0.25x speed function (which I didn't even notice until today...), I can actually confirm that the "having" face at 9:36 is indeed the same as in the thumbnail. It's like that just for an instant, very easy to miss! Mystery solved.
Wow, Tim wrote the Fallout 1 opening narration? So we have him to thank for great lines like "War. War never changes." that came to define the franchise!
Completely agree. I learned a lot about electronic sound design from taking watercolor painting classes and applying a lot of the techniques into FFT synthesis.
So I was on eBay this morning, window shopping for alternative movie posters when I came across a really neat 70’s Logan’s Run looking sci-fi poster illustrated by Kilian Eng for Argo, the 2013 Oscar best picture winning Ben Affleck movie and I was confused. Argo was more of a period heist thriller not some cool 70’s sci-fi movie. Upon research, I realized Argo was based on a true story in 1979 when an undercover CIA team posed as a film crew making a movie in Iran to extract 66 American Embassy hostages. The movie they were pretending to shoot was an adaptation of the 1968 Hugo Award winning book: “Lord of Light” by Roger Zelazny. The poster on eBay was illustrating the fictional “Lord of Light” movie within the movie. My ADHD brain then switched gears to tune in to your video and lo and behold, I was shocked to hear you mention “Lord of Light” being a video game adaptation dream project of yours! The coincidence was too much to pass up and my curiosity was peaked, so I bought the ebook then and there and I’ve been reading it all day. I’m really enjoying it so far! Thank you for the serendipitous book recommendation and thank you for sharing your video game development wisdom, your videos are a wellspring of creative inspiration! 😊
YES this is so insightful! For me, teaching violin to little kids has taught me the most. Bringing a player into a new world, showing them how it works, giving them a new vocabulary, using scaffolding to develop skills, testing skills, using intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, cultivating flow state. The overlap is enormous!! Writing is a close second, and I think that’s because narrative is so baked into how humans experience the world. Even abstract games like chess have story in the piece names, and it’s better for it. Writers learn to work with theme, to make things make sense, to create feelings. Loved this video, very thought provoking
Hey, Tim. Since you, as many designers, are constantly thinking about design ideas and mechanisms, have you ever thought of designing a tabletop game? Could be an RPG or a more classical board game. Might be a good outlet for your creativity :)
On the reverse, I don't do anything related to game design as a guy with a finance degree working in banking. But your stories have really helped my outlook on office work in a more serious setting and office work in a less serious setting. Your hr and employee interactions, both negative and positive, are pretty universal!
Regarding your difficulty writing long form dialog and characters. I wonder if this is because programmers are trained to generalise and simplify everything for code reuse, readability and extensibility. So it's hard for them to add the details and complexity required to give characters their voice. In writing circles, authors often classify themselves as plotters or pantsers. Perhaps programmers are naturally more suited to being structured plotters rather than pantsers who focus on character motivations to determine where a story goes. Thanks for all of the great content on your channel! Would love to hear your thoughts on educational games one day!
Tim- I love your videos. Obviously your games, media, everything you’ve done for this world. Honestly. Just wanted to say, I’m proud of you, your dedication to talking and doing what you like/think is important and sticking to your principles in a world that doesn’t pay off these values. I appreciate your hard work, your personal experience, and down to earth ability to just BE YOU.
Is this where we bring up the Hayao Miyazaki quote about anime artists that only care about anime? One piece of advice I like to make is that a systems engineer who only knows systems engineering is an industrial engineer; what the hell can you engineer if you have no core competencies, if you know no mechanical, electrical, materials, manufacturing, etc. engineering? As a writer or designer you HAVE to draw from unique experiences and a functional outlook on the world outside of the conceptual "yeah, this is what design kind of looks like". That direction lies self-derivative material, like pre-trained AI models that can never evolve.
Seeing someone be so transparent and upfront about their weaknesses and limitations is immensely refreshing. I would say a vast majority of people are scared to do this. I include myself in that number.
Well said! I totally agree, just like the dice and card game limitations can yield better results, learning your own limitations and obeying them can make your creations even better.
The analogy of cooking/baking resonates with me because I've been working on my cooking recently, and it truly is a game of experimentation. There's no other way to figure out what does and doesn't work for you other than getting your hands dirty and trying out different things, and that mindset can go a long way being extrapolated into environments which can facilitate an iterative process of improvement.
Not really a hobby, but math. Good math skills really help me map in my head how to answer the question, "how can I make this work?" and the design flows from there.
Here I am - Structural Engineer (Construction), listening from experienced person in completely different area of expertise😁 Bits and pieces from other industries can be learnt to improve and widen Your horizons
I tend to find the *12 principles of animation* are particularly great for designers to learn from because animation is all about clear visual communication and smooth flowing "juicy" feeling movement... People forget art is not just fancy wallpaper you stick on top of a finished design, it's an integral part of how you talk to the player and 'game feel'.
Hello Tim, being a creative person myself on the artistic side, accumilation of passionate skills does seem to recombine in interesting ways and after these many years of working with it all, there are times when things just seem to come together like magic and surprise me as to how well it turns out without really being conscious of the process at all
I had a LOT of interests and pursued a LOT of different things before finally making it in to game design. It's the only discipline I know of that can find a use for just about anything you learn about anything. History, mythology, art, literature, architecture, psychology, geology, geography, sociology, civics, religion, literature, film, theater, music, engineering, chemistry, biology, physics, law -- literally anything taught in a school can inform a design. Experiences, stories, songs, travel, books, movies, other games, other genres, other types of games, sports, hobbies, conventions, charity work -- if you watch for it you'll find something cool that can make a game better in just about anything. If I had to describe what I look for when I interview people for junior positions, it's curiosity, breadth of experience (in life), the ability to change perspectives, and the ability to work with a team.
Oh, and soft skills and technical writing are the unsung heroes of game development. Neither of them directly make a thing happen in a game, but without them it's a TON harder to make a game happen.
You made an interesting comparison when talking about various table top RPG or card games and how those could be applied in the digital space. That's going to make me think differently now when I play the various card games with my friends on how these mechanics might cross over. This was a great subject to explore, thanks for the video.
Hi Tim, question: How do you choose the thumbnail for each video? Do you let youtube choose it automatically or do you look for the best face possible? Your thumbnails are the best thumbnails. Thanks, EJ
I always get a kick out of them. Thanks for making my mornings before standup thought provoking and for being inspiring to me (I've watched probably 70% of your videos and look forward to them in the morning, like when good loot drops). I have been motivated to really pursue making my own games lately thanks to them.
Great stuff, Tim! You can work on writing better dialogue in an unusual but fun way. Don't wear headphones in public and pay close attention to people having unusual or emotionally charged conversations. Carry a small notebook and write stuff (ie memorable conversations you eavesdropped on) down. Over time you'll get a sense for speech patterns and how people actually interact. Most Marvel and Hollywood writers these days just can't do it.
I happen to know that programming and algorithms are my strength, and that I would do bad in 3D design, like human models and animations. So I am in the process of creating a space combat/exploration game that spans the observable universe, with a single global realm, using elaborate procedural generation algorithms. Everything that has to be done I can do, and the parts I can't/won't, I can use assets for, like sounds, music, models, textures, shaders. So I can focus on maximizing the parts I am strong in, and tackle the challenges that are hard to solve - like making procedural generation good.
Hii tim I love you and most of your games so much . I don’t wanna restart gamergate here but I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the role of the female main character in RPGs (in particular fallout 2, if you know you know) and all it entails. Do developers put thought into this when making the games ? What was the attitude and state of mind of the teams when designing with the female player in mind ? The questions are vague but I don’t really have any other way to articulate them without going on and on. Never stop making these videos !!
Just like “multi sport athletes”, some muscle development from a different sport (skill) gives you a boost in the current sport (design) in the margins. And that little boost (perk) can be the synergy that makes you win.
Hi Tim, it's me some guy named Ryan you don't know. I really enjoyed the cooking analogies as baking and tabletop are 2 of my favorite things. I have a question about the end of the first fallout game. Was that ending inspired by events in the lives of any of the development team? Also, how useful have some of your own personal experiences been in writing stories or incorporating themes into them? The ending of that game felt very real and stuck with me, even more so as I got older and found that many family members and others look at me like I am an alien or something simply due to the experiences I have had. Thanks for your time, I hope this day finds you well.
Hey Tim! Do you have a PO box or anything of the sort? I think it would be really cool to be able to send letters and chocolate and things of that sort if you would be open to it! Love your channel and all your insight! ❤️
Hi Tim, it's the nerd; Simon. I was wondering if you could tell us about your relationship with the various computer and gaming console hardware over the years. How do you like the evolution of our industry, and which hardware did you like the most?
Hey, Tim! Recent advancements in AI technology have been incredible to see, but I'm starting to wonder how it will affect the game industry in the next 5-10 years, and am unsure what skills I need to focus on to remain applicable. Me being unsure of what skills and directions I should prioritize to best prepare myself for a future in game development, I wanted to ask what your thoughts were. If you started again today from scratch, what skills would you distribute your time and energy into the most? Do you think that most coding will be done by AI in the near future? Thus, would focusing on less AI prone aspects of the industry be a good idea? If so, what would those areas be? As someone who is interested in game development, film, and VTX it's great to see so many AI tools being created to assist in this type of work, but it's also worrysome to think about how many of these jobs could be completely replaced by AI in the near future. Would love to hear your thoughts, love the videos :), - Kane
Uhhh, i've been reading some lovecraft, and have been playing with the thought of a reverse RPG, where you start out as strong as you are going to get, and are then being run down by the hardships of the quest. The key strategy will then be ressource management, forcing you to go for non-combat solutions, taking morally questionable actions, because you are to tired and wroung out for the "right" solution. My setting would be light magic, because doing magic requires you to be mad enough to believe that you can do magic... And it will leave a mark on your mind and body, drawing you away from the real world, weakening your willpower. The gameplay loop would then be, receive quest, manage resdources while solving quest, ideally just hobbling over the finish line, rest period with character building, shopping etc, repeat. That loop is inspired by my time in the army, and hobby of physical training.
Hey tim! I was curious on your thoughts on (usually difficult) games with a single, set difficulty. This is a topic that comes up every couple of years and I haven't come to any sturdy conclusion yet. Its true that in a Dark souls or Sekiro, theres a very clear lack of accessibility. Is this a price worth paying when pursuing a singular vision? I understand that you're personally a fan of customizable difficulty, but would not including any have to be a bad thing? I've watched both your video games as art and difficulty video but never saw you touch on this, sorry if you already have.
Cooking With Cain! Yeah, even with only a basic understanding of coding, it's apparent incredibly quick that without a plan and documentation even basic apps can become a bit of a mess, let alone entire games. If you're working in a team and you're not sharing your recipe (commenting/documentation) you can end up spending as much time explaining and untangling things as working on things. Most of the people I've seen who have completed entire larger projects on their own with little to no experience tend to talk about how hard it can be if they become successful to try to port or optimize them. Still, at that point, it's not the worst problem to have.
Hi, Tim, I was wondering, since you've mentioned, what makes a good programmer? What do you consider to be a person that knows a little bit of code? What is sufficient and what is desired for different types of roles in the industry? I really like you videos, they make be even more passionate about games!
I think my background in going to school for anthropology feeds into my artistic creation so much its impossible to point where it's influence ends and my others begin
Hi Tim! I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your thoughts on non-combat RPG's like Disco Elysium. Do you think removing/limiting combat has potential for creating new RPG experiences that is difficult to achieve in RPG's with combat?
I think of myself as a pretty good cook and musician, and I believe they overlap heavily. Both can be composed or improvised, the flavors, notes and textures can be blended together to make a whole greater than its individual parts. Not to mention a great meal and a great tune both inspire and move you. Note: I'm average at best at both baking and coding, I wonder... does bread have to compile?
I've had some managers who have said to me (working as a Game Designer), "Don't think about how it's done, don't be limited, come up with crazy stuff, and we'll see if we can come up with how to do it." Whereas, I kind of can't help designing and thinking like a programmer (and am now pretty deep into programming my own games). Q: Any thoughts on that relationship between Designers coming up with crazy (even "impossible") stuff VS thinking about how easy/hard something is, or how it would actually be architected, etc?
Hi Tim. Have you seen that modders have gotten Fallout to run on the Nintendo 3DS? It honestly looks great on the 3DS screen. It's in the very early days, but it works surprisingly well
Hey Tim! I make indie games as a hobby and am releasing my first commercial project that will be releasing this year. It seems like in a the indie game scene there are a lot of opinions on what to do when you are unmotivated or your game isn’t coming together how you expect. So I’d love to hear your take. Do you tend to lean toward the ideology of scrapping an idea entirely and moving on to an idea with more potential, or the idea that you should always take a game to completion even if you lost motivation or you realize you have made some fundamental errors that wouldn’t be feasible to completely rework in late stages of development? To make that more readable, do you believe in moving on to something else when a game isn’t working out or do you try to fix it at all costs?
Since you mentioned naming characters and objects, have you any advice here? Story and dialogue seems to be easier than naming characters, mechanics or moves for some reason.
What happens to games that are still being sold but the company closed down? Where does the money go? How do you as a lead designer have the reimbursement and compensation conversation?
A very funny story: In one of my college social circles, a friend once called me "the stylish one" which confused me like crazy, until she clarified that she was talking about (specifically) clothing *color* *combinations* and asked where I got my grasp of color theory to which I had to reply ". . . 3D modeling".
There is a lot of architecture in the games, so what about architects and other specialists from outside graphics, programmers, sound/music creators and professional script writers sphere? How many of those kind of people are involved? How many of them are or could be employed by game development industry and/or how many of them support projects through external consultations and commissioned works?
Chicken, steak, eggs, pizza... A recipe for heart disease and diabetes. Here's some healthy foods one might consider instead: Fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, tubers, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds.
Once. I got a kit for Christmas, and you had to conch the cacao beans, mix in extra ingredients like sugar, and pour the chocolate into molds. Fun times.
LOL! Yet to watch the video: I'm very curious to see at what point in it Tim will make that roller-coaster-plunge kind of face that's portrayed in the thumbnail... Thanks for your videos! Edit, after watching the video (TWICE, the second time with such attention to Tim's face that i felt like a creep... LOL). Now, the "how" face at 8:45 and the "having" face at 9:36 come pretty close, but I'm almost sure the section of the video from which the thumbnail is captured didn't make the final cut. My best guess: something funny and completely unexpected happened at the very beginning, while the software was already recording, but before the usual "Hi everyone, it's me, Tim". EDIT (again!) By making use of the 0.25x speed function (which I didn't even notice until today...), I can actually confirm that the "having" face at 9:36 is indeed the same as in the thumbnail. It's like that just for an instant, very easy to miss! Mystery solved.
![The Wall Song ร้องข้ามกำแพง | EP.215 | พาเวล นเรศ - พูห์ กฤติน | 17 ต.ค. 67 [1/5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IUzrjuf60P4/mqdefault.jpg)
Instructions unclear: Created a casserole instead of a steampunk RPG.
I've noticed that a lot of new creators dont have other hobbies than video games. While its good to have a spread of video game knowledge, I feel like it stifles creativity. Same for anime production, I remember a documentary a long time ago showing that more and more animators were just people who grew up with anime and comparing the rise of moe style to this.
Or you can just do good ole fashioned research
@@chaserseven2886 research is part of it, but being engrossed in something different for its own enjoyment is the best way to find what makes it enjoyable, and the best way to develop a unique style and flavor to your work.
Exactly! Creation is a synthesis of all of our internalized knowledge. If all you know is video games, you can only ever re-make what has already been made.
@@chaserseven2886 Research is specific and directed, when you've already decided on a topic... you don't find and explore new things that way.
Well here’s the thing if u wanna work in the industry you’ll find they want u to go down one branch if I wanna make a 3D show I gotta pick what interest me the most rigging, texturing, modeling. I used to be that way where I’d only watch cartoons very little movies in my house after my dad passed away, to me there is so many different mediums out there it’s good to dabble in a few other things or have open tastes for things n try to expand your pallet. Just at the end of the day know it’s probably better people stick on one thing they r interested in purely if that is the medium they r going for ur bound to stretch yourself too thin it’s better they play a buncha games get what they like inside and out know what good game feel is then just binge watch a buncha let’s plays while reading 10 books n trying to peruse a music career that’s where most people who work have ADHD but if u can find one thing to hyper fixate on that ur passionate about n just pick 1-3 projects u can fixate on and study what u wanna create then good! I just don’t think that’s where u get the creative burnout ur talking about I think that’s better for creators in a sense
Miyamoto is a go to example of this for me, with his games being very influenced by his non-game related hobbies, and just how fresh they feel as a result.
I've met a lot of game devs that don't have any other interests than games, and it really shows when their games are just derivative of other games, and lacking any real spark of their own.
Also worth noting Miyamoto came from art, not programming... like another notable Japanese game designer Fumito Ueda, who was an animator. There should be more artists doing design as they clearly bring a very different sensibility, and we get to enjoy a much wider variety of games.
For a second, I thought of Miyamoto Musashi. A great source of ideas in his Book of Five Rings.
Nintendo in general is a great example. They have lots of people like this. Anouma studied carpentry before going to Nintendo, now runs Zelda. They’ve got lots of people from different weird backgrounds like shoe design, physical fitness, and radiology.
I think as a previously successful toy company, rather than tech, they just inherently understood that a different discipline can come at making something fun in a very different way.
What amazes me always is how some tabletop games distill some complex simulation concept into a very simple rule and as a player you look at that rule and think:"This makes so much sense!"
That sounds interesting. Are there any specific examples you can share? I'm not very familiar with TTRPG's.
@@HungryHungryB As it usually happens I don't have many examples when caught on the spot but here's what immediately comes to mind: there was a TTRPG that I unfortunately didn't enjoy playing because it was a "Dungeon World" derivative (but in space!) and I'm not a fan of "Dungeon World" approach. But it was interesting thing to try.
Anyway.
In that system rules for space combat said that your spaceship's hit points are your spaceship's systems. You take one point of damage - you cross away one system. You take two - you cross two. The more damage you sustain the less systems you have online. Eventually, if combat goes not in your favor, you will be forced to take hits into vital systems. It is beautiful, extremely simple and what's most important - it makes sense.
@@proydoha8730 sounds interesting and reminds me somewhat of FTL (even if it's not exactly like that)
@@HungryHungryBits not 'simple' as in a single sentence rule. But i think Worlds Without Numbers' Faction Turn system does manage to distil the complexity of faction interactions into a pretty easily digestible set of mechanics. So much so, a lot of people use this set of mechanics in other systems as it is pretty devoid of setting specific interactions, with a few changes like changing the magic stat to technology in a scifi setting.
Its essentially its own game, one if my friends running a game has me and a few other friends not in the actual game get together every so often to play the faction turn system, each of us having our own faction. Which then dictates what happened between the factions in the actual sessions he runs with the players.
Mise en place is the term you're looking for. It means things in place. You gather all the ingredients and tools you need before starting a recipe. That way you don't run into your scenario of not having salt.
It's a great concept for so many things.
The miniature of this video is stellar, please don't change it
agreed.
Agreed!
I performed a whole frame-by-frame analysis of the video in order to understand what caused that facial expression.
And I concluded it's part of the cut footage, before or after what's shown in the video.
(You can find my related report about it in this comments' section, if you're interested in my findings... LOL!)
You are incorrect. When I upload a video to TH-cam, it produces the thumbnail for that video. In fact, it produces three, and I pick the silliest one.
So whatever thumbnail you see, it's in the video somewhere.
@@CainOnGames
My idea did actually take that into account, to a degree:
I thought you could have uploaded the whole unedited recording,
and then you could have clipped off the excess at the beginning and at the ending straight on TH-cam
(more time dedicated to the upload, less time to the use of an additional software? it seemed possible...).
If that was the case, there was also a chance for the thumbnail auto-generation
(which you already mentioned in another video I watched)
to have included the cut off footage as a source...
Anyway, I really watched the whole video focusing on your face with an uncomfortable degree of attention,
and I didn't find the thumbnail:
the two instances that got closer were
- the "how" face at 8:45
- and the "having" face at 9:36
(as I already mentioned in my own comment).
... That's an unsolved mystery!
EDIT:
By making use of the 0.25x speed function (which I didn't even notice until today...),
I can actually confirm that the "having" face at 9:36 is indeed the same as in the thumbnail.
It's like that just for an instant, very easy to miss!
Mystery solved.
he really said Æ̀
Wow, Tim wrote the Fallout 1 opening narration? So we have him to thank for great lines like "War. War never changes." that came to define the franchise!
"you don't walk away from something cooking on your stovetop"
Try telling my mum that😂😂😂
Completely agree. I learned a lot about electronic sound design from taking watercolor painting classes and applying a lot of the techniques into FFT synthesis.
So I was on eBay this morning, window shopping for alternative movie posters when I came across a really neat 70’s Logan’s Run looking sci-fi poster illustrated by Kilian Eng for Argo, the 2013 Oscar best picture winning Ben Affleck movie and I was confused. Argo was more of a period heist thriller not some cool 70’s sci-fi movie. Upon research, I realized Argo was based on a true story in 1979 when an undercover CIA team posed as a film crew making a movie in Iran to extract 66 American Embassy hostages. The movie they were pretending to shoot was an adaptation of the 1968 Hugo Award winning book: “Lord of Light” by Roger Zelazny. The poster on eBay was illustrating the fictional “Lord of Light” movie within the movie.
My ADHD brain then switched gears to tune in to your video and lo and behold, I was shocked to hear you mention “Lord of Light” being a video game adaptation dream project of yours! The coincidence was too much to pass up and my curiosity was peaked, so I bought the ebook then and there and I’ve been reading it all day. I’m really enjoying it so far!
Thank you for the serendipitous book recommendation and thank you for sharing your video game development wisdom, your videos are a wellspring of creative inspiration! 😊
YES this is so insightful! For me, teaching violin to little kids has taught me the most. Bringing a player into a new world, showing them how it works, giving them a new vocabulary, using scaffolding to develop skills, testing skills, using intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, cultivating flow state. The overlap is enormous!!
Writing is a close second, and I think that’s because narrative is so baked into how humans experience the world. Even abstract games like chess have story in the piece names, and it’s better for it. Writers learn to work with theme, to make things make sense, to create feelings.
Loved this video, very thought provoking
Hey, Tim. Since you, as many designers, are constantly thinking about design ideas and mechanisms, have you ever thought of designing a tabletop game? Could be an RPG or a more classical board game. Might be a good outlet for your creativity :)
On the reverse, I don't do anything related to game design as a guy with a finance degree working in banking. But your stories have really helped my outlook on office work in a more serious setting and office work in a less serious setting. Your hr and employee interactions, both negative and positive, are pretty universal!
Worked as a line cook for 12 years and there are many lessons that apply to an office environment. Love the cooking analogies! Thanks Tim.
Regarding your difficulty writing long form dialog and characters. I wonder if this is because programmers are trained to generalise and simplify everything for code reuse, readability and extensibility. So it's hard for them to add the details and complexity required to give characters their voice. In writing circles, authors often classify themselves as plotters or pantsers. Perhaps programmers are naturally more suited to being structured plotters rather than pantsers who focus on character motivations to determine where a story goes. Thanks for all of the great content on your channel!
Would love to hear your thoughts on educational games one day!
Oh noes, Tim doing thumbnails with screaming face, the algorithm got ya 😂
Tim- I love your videos. Obviously your games, media, everything you’ve done for this world. Honestly. Just wanted to say, I’m proud of you, your dedication to talking and doing what you like/think is important and sticking to your principles in a world that doesn’t pay off these values. I appreciate your hard work, your personal experience, and down to earth ability to just BE YOU.
"20 minutes later Chicken... mush" absolutely killed me :) So funny!
Is this where we bring up the Hayao Miyazaki quote about anime artists that only care about anime? One piece of advice I like to make is that a systems engineer who only knows systems engineering is an industrial engineer; what the hell can you engineer if you have no core competencies, if you know no mechanical, electrical, materials, manufacturing, etc. engineering? As a writer or designer you HAVE to draw from unique experiences and a functional outlook on the world outside of the conceptual "yeah, this is what design kind of looks like". That direction lies self-derivative material, like pre-trained AI models that can never evolve.
Seeing someone be so transparent and upfront about their weaknesses and limitations is immensely refreshing. I would say a vast majority of people are scared to do this. I include myself in that number.
Well said! I totally agree, just like the dice and card game limitations can yield better results, learning your own limitations and obeying them can make your creations even better.
Hells Kitchen, any of the British baking shows and Nailed IT are three of my favorites to watch.
The analogy of cooking/baking resonates with me because I've been working on my cooking recently, and it truly is a game of experimentation. There's no other way to figure out what does and doesn't work for you other than getting your hands dirty and trying out different things, and that mindset can go a long way being extrapolated into environments which can facilitate an iterative process of improvement.
Thumbnail: You have become addicted to psycho.
Not really a hobby, but math. Good math skills really help me map in my head how to answer the question, "how can I make this work?" and the design flows from there.
I just imagined a whole TH-cam cooking series called "Vault Baking with Tim", like old Julia CHILD cooking show, but set in a vault of course.
That thumbnail is amazing. Thank you, Tim.
Here I am - Structural Engineer (Construction), listening from experienced person in completely different area of expertise😁
Bits and pieces from other industries can be learnt to improve and widen Your horizons
Great episode, I love this one. Especially all the cooking metaphors. :D
Your cooking and baking talk is super tasty, Tim. I would love to see a cooking video from you if you'd be interested in that at some point.
I tend to find the *12 principles of animation* are particularly great for designers to learn from because animation is all about clear visual communication and smooth flowing "juicy" feeling movement... People forget art is not just fancy wallpaper you stick on top of a finished design, it's an integral part of how you talk to the player and 'game feel'.
Hello Tim, being a creative person myself on the artistic side, accumilation of passionate skills does seem to recombine in interesting ways and after these many years of working with it all, there are times when things just seem to come together like magic and surprise me as to how well it turns out without really being conscious of the process at all
I had a LOT of interests and pursued a LOT of different things before finally making it in to game design. It's the only discipline I know of that can find a use for just about anything you learn about anything. History, mythology, art, literature, architecture, psychology, geology, geography, sociology, civics, religion, literature, film, theater, music, engineering, chemistry, biology, physics, law -- literally anything taught in a school can inform a design. Experiences, stories, songs, travel, books, movies, other games, other genres, other types of games, sports, hobbies, conventions, charity work -- if you watch for it you'll find something cool that can make a game better in just about anything. If I had to describe what I look for when I interview people for junior positions, it's curiosity, breadth of experience (in life), the ability to change perspectives, and the ability to work with a team.
Oh, and soft skills and technical writing are the unsung heroes of game development. Neither of them directly make a thing happen in a game, but without them it's a TON harder to make a game happen.
You made an interesting comparison when talking about various table top RPG or card games and how those could be applied in the digital space. That's going to make me think differently now when I play the various card games with my friends on how these mechanics might cross over. This was a great subject to explore, thanks for the video.
Hi Tim, question: How do you choose the thumbnail for each video? Do you let youtube choose it automatically or do you look for the best face possible? Your thumbnails are the best thumbnails.
Thanks,
EJ
TH-cam offers me three thumbnail options when I upload the video, and I pick the silliest one.
@@CainOnGames you misspelled scariest
I always get a kick out of them. Thanks for making my mornings before standup thought provoking and for being inspiring to me (I've watched probably 70% of your videos and look forward to them in the morning, like when good loot drops). I have been motivated to really pursue making my own games lately thanks to them.
Of all the wonderful thumbnails...this is in the top 5
I still think the most iconic line in gaming history is "War... war never changes." So that has to count for something, right?
Hey Tim, could you talk about burn out if you haven't already?
Avoiding Burnout
th-cam.com/video/S9H_S71oJgc/w-d-xo.html
@@CainOnGames Thanks!
Great stuff, Tim! You can work on writing better dialogue in an unusual but fun way. Don't wear headphones in public and pay close attention to people having unusual or emotionally charged conversations. Carry a small notebook and write stuff (ie memorable conversations you eavesdropped on) down. Over time you'll get a sense for speech patterns and how people actually interact. Most Marvel and Hollywood writers these days just can't do it.
Well I wasn't expecting a Bake Off reference. Hello from 🇬🇧
I happen to know that programming and algorithms are my strength, and that I would do bad in 3D design, like human models and animations. So I am in the process of creating a space combat/exploration game that spans the observable universe, with a single global realm, using elaborate procedural generation algorithms. Everything that has to be done I can do, and the parts I can't/won't, I can use assets for, like sounds, music, models, textures, shaders. So I can focus on maximizing the parts I am strong in, and tackle the challenges that are hard to solve - like making procedural generation good.
that thumbnail is amazing, you look like you burnt your finger on the stove. I love it
Hii tim I love you and most of your games so much . I don’t wanna restart gamergate here but I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the role of the female main character in RPGs (in particular fallout 2, if you know you know) and all it entails. Do developers put thought into this when making the games ? What was the attitude and state of mind of the teams when designing with the female player in mind ? The questions are vague but I don’t really have any other way to articulate them without going on and on. Never stop making these videos !!
Just like “multi sport athletes”, some muscle development from a different sport (skill) gives you a boost in the current sport (design) in the margins. And that little boost (perk) can be the synergy that makes you win.
I actually came to game design and programming from wanting projects i could make music, so audio programming is a new field i like
Hi Tim, it's me some guy named Ryan you don't know. I really enjoyed the cooking analogies as baking and tabletop are 2 of my favorite things. I have a question about the end of the first fallout game.
Was that ending inspired by events in the lives of any of the development team? Also, how useful have some of your own personal experiences been in writing stories or incorporating themes into them?
The ending of that game felt very real and stuck with me, even more so as I got older and found that many family members and others look at me like I am an alien or something simply due to the experiences I have had.
Thanks for your time, I hope this day finds you well.
Hey Tim! Do you have a PO box or anything of the sort? I think it would be really cool to be able to send letters and chocolate and things of that sort if you would be open to it! Love your channel and all your insight! ❤️
Hi Tim, it's the nerd; Simon. I was wondering if you could tell us about your relationship with the various computer and gaming console hardware over the years. How do you like the evolution of our industry, and which hardware did you like the most?
Hey, Tim!
Recent advancements in AI technology have been incredible to see, but I'm starting to wonder how it will affect the game industry in the next 5-10 years, and am unsure what skills I need to focus on to remain applicable.
Me being unsure of what skills and directions I should prioritize to best prepare myself for a future in game development, I wanted to ask what your thoughts were.
If you started again today from scratch, what skills would you distribute your time and energy into the most? Do you think that most coding will be done by AI in the near future? Thus, would focusing on less AI prone aspects of the industry be a good idea? If so, what would those areas be?
As someone who is interested in game development, film, and VTX it's great to see so many AI tools being created to assist in this type of work, but it's also worrysome to think about how many of these jobs could be completely replaced by AI in the near future.
Would love to hear your thoughts, love the videos :),
- Kane
Uhhh, i've been reading some lovecraft, and have been playing with the thought of a reverse RPG, where you start out as strong as you are going to get, and are then being run down by the hardships of the quest.
The key strategy will then be ressource management, forcing you to go for non-combat solutions, taking morally questionable actions, because you are to tired and wroung out for the "right" solution.
My setting would be light magic, because doing magic requires you to be mad enough to believe that you can do magic... And it will leave a mark on your mind and body, drawing you away from the real world, weakening your willpower.
The gameplay loop would then be, receive quest, manage resdources while solving quest, ideally just hobbling over the finish line, rest period with character building, shopping etc, repeat.
That loop is inspired by my time in the army, and hobby of physical training.
On the note of books with interesting mechanics, House of Leaves is a freaky read
Hey tim! I was curious on your thoughts on (usually difficult) games with a single, set difficulty. This is a topic that comes up every couple of years and I haven't come to any sturdy conclusion yet.
Its true that in a Dark souls or Sekiro, theres a very clear lack of accessibility. Is this a price worth paying when pursuing a singular vision? I understand that you're personally a fan of customizable difficulty, but would not including any have to be a bad thing?
I've watched both your video games as art and difficulty video but never saw you touch on this, sorry if you already have.
Cooking With Cain!
Yeah, even with only a basic understanding of coding, it's apparent incredibly quick that without a plan and documentation even basic apps can become a bit of a mess, let alone entire games. If you're working in a team and you're not sharing your recipe (commenting/documentation) you can end up spending as much time explaining and untangling things as working on things. Most of the people I've seen who have completed entire larger projects on their own with little to no experience tend to talk about how hard it can be if they become successful to try to port or optimize them. Still, at that point, it's not the worst problem to have.
Hi, Tim, I was wondering, since you've mentioned, what makes a good programmer? What do you consider to be a person that knows a little bit of code? What is sufficient and what is desired for different types of roles in the industry?
I really like you videos, they make be even more passionate about games!
cooking is art, baking is science
I think my background in going to school for anthropology feeds into my artistic creation so much its impossible to point where it's influence ends and my others begin
Hi Tim! I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your thoughts on non-combat RPG's like Disco Elysium. Do you think removing/limiting combat has potential for creating new RPG experiences that is difficult to achieve in RPG's with combat?
I think of myself as a pretty good cook and musician, and I believe they overlap heavily. Both can be composed or improvised, the flavors, notes and textures can be blended together to make a whole greater than its individual parts. Not to mention a great meal and a great tune both inspire and move you.
Note: I'm average at best at both baking and coding, I wonder... does bread have to compile?
I've had some managers who have said to me (working as a Game Designer), "Don't think about how it's done, don't be limited, come up with crazy stuff, and we'll see if we can come up with how to do it."
Whereas, I kind of can't help designing and thinking like a programmer (and am now pretty deep into programming my own games).
Q: Any thoughts on that relationship between Designers coming up with crazy (even "impossible") stuff VS thinking about how easy/hard something is, or how it would actually be architected, etc?
Hi Tim. Have you seen that modders have gotten Fallout to run on the Nintendo 3DS? It honestly looks great on the 3DS screen. It's in the very early days, but it works surprisingly well
Hey Tim! I make indie games as a hobby and am releasing my first commercial project that will be releasing this year. It seems like in a the indie game scene there are a lot of opinions on what to do when you are unmotivated or your game isn’t coming together how you expect. So I’d love to hear your take.
Do you tend to lean toward the ideology of scrapping an idea entirely and moving on to an idea with more potential, or the idea that you should always take a game to completion even if you lost motivation or you realize you have made some fundamental errors that wouldn’t be feasible to completely rework in late stages of development? To make that more readable, do you believe in moving on to something else when a game isn’t working out or do you try to fix it at all costs?
Hi Tim - I've looked all over the internet, and can't find a concrete answer: who actually coined "War never changes"?
I wrote that.
@@CainOnGames THANK YOU! (You just won me $20 on the bet I made with a friend who said it was Ulysses S. Grant)
I have in fact made very good cookies without measuring, and I haven't measured my spices for baking in like 10 years, easily.
I had to convince my college writing professor to let my long term fiction project be based on a game and not a book.
Since you mentioned naming characters and objects, have you any advice here? Story and dialogue seems to be easier than naming characters, mechanics or moves for some reason.
What happens to games that are still being sold but the company closed down? Where does the money go? How do you as a lead designer have the reimbursement and compensation conversation?
I can’t speak to the general case for all games, but Troika’s publishers keep the money
Love the thumbnails, this time it´s Risitas Tim xD
A very funny story: In one of my college social circles, a friend once called me "the stylish one" which confused me like crazy, until she clarified that she was talking about (specifically) clothing *color* *combinations* and asked where I got my grasp of color theory to which I had to reply ". . . 3D modeling".
Thumbnail is wild
Hi tim i rmemeber you mentioned something about comparative religion/mythology? Was this because of your interest in tabletop games lore?
There is a lot of architecture in the games, so what about architects and other specialists from outside graphics, programmers, sound/music creators and professional script writers sphere? How many of those kind of people are involved? How many of them are or could be employed by game development industry and/or how many of them support projects through external consultations and commissioned works?
Cooking is an art, baking is a science
Nothin like listening to ma boy T-Kay drop some truth bombs about the game industry on my way to worm
I think I have an idea who put the banana bread recipe in the arcanum manual
good stuff too, I tried it myself :)
I tried making TOEE choco chip cookies and didn't follow the recipe well enough.
Hello Tim can you tell a story how you discovered you weren't cut out to right long form dialogue ? Thanks!
I'd love to know what Tim's favorite thing Bethesda added to Fallout's lore is.
This made me do a pastafrola today.
Almost completely irrelevant, but do you pick these thumbnails or just let em do it for you? Cuz a lot of these are absolutely choice
Shoutout to all my fellow game dev cooks 🍳 ❤
Love you man.
CRPGs are just books with moving pictures.
Chicken, steak, eggs, pizza... A recipe for heart disease and diabetes.
Here's some healthy foods one might consider instead: Fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, tubers, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds.
Lmao I’m watching this while using my instant pot
Did you retire from game development? What do you do these days?
Why I'm Semi-Retired
th-cam.com/video/BCPawvnlU5o/w-d-xo.html
Restrictions add freedom in the pocket of restrictions, it’s not paradoxical
Instapot is awesome.
Any good underrated games you find interesting or find inspiration from?
That thumbnail lmao 😄
Mr. TIMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice thumbnail :)
What makes a quest memorable to you?
Have you ever made chocolate from bean to bar?
Once. I got a kit for Christmas, and you had to conch the cacao beans, mix in extra ingredients like sugar, and pour the chocolate into molds.
Fun times.
@@CainOnGames how’d it come out?
@@javanxhouse21 Not so good. Kinda gritty.
@@CainOnGames oh well at least you had fun. Any ideas on what went wrong?
@@javanxhouse21 My guess would be I conched the chocolate for far too little time. It's a pretty laborious process.
that thumbnail 🤣
What is a video about a topic you've wanted to talk about?
LOL!
Yet to watch the video:
I'm very curious to see at what point in it
Tim will make that roller-coaster-plunge kind of face
that's portrayed in the thumbnail...
Thanks for your videos!
Edit,
after watching the video
(TWICE, the second time with such attention to Tim's face that i felt like a creep... LOL).
Now, the "how" face at 8:45 and the "having" face at 9:36 come pretty close,
but I'm almost sure the section of the video from which the thumbnail is captured didn't make the final cut.
My best guess:
something funny and completely unexpected happened at the very beginning,
while the software was already recording,
but before the usual "Hi everyone, it's me, Tim".
EDIT (again!)
By making use of the 0.25x speed function (which I didn't even notice until today...),
I can actually confirm that the "having" face at 9:36 is indeed the same as in the thumbnail.
It's like that just for an instant, very easy to miss!
Mystery solved.
This thumbnail scares me.
Hi Tim!
Hello Tim
You could call it your design language