Grow Your Game Dev Success Gradually

0:00 Intro 0:52 From Microsoft to making the first game 2:49 Disjoint’s gameplay 4:28 Paid mobile launch flop 6:25 $30k total; hard lessons and humility 10:45 Starting Isto Inc; choosing automation-survival (Atrio) 13:50 Why picking a good idea is so hard 15:29 Atrio architecture (Zenject) 17:58 COVID, starting the YouTube 19:56 Early Access launch 21:54 A lucky break: Atrioc and the Xbox exclusive deal 23:58 1.0 goes a bit better 25:04 Atrio postmortem: hook too abstract 26:06 Art/style didn’t signal the automation audience 27:32 "We didn’t validate early" (and why that hurt) 30:06 Learnings for next time 34:36 From Atrio to Get To Work; the key‑remapping fiasco 36:42 Building Isto Core: reusable systems 40:35 Pitching Atrioc: data, strategy, and a rage game idea 44:49 How they got Atrioc to care (Reddit bits, rapport) 46:43 Standing out in easy‑to‑make genres 49:44 Get To Work explained: a flowy rage platformer 54:32 Story focus and landing CDawgVA 1:02:06 Skipping Next Fest for streamer momentum 1:05:55 Wishlists via YouTube and what streamers value 1:12:00 Launch plan: hold Atrioc; run a speedrun contest 1:14:36 Designing the Hat sequence for streams 1:18:37 Many paths to success; regional surprises (KR/China) 1:21:11 3‑part postmortem framework 1:25:57 YouTube vs Steam 1:27:16 Engineering the speedrun comp—and the viral video 1:32:33 YouTube as insurance; leveraging big videos for sales 1:35:55 Build your channel vs courting creators 1:47:08 Short‑form vs long‑form videos 1:48:34 The “Idea Gap”: from “cool” to “I must play this” 1:50:52 Pivoting the next game; streamers as partners 1:54:25 The four most streamable genres 1:58:58 Next up: online co‑op multiplayer 2:01:17 Think long‑term; add one big skill per game 2:05:28 Closing