Was Steam Next Fest worth it? (Developing 14) 

hey, zach here-thanks for the kind words! it's been a pleasure to work on the soundtrack and i'm excited for what's to come ◡̈

I would 100% love a 3 hour spin off about writing a legal contract

I want the 3 hour contract video

I absolutely want a spin-off video about the "...exhilarating fun of making a legal document."

Mark, I am BEGGING you to make a video about writing up contracts for freelance artists working on a game. Also contractor fees. It’s something that desperately needs some good demystifying in the games space.

"Better than it actually is" is very telling, Mark lol You wouldn't believe how boring and hokey some of your favorite movies seem with the music stripped out. Doesn't mean they're secretly bad movies getting away with something. The music is an integral part of the experience! You don't judge the merits of an audio visual work without the audio!

One very minor suggestion for repetative sounds like the nuts and bolts hitting surfaces, you should randomize the pitch of each one a bit so they don't run together. If you are randomizing the pitch already, crank it higher, because it wasn't obvious. The nuts and bolts sounded like high pitched bubble wrap when they could sound almost musical. Bonus points if you actually make them musical by pitching them to the scale of the music.

I mean, legal nonsense is important, and often not talked about, so absolutely do we want a video on that! Advice, pitfalls, feel, how to make it feel fair to yourself and whomever you're hiring.

I absolutely want a 3 hour video about legal contracts. That's part of the process, and just like marketing and money, will also be good for making sure burgeoning developers (and those who work for them) are behaving ethically.

As a Brazilian gamer & lawyer, I legitimately can't wait for that 3-hour-long breakdown of writing a dev contract.

The feedback about the nuts and bolts making sound is so spot on as one of those weird little things that does a lot. I love it when im playing a game and all the little bits and bobs make noise

dude when the nuts and bolts made sound i went "oooohhhh yes" thats such a small detail that will stick out to everyone who plays it when they look back on the game

i want a three hour spinoff video about the exhilarating fun of writing a legal document

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about this platform, it’s to never ask the audience if they’d watch a video idea unless you’re certain you’d be willing to make it, because no matter how niche or boring you think it is, your audience will absolutely, overwhelmingly agree to its development.

At 19:00, as a seasoned Game Dev I have to say this is a very advanced way to handle and keep track of feedback. It's important to keep your own opinion on certain matters, even if we usually see how Gamedevs "refuse to listen to us players". Keep up the good work and congrats for getting so much attention on your game.

I have say, the rejection messages from Valve are surprisingly helpful

Hey, Mark, I'm sure you've already heard this or found it out yourself, but you can test your Steam package before it is approved. It should already be in the library for your developer account. Once you're live, you can make a separate branch and do your testing from there. It's a really great way to make sure everything works before submitting to Steam or publishing for the world to see.

ok for my explanations why the water and nuts/bolts were a common issue: water - while rotational motion is generally unnoticed at low framerates, translational motion is very noticed, and often disliked at low framerates. you can actually see this in the door open animation, as the wheel turning seems smooth, but you can tell when each frame starts when the door slides open nuts/bolts - mass interactivity needs sfx associated, or else it breaks immersion. grass and leaves are a good, common example.

Product Owner here! Your spreadsheet for feedback and bug reports is actually EXACTLY how we track bugs and feedback during software launches and beta testing. The QA team uses a document very similar to yours to know what the Product team views as effective feedback and priority of fixing. We'll even hide lines so that the Dev team only works on certain priority levels. Great job!

I'd offer a third explanation for the feedback on "trivial" background stuff: this kind of polish really makes a difference, especially in contrast to the polished, forefront stuff. sometimes it's better to not have these kinds of things unless they're as polished as possible. I think of a fancy meal: the presentation around the plate may not seem "meaningful", but it's better to not do it then to do it in a way that clutters and distracts. of course, you now made it nice and satisfying so it should totally stay. but I think we shouldn't underestimate the impact that "trivial" things have on the perception of a piece.

This is the equivalent of, "I needed help figuring out this camera angle, so I called Steven Spielberg..." Austin Wintory is a delight.

In terms of music's contribution to a game I always remember Jason Jones comment about Martin O'Donell , "Everything he does makes everything we do 50 percent better and he's the only one in the team with that much contribution "

A 3 hour video about the exhilarating fun of making a legal document sounds cool📚⚖️

Okay but hearing the nuts and bolts make noise when they fall actually was weirdly satisfying

13:22 aren't his hands backwards?

3 hour contract video is needed

I noticed a trend with these videos: You tend to benefit from things like this, which gives you a kick-up of the backside and forces you to polish a part of the game you've been neglecting. Maybe that's a good takeaway as a reason to participate in things like this: motivation.

I'm reminded of when I contacted my old college professor about soliciting students to make music for my game. From the 8 students who responded, it was jarring how only 2 bothered commenting on my game (and shared music they thought would be fitting). Given I also didn't know what I was doing, I cared much more about seeking a good potential working relationship than having the best music and chose one of the two. So IMO if you really want to stand out, just show a little more care like Zach did. While sharing fitting music was nice, indicating that you even looked at the project (rather than just highlighting how great you are) might give you better odds than you'd expect.

Would love a deep dive into contracts and pricing. Thats a gritty but massively important detail most are stuck throwing themselves at blindly.

The stuff about the frame rate of the drop and the nuts and bolt is about immersion. It's easy to point to ways immersion is broken, so you can always expect lots of that kind of feedback. That said, I think there was room for more creative interpretation of the feedback you got. Making Uni move faster by default isn't nearly as satisfying as making his movement variable and letting players mess with it as part of the puzzle design, for example. Nearly every really awesome platformer gives players access to speed control in one form or another.

2:37 Don't let the impostor syndrome get the better of you. Don't compare yourself to veterans of each of the fields. NOBODY can compare to the experts in each field. You are making a real game by yourself and wear a bunch of hats all at the same time. That's an achievement not many people reach. So pat yourself on the back and don't downplay what you did. ;)

Only one more episode? What about the post release episode. The episode about the first patch to fix the bug that didn't come up during development which is game breaking for a larger part of the player base than you'd expected. The episode about how to write an apology tweet and finally an episode about how to handle your development studio being closed due to sales not meeting the inflated targets that your "publisher" set...

Me, a shackled and cursed Mac user: “there was a next fest?”

I can't believe Tommy Tallarico made all the music and sound effects for your game!

Im currently doing an internship at a software (not game) company and the guy who gives me tasks and stuff was talking about your videos and how he enjoys your analysis of good design and why certain things are good in the first place. Made me realize how some content intended/focused on one thing can have a big impacts on a whole range of areas. And also crazy to go full circle from Digital to real life besides friends. Love your videos!

About you saying the music makes the game "better than it actually is" - you can just as easily say that the combination of the game and the music is greater than the sum of its parts.

I... would like a 3hr video on the legal contract.....

Who knows if you will see this, but I would just like to say that I appreciate the extra time that goes into the captioning of these videos. It might not seem like it's worth the effort to do (or the money you might spend on having another person do it), but high quality consistent captions is a sign that a creator cares about their audience, and that matters a lot to me :D

The music behind your game actually makes it from something I was only moderated in playing to something I really want to play. What a great soundtrack sample!

I remember Yoko Taro (Nier game director) said that the way he approached Keiichi Okabe (the composer) about making music for the game was giving him a bunch of songs and saying "I want something like this", then he would listen and tell what he wanted changed... It is an odd approach but one that ended up working very very well

I really appreciate seeing these videos because it's refreshing to see someone go through the process and admit that it's not all just intuitive and straightforward. There are so many youtube channels out there, big and small, that thrive on explaining games post-hoc with an unwarranted authoritative voice. Thanks for doing this.

On the subject of contracts and creative work, a talk by Mike Monterio titled "F*#$ You, Pay Me" is a must watch. I found out about it from Adam Savage's Tested channel. It's from a while ago and the context is web development, but it is 100% applicable to any freelance/gig work environment that uses contracts for services rendered. Great for anyone on either side of the contract.

Here's something worth considering: A super easy way to fix issues with the speed increase breaking puzzles is to add some form of environmental resistance to Uni's movement during those specific puzzles. Fans, conveyor belts, a stick substance on the floor, or even just more magnets would work. This is something I've learned when designing my own games; if you want to restrict the player's abilities to specific areas, make those abilities dependent on the environment. What's great about this approach is that you can also disable these when they are no longer needed to give back the player's freedom (such as turning off the power to these mechanics or washing away in the case of stick floors). This would still need to be tested to see if player are willing to tolerate a momentary hinderance, but I would explore this approach even if only briefly on the chance they end up being a better solution than reworking all the puzzles that suffer from a faster movement. It's also worth considering that players may naturally assume these environmental resistances to be a part of the puzzle; an obstacle that they would need to deal with in order to solve the rest. So if you do want these to be togglable for convenience's sake it would be best not to give players the impression that they have any control over it. Make it feel more like a 'convenient coincidence' rather than a result of the player's actions when they are no longer in effect.

I think this video really drove home how important it is to talk to people about games (or other projects) you make and build an audience.

Ideas: 1. Do a post launch video where you process reviews and response to the launch of your game. I feel like that’s part of the development process. 2. After you launch the PC version, do connsole ports so you can learn about that development process and show us what it’s like. I’m sure it’s very different and unique having to work within that environment.

Love this series - I'm not a game developer and probably never will be, but I get so much out of seeing someone demystify complex processes like this, and the fact that you take the time to talk about a lot of the more boring aspects of gamedev, like sending feedback emails to collaborators or the trail and error struggle of making your game launch properly through Steam, makes the whole thing come across as so grounded and approachable. I also love your approach to feedback. I'm a writer and have spent a lot of time in workshops, and I just lit up when I saw your little spreadsheet for feedback. It's pretty much exactly how I go about taking notes in a workshop setting. The most important thing is to take down pretty much everything that gets said, even if you don't think it will matter - this is why the little marker for how much you agreed with the feedback is such a good idea. That, on top of noting how often something comes up independently, can help you really see what catches people's eyes, and it gives you a relatively objective chronicle of feedback from which you can decide on what is and isn't worth changing. Maybe something you initially thought wasn't a big deal keeps coming up enough times that you have to change your mind on it! Similarly, I liked that you noticed the difference between feedback on things like pacing and structure versus feedback on things like little background details. In writing settings, there's a name for these categories: big-picture issues like plot, structure, themes, and general coherence are called Higher Order Concerns, while nitpicks about grammar and formatting are Lower Order Concerns. The way of thinking about this is that Higher Order Concerns should be addressed first, because, especially in writing, big changes tend to trickle down and make a lot of other little problems appear or disappear, so solving Lower Order Concerns early can be a waste of time when you move something big and get dust all over things anyway. Now, gamedev is very different from writing, so the order of operations for solving higher vs lower problems is probably not comparable, but it might help to add these categories to your toolbelt for sorting feedback. Part of learning in a workshop setting is learning who gives the best feedback about what, so maybe by tracking Higher and Lower Order Concerns, you can get a feel for who you should definitely be listening to when an issue about level speed comes up or who to check in with about nitpicks in the sound design. I think it's very telling that two wildly different mediums can have so much in common - art is art, after all! I'm glad that your videos can help show the ways that every artist needs to go about sorting through feedback in order to really polish their work. Keep it up, Mark! You're shedding a really interesting light on the realities of indie gamedev.

it's a good day when you catch a GMTK video that's a minute old

I feel like a large part of the success you've found with this game has come from having an existing audience in your RU-vid channel. Without an existing audience, it doesn't feel like an up-and-coming indie developer has any chance of being noticed.

from the user side, despite the overwhelming size of nextfests these days, I usually put an afternoon into collecting downloads, and a few afternoons into playing them, checking out aggregators' recommendations as I go. I can't overstate how many unbelievable, life-changing games I have discovered through nextfest. It has shifted my diet from like 60/40 AAA/indie to like easily 80/20 in indie's favor in just a couple years.

Don't underestimate how important sound effects are to make things feel satisfying.

You might think Mark's direction about music is quite abstract, actually I think it's quite clear. The first music is always the hardest, and require the most effort to get it right.

I've self-published my first indie game - Holy Stick! (a 2D multiplayer shooter with destructible limbs) on Steam last summer and was hoping that the Next Fest would boost my very low wishlist count. Unfortunately I was quite disappointed. The thing that infuriated me, is that the Next Fest's page was putting the already popular games (like "Lies of P") on top of the list, instead of randomizing things a bit. I ended up having just a couple hundred playthroughts of my demo and an insignificant boost to my wishlists. The release ended up being a total flop, with the game not even having enough reviews to get the Review Rating on the Store page.

Okay, that bolt dropping noise was extremely satisfying. I could see it possibly getting annoying. I don't know but maybe a button to turn it off or quite it down a bit? I think it adds to the atmosphere still tho.

I've learned that Mark loves box art that features the main character jumping forwards

this video helped me so much with my sound design work. I used austin's exact phrasing when asking my team what sound they wanted. they don't know sound, but they do know the story they're trying to tell, and just hearing their overall vision answered a lot of my questions and gave me so many ideas to get started.

On the topic of your changes to the water drop's frame rate and the bolts' sound effect: I think that's a good example of "game feel" and "juice". They're small things, and potentially meaningless from a gameplay point-of-view, but people still notice them.

It's usually the very little missable details that make a game super good and cool. Keep up the good work mark looking forward to it.

Great video! June steam fest was my first, and I was over the top with results! One thing helped me a lot was that my game showed up in so many categories, that brought me almost half of your steam fest wishlists, but my game was so bad and unpolished compared to yours! It was great looking at chalenges I also faced before and during fest (my game demo got aproved by steam after 3 rejections on last moment also), but explained with great knowledge and depth! Thanks a lot!

Absolutely delighted to have been helpful in your development adventure, sir!!!

I’d be careful about editing artist’s work - at least, without their permission. I’m sure there was no issue with Mind Over Magnet, but some artists can take it personally when you edit their art, even if you commissioned and own it - it’s just good to let them know that you’ll be editing/adjusting their work.

2:37 The game would not exist without you, that is your main contribution, that is why you exist.

The bolts sound is so on point. Those are the details that make something feel deeper and more loved.

Man went out and bought a pack of quavers for that gag

tbf alot of the people saying "it's too short" will be the type to expect a wholearse *game* for free so dw about them - when the biggest complaint is "wish there was more" that's good.

i see a lot of comments about wanting the 3 hour contract video. Now, im not sure it'd really need to be 3 hours, but - yes Im sorry to say i agree with them. Give it to us! Nobody else would!

Congrats on a successful NextFest! We've seen similar trends with feedback on our game as well... that is, a lot of people gravitate towards something we don't think is a huge deal. I think you nailed it by pointing out how players will choose something easy to provide feedback on. The water drop is one of the first things players see in the game. It takes little effort to notice it. At the same time, that's part of the critical first impression, so it's great to address it.

Mind Over Magnet was one of the best I played in the last Next Fest. I even featured it on my vídeo about the event, and I would never have done so on a bad demo, even if it's from one of my fav yt channels. So I think overall you did an amazing job!

I wouldn’t say those things are trivial. More so they are the final little details of polish that take a game a step further.

21:23 I'm gonna feedback your feedback and say that this was actually a change for the worse. It draws more attention to the bolts than is really necessary, and more importantly, it's pretty annoying. I'm sure part of what makes it annoying is the sound itself (a quieter, clickier, more atonal sound would be better) but all in all I'd say cut it out or consider limiting how many of them can sound at a time so that it isn't a cacophony of noise. Just my two cents.

I INSTANTLY knew he was talking about Austin Wintory. What a gem that man is.

You should give the bolts a slight reverb effect and mute them slightly/add a low-pass effect to make it feel more satisfying and chill once they hit the ground.

"…pretty demoralizing to see my game hidden under a pile of hundreds and hundreds of amazing indie games." Sounds like someone's never submitted their game to the GMTK game jam lol

Always a great day when Mark posts a video

The nuts and bolts falling sound was extremely satisfying

Great content, per usual. I've loved following this project and am super happy to get another installation of progress here! Tons of good insight here. One piece of small, trivial, easy feedback that caught my eye while watching this, and double checking against your steam page --- Uni's hands are on backwards in your blender render. The thumbs forward immediately caught my eye as looking bizarre. Just wanted to throw that out. Keep up the good work! I can't wait for the final release of this and being able to play the final product.

three hour spinoff video please

0:08 Jesse Pinkman: "MAGNETS!"

This is the first video of yours I've ever seen. But I've wish listed this game and am keen to play it upon launch. Good luck!!

First of all.. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with the audience. This is such a cool thing to see and it really demonstrates how daunting of a task this can be for a single person, as the audience often forgets that there's actual people working behind these games. Second. Yeah I want that contract video.

Let me get that 3 hour spin off 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

This channel really does it all, entertaining for gamers and helpful for game devs, thank you and well done!

As someone who can be self reliant to a fault it was great to see someone delving into the collaborative process with others and sharing the experience.

I love just how many of the top comments are encouraging you to make an in-depth video about the legal and contract side of things. I hope you do it!

It would be awesome if you could make a video/tutorial on how to make a contract

My biggest complaint about the demo is it ENDED TO EARLY AHHHHHHHHHHH

I think pointing out also the small level stuff makes a lot of sense. While it makes sense to wish for a high level feedback, it is often the small little details that add up to a good game. And often that is something that is a surprisingly large detail while being very difficult to point out. It often feels something is a little of or could need a little polish, but no idea what that is - the sum of small things.

21:20 I gotta say, I always love interactive sounds like that. They really add to the juicy expressiveness of a game and make it feel polished.

give us the 3 hour long legal video

Yes please for the legal document video

I honestly think there is a bit much going on in that level 1 sound track. Maybe play a stripped dowm version in the first few rooms before playing the full version in the 2nd half of the level. This would somewhat reflect the player feelings of first being confused but once you get the hang of it, both you and the music becomes more advanced together. Super amazing track!

My instant, instinctual reaction to water droplet was "is this going to somehow damage me" :D

Man, 7 minutes in, and as someone who has been a musician for most of my life, if someone who didn't know how to talk music tried to tell me what tempo or key to create music in, I think I would lose it lmao. Imagine someone who had never looked at code trying to tell you what methods to use in what classes. Little further in and yeah, that's exactly how I'd want to be talked to.

always remember to add easter eggs to your game

Thank you for your insight, Mark, it was fascinating episode. When you mentioned composers, I thought, oh, if if only Mark could talk to Austin Wintory -- EEYY THERE'S AUSTIN. It was also incredible seeing Zach's suggested temp music go into the game and the immediate atmosphere it gave, along with the iterative process the both of you went through for the in-game tracks. Fantastic. The difference with the sound effects for the nuts and bolts was amazing, too. This episode really highlighted the importance of sound in a tangible way. Fantastic work, excited to see what's next for Mind Over Magnet in the upcoming months in the lead up to release. (Joining in the chorus of a wanting a three hour contract video!)

Many people already commented, but I'll add to the crowd. I would 100% love a 3 hour video about the contract part of this process.

The quavers joke probably won't make sense to most US viewers.

it's weird because mind over magnet is a game that would have been free on newgrounds. It's a cool and strange time that indie devs charge so much for games that are equivalent to passion projects in the late 2000s

I think the reason so many people talked about those tiny details isn’t because your demo was so amazing no one had any other thoughts, but because it was pretty good AND a demo. A lot of the things people noticed were probably things that are logically better in a full game than a demo.

I'm honestly shocked it took me this long to find out that Bryan Lee O'Malley did the box art for Fez! that's so cool.

I was a bit surprised by the music chosen by Mark. I was probably expecting something a bit different judging from the rest of the game This shows how much sound is important to convey emotions as a game designer!