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The game-making lessons we learned are:

• Lack of exposition + personal artifacts = introspective environmental storytelling. Gamifying the mundane. Anywhere decisions can be made (ex: where to place physical items in a room) a game can be born. (Unpacking). Shout out to Ian Bogost’s “How to do Things with Video Games.”
• All characterization is with dialog, conversations with demons. Fiction writing rule: Dialog, not exposition, makes for the best characters. Show don't tell. This game is a reminder that mechanics alone don't need to bear the weight of a game alone; the "what a crazy character that is" appeal can support and, maybe even, still the show. (Shin Megami Tensei 5)
• Obligation is inherently less motivating than discovery. Obligation lacks personal investment. (Mass Effect 2)

The game-making lessons we learned are:

• Music both directs and enhances the mood. Chill must support a chill atmosphere but also it provides feedback to the player that this is a game (or section of a game) that should allow for chilling out. Lack of enemies alone doesn’t signify a conflict-free scenario. (Valheim)
• Pawns as a terrain generator. Live environment manipulation disguised as offensive actions. (Chess)
• Character movement is the most important part of games in which moving a character is central to the experience. Duh, right? I’ll be refining movement in my next game for a very long time before moving on. This means the environment and puzzles I create will be anticipating the good movement, rather than possibly having been built with sub-par (ie, only suitable) movement in mind. (NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…)

The game-making lessons we mentioned are:

• Don’t waste the player’s time. A novel input system cannot survive on novelty alone; it MUST serve good gameplay. Otherwise, the forced input falls from delightful to frustration (Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask)
• Movement in a platformer MUST feel great above all else. If a game has secrets to find via exploration, that exploration had better not suck. (Sackboy: a Big Adventure)
• Visuals afford function. Therefore, nothing is ever only cosmetic. If a character looks tall and fat, the player expects the movement to be slow. If a character is short and thin, the player expects the movement to be quick and nimble (Sackboy: a Big Adventure)
• Is there a formula for determining the proper melee attack range for a character based on character speed and height? There should be. (Sackboy: a Big Adventure)

Listen in as we talk about our game development “ah ha” moments, including:

• The importance of commenting even as a solo dev
• Self-documenting/readable code
• The importance of having fun as part of the learning & development process
• Shaders are black magic
• Unity events are suuuuper useful
• The absolute need to LEARN THE TOOLS YOU USE and…
• DO NOT FIGHT those tools your learned to use (even if fighting the tools feels like a “neat old’ fashioned way to do it,” as Jo so eloquently states)

• Re-use of levels doesn’t have to be boring. Narrative, along with day segments, means each environment feels very different despite their repetition. (Death Loop). Mentioned: Dishonored 2 Devs Explain the Clockwork Mansion.
• Simplicity can be deceiving. Simplicity doesn’t mean boring. (Super Auto Pets).
• Difficulty doesn’t make Caleb hate a game. Rather, artificial difficulty (ie, design ignorant difficulty), is what makes Caleb hate a game. (Ori and the Blind Forest).