
‘Braid’ creator sacrifices his fortune to build his next game - jonas21
http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/06/the-witness-money/
======
footpath
Here's a nice thread about Jonathan Blow's view on investing:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2198255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2198255)

 _you are better off taking the mental energy you would have expended on
"investing" and subsequently worrying about your money, and instead funneling
it into your creative endeavors. You will make more money that way, especially
when you take a long-term view._

...

 _If creative endeavors are profitable, you can use the resulting money to
fuel more creative endeavors, thus making the world a better place. Keeping
money in a bank account or publicly-traded stock does not particularly make
the world a better place.

Once I got approximately into the f-you money level of income, it became
crystal clear how fictitious money is in the first place. I wake up one
morning, and bam, I am wealthy! Why? Because someone said so and typed a
number into a computer. Okay... that's kind of weird.

Given that money is so fictitious and somewhat meaningless, it is a shame to
give into primal hoarding impulses, just so one can see the number in one's
bank account go up like a high score in a video game. It's much better to make
like Elon Musk and use your money for what it is: a way to wield influence to
make the world more like you would like it to be._

~~~
vortizz
Sure, money is fictitious and meaningless once you've moved into the f-you
echelon. By definition. Perhaps for that segment piping it into creative
endeavors is fulfilling and worthwhile.

For everyone else for whom money is a meal, rent, or essential good instead of
an expletive, who cannot afford to take an ethereally long-term view, this
advice is out of touch with reality if not plain dangerous.

~~~
seanflyon
You and I read his advice quite differently. Once you quite your job to pursue
your dream you have a finite runway determined by your savings and minimum
expenses. He is suggesting you use that runway to build you dream instead of
using it to try to get funding for a longer runway.

~~~
quanticle
But what if your dream isn't profitable?

~~~
ap3
Then it was just a bad dream

~~~
themartorana
This is a bad statement.

Without your "bad dreams" we wouldn't have the Red Cross, Kiva, Linux (or a
majority of *nix releases), GPG (or lots of other OSS projects), One, Doctors
Without Borders (or any number of other non-profit organizations), immense
amounts of historically important art, music, documentaries, museums...

Some of the best, most important dreams in human history weren't profitable.

~~~
officemonkey
One would argue that "social profit" (ie: where society profits) is where all
those not-for-profit "bad dreams" go.

The Red Cross movement especially brought forward the Geneva Conventions
(which improved the conditions of prisoners of war), successfully fought
epidemics, and (in my opinion) began a tradition of humanism that combats
extreme fundamentalism in a practical non-violent way (which is why the worst
fundamentalists target Red Cross/Red Crescent workers.)

------
jared314
Blow is also attempting to build a programming language [1], based on his
experience in game development. While I don't agree with his direction, so
far, watching the process is very interesting. The next Jai demo was announced
for Feb 11th [2].

[1] Jai:
[https://sites.google.com/site/jailanguageprimer/](https://sites.google.com/site/jailanguageprimer/)

[https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541509)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/563766250711425024](https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/563766250711425024)

~~~
cromwellian
Actually, he's been doing this for a while. When he was at XCF at Berkeley in
the early 90s, I had contributed to his FMPL (Frobozz Magic Programming
Language) project, writing MUDs in it. (I wrote a Dikumud/D&D like system).

He's a wiz, and his C code was humorously commented that makes it a joy to
read.

~~~
tomsthumb
is it possible to find this nowadays? things like that are always wonderful to
come across.

------
melling
One of the contributors is creating a video game from scratch in a series of
videos.

[http://handmadehero.org](http://handmadehero.org)

He just did day 60 today. It's probably going to take at least a year. It's
quite educational to start from scratch without any libraries.

~~~
jonathantm
I've been thinking of binge-watching this rather than Netflix shows :D

I'm not into game development or C... but it looks so well done I'm sure I'd
learn tons... even just watching it casually.

~~~
thorin
It's really good. Lots of stuff applicable to general programming, os,
architecture etc. Very watchable. I love the guys style.

------
justintime2002
"Jonathan Blow's beautiful, distinct 2008 platformer Braid is largely regarded
as the original indie game"

Really? I find this difficult to believe, considering the success of Cave
Story back in 2004.

~~~
frandroid
The whole early PC gaming industry was indie games... Infocom, Sierra On-line,
etc...

~~~
sp332
How do you consider Infocom and Sierra to be "indie"?

~~~
martincmartin
Sierra started with Ken and Roberta Williams working out of their house on
Mystery House, in their spare time while Ken held down a full time job. Later,
of course, they became a big company and so no longer indie.

"Next time, be more careful!"

------
bronz
I am really excited for The Witness. If you ever watch one of Mr Blows
interviews on Youtube you will see why. His philosophy about video games is
interesting and refreshing. Particularly, his thoughts on establishing a
dialogue between the player and developer through small events and patterns in
the game is very insightful and inspiring. I'm sure that The Witness will be a
very thoughtfully crafted game and I am definitely going to buy it. Mr Blow,
if you are reading these comments, I wish you the best of luck with this game.

~~~
rsync
I'm not sure where to insert this in the comment threads ... this seemed as
good a place as any:

I have never played braid, but based on an article I read online when it was
released, I bought the soundtrack. It is beautiful. I've probably listened to
it over 100 times. Highly recommended.

------
espadrine
Jonathan Blow is also passionately into the creation of a new programming
language to compete with C++, with an emphasis on performance and ease of use.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888/videos)

~~~
irishloop
Haven't many tried, and failed, to compete with C++ when it comes to gaming?

~~~
GigabyteCoin
That is entirely irrelevant.

Improvements can always be made on man-made things like C++, even if
improvements aren't always obvious at first.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take!

~~~
anigbrowl
_You miss 100% of the shots you don 't take!_

Tangentially, I hate this phrase. It ignores the fact that there's an
opportunity cost to missed shots. If you're imagining the metaphor of a ball
game, it's possession (and thus time and position). If you imagine the
metaphor of a gun, it's your limited supply of bullets. This exhortation has
an implicit assumption of endless resources, which are typically not available
in the real world. _Of course_ there are times you should risk things on an
uncertain outcome, and be willing to move on to the next opportunity - trying
to hold on to a declining situation is often motivated by a sunk-costs
fallacy.

But I've heard the 'miss shots you don't take' thing proffered too many times
as an excuse for ego-driven, risk-indifferent, and resource-wasting decisions
and I'm pretty tired of it. There is a certain sort of person (but I don't men
you, parent poster) who comes into a situation, fucks everything up, and then
sails off with the excuse of what a bold, visionary risk-taker they are,
blaming any obvious failures on the timidity of the team/colleagues. An excess
reliance on sports metaphors has become a huge red flag for me in picking the
people I work with.

~~~
archagon
> _It ignores the fact that there 's an opportunity cost to missed shots._

For the record, Blow has said that he's making the language primarily for his
own use. I expect that most of the games he makes in the future will be
written in this language.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yeah, I didn't mean it in the context of this particular discussion - I'm sure
Blow knows what he's doing, and there's nothing wrong with trying to go past
C++. I dont' disagree with the poster I replied to either - I was just venting
my irritation at this increasingly popular but frequently empty truism.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some kids that I need to eject from my lawn
:-)

------
kelukelugames
I've followed Jonathan Blow for a while. He has a reputation for being
condescending. If you follow him a Twitter then you might come to the same
conclusion. But he has given some amazing talks.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFzf6yIfcc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxFzf6yIfcc)
<-compares games to televison

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Fg76c4Zfg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Fg76c4Zfg)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDsP5n2kSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDsP5n2kSM)

~~~
gavanwoolery
I've followed him for a while and I think it might be a little more
complicated although this is definitely how it might come across to the
average person. He is blunt, and seemingly socially detached at times, almost
in a Carmack-ish way. I don't see this as a bad thing really, just a different
type of personality. Most of the best programmers I have known have this kind
of personality.

Also, as mentioned his new language is definitely worth checking out. Yes, a
language is only as good as its adoption/tools/history, but I definitely think
C++ needs a challenger and not many people are in the position where they can
risk taking on such a thing. Since money is becoming an issue, I hope he tries
to fund this language somehow.

~~~
archagon
I've found his Twitter very frustrating to follow sometimes, but I also learn
a ton from the things he links to and talks about. For example, I'm certainly
not in the anti-OO camp, but his perspective keeps me on my toes and has been
informing my programming decisions to a degree. He also seems like a good
person in general — just one who happens to be an old school programmer with a
very specific view on how things should be done. (As are many other game
developers, I've been discovering!) People are complex and multifaceted, and
you don't have to like every part of them. It's clear that he's a visionary
and a fantastic game designer, and that he's been in the trenches for a while,
so he's worth listening to for those reasons alone.

Anyway, it's kind of weird talking about jblow when I know he'll be reading
this. Even if he doesn't like us so much anymore. :(

~~~
kelukelugames
Why doesn't he like us?

~~~
archagon
I don't think he thinks most people here are "good programmers".

~~~
eropple
He's probably right. HN has some serious talent around, but it also has as
rather core principles a lot of stuff that's deleterious to the kind of
understanding that forms the basis of what he considers a good programmer to
be.

I have throughout my career tried to maintain a grasp of everything in my
stack (I went through a "study the code for HotSpot in-depth" phase that,
while I don't regret it, I'm glad is over--though I may be about to start in
on MRI...) and I try to make intelligent decisions about when to approach
problems at different levels. I see a lot more trend-following and operating
off of tribal conventional wisdom than I would like.

------
david_shaw
Interesting story, but I'd hardly call this "sacrificing his fortune." The
title led me to believe that perhaps there was some sort of looming
intellectual property or non-compete battle -- instead, he just spent his
money in development efforts for his next game.

That said, the game looks great -- and I'm sure he'll be very successful with
this one, too.

~~~
lambda
Yes, this could be more accurately described as "investing his fortune", or if
you want to focus more on the risk (as game development is a risky business),
"bet his fortune."

Loved Braid, quite interested in trying out The Witness; hope it doesn't take
too long to come to a platform I can play it on, as I have neither a Windows
machine, nor any consoles, nor an iOS device.

~~~
icefox
At the same time it is sobering to learn that one of the more recent wildly
successful indy games only made a few million at most.

~~~
swah
I thought he hadn't made millions. I thought only notch had became truly rich
w/ a single game?

~~~
yoklov
IIRC Braid made a couple million. I think less than 10 though.

Minecraft, OTOH, made Notch over a billion dollars. So it depends on your
definition of _truly rich_.

------
Breefield
Very stoked on The Witness but also Firewatch: www.firewatchgame.com

These are the kind of games I can get down with, a good slow ambiance based
puzzle game—had enough of RTS and FPS for the time being.

~~~
winslow
Wow that Firewatch trailer is really well done. Adding it to my todo/play
list.

------
teddyh
Link to game’s own site: [http://the-witness.net/](http://the-witness.net/)

------
stegosaurus
I think that the traditional investment mindset is suboptimal for most people.
Especially the young.

For example, the advice to start early on a pension is commonplace. But the
young often have low disposable income, and this cuts in to other possible
uses of money that have far more return on low amounts of capital.

For example, taking a few months out to study in a different field. Building
up a relocation fund so that you can move to a higher paying area. Working
towards a property deposit. Buying cars outright instead of borrowing money to
finance them.

Most of those have a far better return than a few percent per annum. It's just
not clearly quantifiable. And that's not even going in to the riskier things
like starting a business.

------
reledi
One of my favourite technical talks is by Jonathan Blow: [http://the-
witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independe...](http://the-
witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independent-games/)

------
rbrogan
He is featured in this nice documentary about indie games along with a couple
of different development teams:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq5HRdTyKUs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq5HRdTyKUs)

------
simplicio
I always sort of wonder about stories like this, where fairly established
game-devs have to rely on Kickstarter, or on their own funds to develop games.

Seems like someone like Blow should be able to attract some investors.

~~~
ssully
I do not know him personally, but as a distant admirer I would say he doesn't
seem like he would have any interest in dealing with investors.

~~~
hatu
Most game investors these days are mostly looking for free to play games that
have a business plan beyond selling copies in (digital stores). He's very
against that type of games and games as businesses instead of artform in
general.

------
listic
Puzzles, puzzles everywhere. I've read the interview and didn't get it -
what's so great in this new game that he is spending all his money on it.

I hoped there will be some ambition to the like of Ice-Pick Lodge
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic)
or Tale of Tales [http://tale-of-tales.com/videogames.php](http://tale-of-
tales.com/videogames.php) but nope, another game with puzzles.

~~~
nkuttler
You probably just have to accept that pure puzzle games aren't for you. It's
the same for me, and Braid is the game that made me accept that fact. I could
see it was great, but I couldn't enjoy it past a certain point. No need to be
negative, just move on and play games you enjoy.

~~~
Chevalier
Just to correct you, Braid didn't succeed because it was a "pure puzzle game."
Braid has an absolutely incredible story and milieu -- stunning art and music
with a sad, beautiful ambiance. It helped that the puzzles are great, but I'm
sure many crappy mobile games have puzzles. Braid has soul.

You might as well say that Portal succeeded because of its puzzles. I mean,
Portal IS a puzzle game even more than Braid is -- but what matters is the
atmosphere, the immersion, and the story. Why not compare Lord of the Rings to
a hiking manual while we're oversimplifying art.

~~~
archagon
Not sure why you were downvoted — this is pretty true. At the very least, it's
hard to argue that the art in Braid was absolutely top-notch for platformers
at the time.

I also have to say, though, that Braid was remarkably fluid for a puzzle game.
What I mean is that instead of having to stand in one place and suss out each
puzzle in your head, you were compelled to experiment with the game world,
internalize the rules, and eventually intuit each solution. In the end, I
believe I only had to "work out" a handful of puzzles in the entire game.
(Contrast this to a puzzle game like Sokoban, where you pretty much have to
logic out each screen. I hate those kinds of games!)

With that said, it looks like The Witness is going to be a much more cerebral
puzzler.

~~~
babuskov
I completely agree. I miss playing more games like that.

Some 6 months ago I decided to learn how to draw pixel art to make one myself.
I should have a playable demo out in a couple of weeks. You can track my
progress on my twitter account (@mbabuskov).

------
alexvr
There's something really pleasant about graphics like those in The Witness and
No Man's Sky.

------
frozenport
677/40 = 17 puzzles per hour?

~~~
lambda
That's 677 total puzzles. But remember, it says that there are in total 11
areas, of which you need to complete 7 or 8. And it says that to complete an
area, you don't necessarily need to solve every puzzle within it.

So let's say you need to solve, on average, 75% of the puzzles in an are to
beat it. And that you need to solve 7 out of the 11 areas. That gives you (677
* 7/11) *.75 / 40 or about 8 puzzles per hour.

------
DubiousPusher
"Jonathan Blow's beautiful, distinct 2008 platformer Braid is largely regarded
as the original indie game..."

Nah,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Story](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Story)

------
sova
loved braid.

go jonathan

