This is a conversation with the Australian game developer Tommy, co-creator of the tower defense game Gnomes. Thy made it in a custom Rust Engine with just 10 months of time and 0$ marketing budget. It looks like a game anyone could make, but is it? I was curious to learn more.

Links to my Guests

➤ Gnomes on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3133060/Gnomes/

➤ Sea of Survivors on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2347940/Sea_of_Survivors/

Listen to the podcast on the go (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.):

➤ https://tyrollerjonas.podbean.com/

0:00 - Intro

2:29 - Prototyping, Timeline, Demo

6:11 - Next Fest, Early Marketing Wins

8:25 - Early Access and Launch Strategy

12:23 - Switching Teams, Going Solo, Moving to Godot

15:06 - 3D vs 2D: Marketing and Development

22:11 - Solo vs Team Trade-Offs, Is it Luck?

29:16 - Roles, Content Pipeline, Localization

35:05 - Core Loop: Moveable Towers, Guilds, Shop, Endless

38:49 - Game Design: Economy vs Defense

41:45 - Difficulty, Guild Matchups, Swamp Map, RNG, Power Fantasy

47:03 - UX-First Design: Minimal Tutorial, One-Hand UI, Juice, Pacing

52:59 - Constraints, Limits Shaping Design

56:05 - Marketing: Go Narrow/Deep, Reddit, Creators Timing

1:03:20 - Fulfilling Fantasies, Don’t Chase Trends

1:11:18 - Designing Doable but Deep

1:20:49 - Regrets and Post-Launch Changes

1:30:43 - Cheat Mode, Jank, and Nostalgia

1:31:59 - Copycats on Mobile: Kingshot

1:34:29 - Mobile vs Steam and Why Gnomes Isn’t on Mobile

1:39:27 - Life Changes, Workflow, and Team Plans

1:42:32 - Generalists, Triple Threat, and the Coming AI Era

1:48:44 - Nostalgia Sells; You Only Need the Crumbs

1:50:29 - Solo vs Team Itch; Don’t Engine-Shop

1:52:02 - Do You Have to Suffer for your Art?

1:54:20 - Godot Navmesh, Sunk Cost, State Machines

1:55:16 - Trailer-First, Vertical Slice, and Variable Scope

1:57:08 - Testing Appeal: Playtests vs Trailers and Honest Feedback

2:00:30 - Appeal-First vs Gameplay-First

2:04:47 - Build a Playtest Community; Observe Actions, Not Words

2:08:46 - 500 Testers, Steam Playtest vs Keys, Superfans

2:12:40 - First-Time Players Are Gold; Demos and the First 15 Minutes

2:17:40 - Treat Your Demo Like a Launch

2:18:36 - There is a Playbook and a Splash of Luck

2:20:07 - Outro

My game "Thronefall":

➤ Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2239150/Thronefall/

➤ Discord: https://discord.gg/gVYctptyg8

➤ Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Thronefall-2669627.html#Overview

My game "Will You Snail":

➤ Play Will You Snail on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1115050/Will_You_Snail/

➤ Join the Will You Snail Discord: https://discord.gg/G3mRDrK

For the game developers among you:

➤ Join our creative game dev community on Discord: https://discord.gg/Ye6zzfQ

This is a conversation with Ricard Pillosu, an industry veteran with over 20 years in both AAA and indie teams, currently working as Co-Founder at Epictellers a 30+ head team working on the CRPG Starfinder: Afterlight.

Links to my Guests

➤ Starfinder: Afterlight on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/3245640/

➤ Epictellers Website: https://www.epictellers.com/

Listen to the podcast on the go (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.):

➤ https://tyrollerjonas.podbean.com/

0:00 - Intro

1:21 - Why Big Success Can Be Dangerous

3:31 - Luck Is 70%

6:13 - The Hardest Part of Building a Studio: People

7:57 - Ric’s Journey so Far

9:45 - Becoming a Lead and Manager

12:30 - How Does AAA Build Games?

16:02 - Prototyping Rituals in AAA

18:29 - Pre-Production and Messy Realities

20:41 - Scrum Era, Sub-Teams, and the Human Factor

22:50 - Charisma, Toxic Positivity, and Milestone Negotiations

26:51 - Reputation Traps in Big Teams

29:19 - Is Experience Overrated?

30:56 - Culture Clashes and the Timeline Fallacy

32:49 - Wisdom Over Experience

39:12 - Choose Simple Solutions

41:55 - Enforcing Pipelines

42:26 - From Overengineering to Readability

46:24 - When Copying Is Okay

47:18 - Don’t Pre-Architect

49:18 - Pick Patterns Per Problem

54:16 - Be Nice to the CPU

55:45 - Why Godot?

58:40 - Signals, Call Stacks, and Deferring Work to the Frame

1:00:37 - Queues and Frame-Slicing

1:02:43 - Start From the Game: Feature Wishlists

1:04:24 - Why Decoupling Matters

1:05:46 - Turn Manager Example: Building Layer 0

1:12:06 - Layer 1 Orchestration: Game States and Combat Manager

1:14:18 - Syntactic Compression

1:17:47 - Micro-Managers: Mouse and Targeting Systems

1:20:48 - What Makes a Great Gameplay Programmer

1:22:56 - Anti-Patterns: Ego, Overcomplication, Blame

1:24:39 - Coding Into a Corner: It’s Part of the Journey

1:28:49 - Jonas’s Background and Goals

1:31:18 - Coding Mastery vs Commercial Success

1:34:02 - Path to Mastery: New Engines, Teams, and Contexts

1:35:22 - Reuse and Scalability Myths

1:36:10 - Why Build Multiple CRPGs: What Really Transfers

1:37:48 - Boredom and Scope Creep

1:41:42 - Why Second Games Take Longer

1:42:53 - Everyone Should Build an Engine

1:48:20 - Why Unity/Unreal Feel Bloated

1:50:49 - Godot’s Incentives: Smaller, Developer-First

1:52:11 - Will Godot Grow? “Fighting the Engine” Metric

1:56:41 - When to Pick Godot, Unity, or Unreal

1:57:05 - Closing Thoughts

My game "Thronefall":

➤ Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2239150/Thronefall/

➤ Discord: https://discord.gg/gVYctptyg8

➤ Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Thronefall-2669627.html#Overview

My game "Will You Snail":

➤ Play Will You Snail on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1115050/Will_You_Snail/

➤ Join the Will You Snail Discord: https://discord.gg/G3mRDrK

For the game developers among you:

➤ Join our creative game dev community on Discord: https://discord.gg/Ye6zzfQ

This is a conversation with my game dev friend and former collegue Friedemann Allmenröder. We created ISLANDERS together, he then went on to make many more fantastic indie games such as Pizza Possum, Summer House and recently Slots & Daggers. In this conversation with dive into the philosophy of game dev creativity and I try to understand more about how Fridemman's process for making hit games looks like these days.

Links to my Guests

➤ Slots & Daggers on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3631290/Slots__Daggers/

➤ Summer House on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2533960/SUMMERHOUSE/

➤ Portfolio Website: https://allmenroeder.com/

➤ Twitter/X: https://x.com/Friedemann_A

Listen to the podcast on the go (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.):

➤ https://tyrollerjonas.podbean.com/

0:00 - Better At Games, Worse At Advice

1:20 - Appeal × Retention As Core Formula

3:35 - Beyond Visuals: Many Kinds Of Appeal

5:05 - “Make Something Almost Too Small”

6:35 - Finding The Fresh but Familiar Twist

8:19 - Useful vs Pointless Innovation

11:07 - Why Clear Formulas Break Down

13:20 - Intuition As Compressed Rules

15:05 - Training Taste With Good “Data”

18:30 - Creativity As Remix, Not Creation

20:07 - Labeling What You Like And Why

22:22 - Missing Discourse On Creative Work

23:56 - Ideas vs Execution In Modern Dev

24:35 - Origin Story Of Slots & Daggers

27:21 - Why So Many Gambling-Like Games?

29:20 - Randomness, FOMO And Accessibility

32:07 - Farm Game, Weekend Prototype, Publisher Test

36:10 - Six-Week Jam To Seven-Month Project

41:46 - What “Execution” Really Means

45:36 - Sculpting Ideas And Minimalism

49:55 - First Prototype And Sketchy Pixel Style

52:24 - Unity Lighting, Bloom And Cheap Coherence

55:28 - “Everything Must Animate” Philosophy

1:00:22 - Fast Polish With DOTween

1:02:36 - Sound Design, SFX Packs And Screen Shake

1:05:22 - Visual Feedback Instead Of Text

1:08:06 - Reused Tech, Wiggly Leaves And The Famous Glass

1:10:27 - Building A Strong Tabletop Vibe

1:15:25 - Color, Post-Processing And Mood Swaps

1:18:53 - Dangers Of Overdoing Post-Processing

1:22:01 - Marketing Starts With An Appealing Game

1:24:45 - Publishers, Demos And Next Fests

1:30:17 - No Secret Hacks, Just Good Basics

1:35:11 - Is The Indie-Pocalypse Real?

1:38:47 - Dopamine Farming And Attention Economy

1:42:10 - Will Quiet Games Come Back?

1:43:56 - What To Make After A Loud Game

1:44:47 - Game Recs: Rainy Season And Eastshade

1:48:43 - Outro And Future Catch-Ups

My game "Thronefall":

➤ Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2239150/Thronefall/

➤ Discord: https://discord.gg/gVYctptyg8

➤ Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Thronefall-2669627.html#Overview

My game "Will You Snail":

➤ Play Will You Snail on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1115050/Will_You_Snail/

➤ Join the Will You Snail Discord: https://discord.gg/G3mRDrK

For the game developers among you:

➤ Join our creative game dev community on Discord: https://discord.gg/Ye6zzfQ