Antichamber: An Overnight Success, Seven Years In The Making on HackerTube: recommended by 2 Hacker News commenters across 2 separate months, 2016–2024.
talk · evergreen
Alexander Bruce's GDC talk on making Antichamber, from working alone in a bedroom to winning acclaim at the IGF. It focuses on the psychological challenge of seven years of solo development.
HN commenters recommend it as an honest account of the emotional toll and persistence of long indie game development.
“I really recommend watching it”
3 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
No, they are exactly the same. It's hard to find a GDC talk on Youtube where the creator of a game doesn't get teared up talking about the despair and elation they felt slaving over their game for four years. Try this one: ▶ this video I also firmly believe there are games that won't be forgotten in a few decades.
in “In the Videogame Industry, Hiring People Is a Last Resort” · View on HN
You'd be surprised. There's a GDC talk about Antichamber from a couple years ago (I really recommend watching it) which explains the amount of time that was invested into the game. Antichamber was a 7 year long hack on Unreal Engine, it's really not a drop-in game. ▶ this video
in “Why I Write Games in C” · View on HN
Ultimately pretty shallow. This is more an exploration of how it feels to make a "sticky" game rather than how to actually make a sticky game. I certainly don't have any expertise or deep insight but I will say that one of the best videos I've seen on this is "The art of screenshake" by J. Nijman of Vlambeer [0]. There, he walks through what's a very basic 2d sidescroller shooter and adds in effects until it looks like an actual fun game. The idea being that layering feedback and effects so that every aspect of the game becomes more fun to play. It sounds like this podcast was focusing more on Hearthstone and Marvel Snap, both games which I haven't played but are more strategy and luck oriented than the kind of games Vlambeer makes. I think one of the insights there is that there's a non-commutative aspect of the game that allows for different strategies based on context. For example, A > B, B > C but C > A, like in rock paper scissors, or some of its generalizations [1]. I think this is what Magic the Gathering did with each of the colors. Maybe the keyword here is "mixed strategies"? Nijman's video highlights, to me, the importance of polish and how we basically understand that many core mechanics are fun and so don't need to be innovative if you add in enough polish or support around it. One other thing I'll mention is that A. Bruce who developed Antichamber had a GDC talk about his process of development [2]. One of the interesting points he made was that he got it in fro
in “How do you make an addictive video game?” · View on HN