You (Probably) Can't Trust Game Dev Formulas

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