DGC Ep 439: The Stanley Parable Bonus Interview with William Pugh

Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on indie games with an interview with William Pugh of Crows Crows Crows, one of the principal developers of The Stanley Parable. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown: 1:06 Interview 1:04:15 Break 1:04:49 Outro

Issues covered: his way in, modding for Mario and fan games, blaming our parents, planning to work for Valve, seeing a format for drama and small teams, turning "we'll see" into "whoopie!", being young when you start, early success and having to learn, being your own boss in indie, watching others, therapy, the crush in the industry, market share and Steam, misguided and unsustainable investment, hoping you can ride your past success after gaps in release, mansion success vs terrace house success, remote development living at home, using... nontraditional game development tools, production: the hardest part, a negative learning experience, killing yourselves for the game, "indie developers are certifiably nuts," intelligence and humor, working for the flowchart of it all, going from a console port to adding more and more content and expanding out to be a multi-platform release, a check that's difficult to cash, finding ways to subvert and surprise, a great trailer and setting a trend, day to day iteration on an anthology, not locking things behind meta gates but changing that up in the sequel, bringing in the bucket, maintaining the original and lovingly adding using the parts you have, having confidence, drawing the line when co-creators are happy, validating your own feelings through playtest, trusting in your own taste, team dynamics and having team members get a say, building and having to throw away, the pressure of the first 15 minutes, grabbing attention and compelling to play more... across the game, subverting the mental map, the impact on future work, edging into new areas, having to overdeliver on expectations and at a high level, needing to hit by the time it arrives, reverse-engineering the game development career, getting good advice, spending the time for the quality, seeing the player, not knowing how you'd extend it, really knowing their parameters, interpreting player feelings, the uselessness of focus-testing, overdoing it on the risk aversion.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Team Fortress 2, Portal, Davey Wreden, Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist, Accounting/Accounting+, Valve, Left 4 Dead, Mario (series), Nintendo, Macromedia Director, Garry's Mod, Narbacular Drop, DigiPen, The Lord of the Rings, Microsoft, Sonic the Hedgehog, Fez, Spelunky, Skype, Dropbox, MSPaint, Google Docs, Chet Faliszek, Indie Game: The Movie, Mark Rein, PlayStation 4, Karla Zimonja, LucasArts, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time: ... TBA!

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