The only thing harder than actually making a game, is sticking with it long enough to see it finished.

As a developer I can firmly say that : spending time implementing something to finally discovering it is already an available tool is never completely wasted time. Then you know how the tool is made, what are its limitations and how it will perform in edge cases.

My immediate reaction to that stage transition was "Aw, I love that!" So I think you nailed it!

That stage transition is very cute. I'd give the "plop" of the cork (?) a little more oomph to sell the suction a little more, but it's already really satisfying.

What's cool about this series is that it started out as an academic insight into the process of development but now has me thinking "Hmm... I hope this comes out on Switch, I wanna play it"

Mark: *runs this KZfaq channel* Also Mark: “I never made anything that evoked an emotional response in people”

14:58 Ohhhh no no no, Mark---- Your parallax scrolling is backwards. Stationary foreground objects scroll FASTER than stationary background objects. The relationship between these speeds is directly proportionate to the relative distance from the viewer. In your clips, some of your background layers are moving faster than the foreground layers which is REALLY disconcerting. In general, each layer should scroll slower than the one in front of it.

Enter your own game jam next year

Just seeing your “level end/level start” animation, it looks great! I’d suggest having different pipes for all the different magnets and your characters to pop out of. That way, if part of a puzzle involves having a magnet “trapped” at a different part of the map to be found and used on another part of the puzzle there’s be a pipe underneath it to show it was deposited there from the beginning. This would also keep people from wondering where one of their magnets went if it’s not at the beginning of the next puzzle but was in the last one.

14:57 Just to nitpick: the barrels in the foreground here move slower than the background objects. They should move faster for a proper parallax effect. And wait, is that the silhouette of an Aperture weighted storage cube?

Seeing how Mark was inspired to finish his game has actually inspired me to get off my butt and stop procrastinating my goals

Me as a game dev hobbyist: wow, this is a really good work! Me as a professional magnet designer: what the hell people think about how magnetic fields work?

"I *am* future Mark!" Is legit inspiring/motivating, as someone who put off so much to be dealt with by my future self.

The stage transition isn't silly, it's BRILLIANT! Good job!

Nice work! This really does demonstrate how complex game design is. Imagine being alone without a community of folks supporting your progress forward! Can't fathom. Also: That dead pixel on your camera sensor! :O

Those backgrounds look amazing!!! Wow! Thanks for sharing this. Also very well demonstrated in the video. Every new layer, color, and especially the animation makes it better! I'm in awe :)

A warning about the next goal you stated at the end: the content grind is real, especially for something like a puzzler where you need to have each level feel distinct. One of the ways to help this is by talking to people, not necessarily people on the internet, but people in your life that have a wide range of gaming experience. Another is don't be afraid to add mechanics when you need to, and don't wait until the well is dry before you do. Lastly, hold onto old ideas when you take them out of the game, as a lot of them aren't as bad or out of place as you think they are, but they may just need some more insight that you don't have until you're future you (I would especially hold onto those platforming levels, because with a couple introductory levels before them they can make great late-game content).

That stage transition is awesome; I love it. Also, I've watched enough of your videos to know why you do subtitles, but thank you for continuing to subtitle your videos. It's so helpful for me.

DUDE! That level transition is so cool!

With the background that you made, I think it looks really good by itself, but in the game, the green color of the background just doesn’t fit the more rigid dark grays of the actual level.

I love the background, one thing though, I think it might be a little too blue/green, combined with the steam and dust (which look a but like bubbles) and the highly defined light rays, it looks a bit like its supposed to be underwater. Maybe that's just mean but j think warmer tones of orange, brown and red might fit better.

The backgrounds look fantastic, but they were a little distracting to me, so maybe in the full game add a small accessibility setting to turn down the saturation and contrast of the background? Other than that, the rest of the game looks phenomenal and you're doing a great job as a developer!

The sound effects you added are very "clicky clacky" and satisfying! I really liked the thick outline you added and the level transition and entrance including the name of the level is all very satisfying! I'm excited to play this one day!

Completely understand. Being motivated to keep working is a key part of being a game dev. I regularly have to talk to interested people and their excitement for my game gives me a boost to work on the next milestone. We'll be doing playtests soon and I'm sure having people enjoy the game and give feedback will keep us going to do even more. Slowly but surely moving forward to completion!

I got crazy exhausted scientist vibes from you in this video... In a good way. It is amazing to see such a game design analyst to make his own game. I am glad that I am watching your experience and hard work. GLHF!

From my experience it actually gets easier to finish a game the farther you are in the process, once the skeleton of the game is there it's mostly smooth sailing from there for me, the hardest part is always building said skeleton.

Omg, I love the addition of multiple magnet characters! That's fantastic! By the way, don't ever worry about someone doing something similar to you. One of my tips for creativity is "Everything's been done before... but that's okay!" When we create things, we inherently put our own spin on them. And even in the extremely rare case that that doesn't happen, the thing you're making will reach a different audience, so this will be the first time many people have seen that thing, even if it already exists. Obviously don't intentionally just copy other games, but don't fret over similar things existing somewhere out there.

That feeling when you start to feel admiration toward your own work.. you know you're on the right track.

The progress you made is astounding Mark. Those backgrounds are AWESOME, the sound effects are pretty neat and the end-of-level animation is super fun haha! Keep it up man.

This is looking really nice! I'm excited to see how it works out in the end. :) Good luck! Love your content. If I can offer a small critique on the character designs - it's kind of frustrating to see the only character with a gender identifier be the female magnet. It's that usual trope of "oh, look, we know she's a woman because she has a hair bow", meanwhile the other magnets are just... magnets with faces. Nothing to communicate their gender, but we deem them to be "male." It's reinforced and confirmed by their names. I know the bow color is to help communicate that the magnet can transform into their sibling, but maybe there is a better way to communicate that. Or heck, make one sibling male, and give them a bow tie. Alternative alternative, give each character some kind of extra detail. That way, the female magnets aren't an exception, they follow a pattern. Not a big deal but I thought I'd share. :)

always love this series!!! It’s amazing to see this game come into existence. Your backgrounds for the levels are stunning, when you added the second color I said “oh yes” out loud. Excited to play this game in the future!

I’ve been watching this series for almost a year now. And it is amazing how much has improved the game. The backgrounds are gorgeous, the new characters and animations are cute and full with personality, and the gameplay looks super neat! Can’t wait to play this game when it releases!

As a developer recently diagnosed with ADHD, I really appreciate this approach to the gamdev process. Those bursts of productivity are so hard to control!

I really love the style and personality that your game is developing. I can only imagine that the story is gonna play along great with the visuals.

I love your ideas! The background, sound effects, level transitions.. everything you actually look at ends up perfect, the only problem is just finding what needs to be fixed.

I love how all the magnet names are puns on the word "magnet". and damn, those sound effects are great.

The most humane thing about this whole process is "time". It really takes so much time to make things, months, sometimes years. Even if it looks simple, the smallest of progress takes time. But it's always worth it to put in the effort all the way

It seems like this was the stage where you added flavor to your game! I love the transition between levels, it does feel satisfying and it's cute!

I actually chuckled out loud when you showed the new level transition! It was so satisfying just watching, so I'm sure players might get an even bigger kick out of it 😁 Thanks for this video, it was very interesting and also very helpful motivation for my own projects - what you're going through is very relatable!

Super cool. I've been following this series, and each video makes me more excited and inspired by your creative process and ability to tackle problems. Insanely reMARKable 😌

This is a great, honest, inspirational video. Not just for video game devs, but for any creator. As a writer, I often feel guilty as I run out of steam. But, that’s not the point. It’s about sticking with it, and being diligent. Thanks, Mark.

The work on the backgrounds looked excellent, and I love the idea of the different magnets and their properties. Keep up the good work!

oh man this is truly amazing you've made a one of a kind project mark i really hope you can finish this some time! good luck! :)

Very inspiring! The background you added, wow! Plus, the stage completion makes the game so much more polished, it feels like you're not just a character doing chores, it feels like the character is going somewhere, it has a goal, an objective to pursue and travel to. From what I saw, this could be a final game and I wouldn't think it looks unfinished. The progress has been insane lately. I find myself in a creative slump at the moment and I think I needed to watch a video like this to motivate me. Scope has been an issue as well, I'm seeing the game I'm developing as this HUGE multi-year project and I can't motivate myself enough to continue. I have pages of notes and the mountain is too high to climb right now! I like your take on this. I usually don't like comparing myself to other developers or games, but to put the scope of a game in perspective with yours, that's brilliant and it proves that's something is attainable. I replayed Hotline Miami recently and had a similar experience where I felt the game had a very achievable scope with just enough mechanics to make it quick to develop and fun to play. Suddenly, my own game felt all over the place and too big for what it is... anyway! Congrats on the recent progress. I can't wait to play another version of this :) Awesome video, thanks for giving so much to the gamedev community

I'd love to see a video about your level design process ! Even just a livestream of making a level. To see how a basic idea is slowly moving toward a totally coherent level. It could even be interesting to see how you design a level right now vs how you'll design a level when you've already made many more of them.

Hey, your description of your hyper-focus on a thing you are interested in until you burn out sounds a lot like my adult diagnosed ADHD! If it's working well for you, great! But it was really nice to put a name to the struggles I had, so I figured I'd let you know it's something you might look into, if you haven't already. Love your content, as always! Edit: I actually really appreciate my ADHD, once I understood the strengths it had, but putting a name to it's challenges helped a lot as well. highly recommend the book ADHD 2.0 for what I felt was a more impactful description than I had heard before

Thanks for this whole series, I've learned a lot from your reflecting and articulating each step of your journey so clearly. Much smaller in scope but parallel in many ways, I've written and published a poetry-writing TTRPG in 2021, and I benefitted a lot from your videos. Evaluating and re-evaluating the scope of my game, making time to play other games of similar size and reading or watching reviews of those games, focusing on taking one or two actionable steps instead of fretting over how distant the final project seemed, all these strategies helped me to make steady progress towards the finish line.

Absolutely love watching this series. I’ve been a fan of yours for awhile now but this is probably my favorite series of you’ve done. A huge inspiration for my own indie journey and super interesting to watch.

Nothing like grabbing cup of coffee and watching GMTK. Definitely not procrastinating on the game I should be finishing

hey Mark, loved the video! you background looks really cool, but it looks the parallax is working in reverse. the things that are far away move slowly and the things close to the camera move closer to camera speed. in the footage is seems that things further away are moving faster.

This looks amazing, keep going. Didn't have a chance to watch it all the way through but sounds like a great case study in agile development as well. Excited to dig into this later!

Really great to see your progress. It's very impressive. Keep at it! I can't wait to play the finished product.

The background part reminded me a lot of Hollow Knight, which also used Unity to build its backgrounds in a very dynamic way.

Loving the background Mark, I would say I'm not a huge fan of the mario-style pipe to leave the level though, both the effect and (the fact it looks ripped straight from Mario)

Hey Mark! Been working on my game for what is coming up on a year. Other projects have come up for me and, as you mentioned, there is so much to do. Very much about choosing your battles. Thank you very much for making a video about this! It is quite inspirational!

You're doing a good job with the game so far and it's really cool to hear your progress, what you're learning from it, and how you're planning to wrap it up! I really like your sound effect choice as well as the backgrounds! When you showed them, it just fit really well. Nice work!

With how the stages end it would be interesting to have a stage where you Goldberg a weight onto a platform suspended on the handle of the end pipe plug to end the level.

Loved the drain plug for the level end pipe. That's hilarious.

Thank you so much for this entire series. It's got me to go ahead and actually learn coding for the project I've had in my had for probably close to a decade now. I don't expect to be anywhere near to your progress in less than a year, but it's so much fun to do even such small steps towards it. Just thank you, so so much.

What an awesome series! When I saw the first episode I was very excited for this series and boy has it delivered. The development process of a game is fascinating to me especially from the perspective of someone who is not only new to game development but also very knowledgeable about how games are made. I'm excited to see what new insights you have to share when you've finished more of the game!

I have always heard that when you first start developing it's actually good to do a lot of different little concepts. You get some ideas and skills under your belt, so when you do stumble across an amazing idea worth fleshing out you'll know more how you want to do it. But that "final" game should be something you love so you have motivation to finish it.

It looks like you made a lot of progress, I love it. I like how you made the ending of the level suck up all magnets, but the circle in the middle feels disconnected, maybe focus is on the pipe instead of the middle? Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to the next beta or video

Love this series sooo much. I played elechead and did immediately think of your game. I love that you acknowedged that here - the transparency in this series is what makes it so helpful / watchable!

Thanks for this video, it really is inspiring and amazing!:D The game is really looking good, love all the details that are added to characters, background and sound.

Very impressive to see how far you’ve come.

love the background! Maybe you could add some sort of effect where the background changes colour - corresponding to your current magnet mode (red or blue).

Great videos man! I love that you explain your process and how you solve issues, etc. Well done :) Hoping to see more in the future. Also looove the longer videos!

i really really like this series. as a new gamedev every episode motivates me a lot to keep improving and a lot of the things you say and advice you give help me directly. i just felt like i should say this, so thank you and keep it up :)

Love this series, you’re an inspiration to us all.

Just a thought - this sounds like a pretty perfect game for an included level editor which would extend gameplay way beyond the levels that you would make

We'll wait, and when you finish the game, we'll still be here, happy and ready to play. Great job so far, and thanks for all the amazing help you have given me for my game. I still may be stuck learning an engine, but ill use you're advice to get really started. Good luck, and may the bugs be few.

Love to see this kind of an honest development diary. Really inspiring and helpful to watch others’ creative processes, and how they overcome the challenges that come along with it!

Those visual/sound polish are so sweet, can't wait to see those level. Tho, the green pipe for exiting level seems a bit out of place now.

For the level transition, I feel like some sort of magnetic pull instead of a vacuum effect would be more on theme.

I am legit loving this series! Keep it up Mark! Good luck finishing those next 30 levels!

Good luck with everything Mark !!! You inspire a lot of people with these videos . Keep it up !!!

You kind of led right into another question: how do you decide how many levels to make in a puzzle game? Do you "force" yourself to make a set amount, and does that leave you with lower quality levels that you otherwise wouldn't have used? Or do you just design levels as you have inspiration for them so that each one has that aha feel to it? Those are obviously rhetorical questions, but as soon as I heard you decide to make 30, I immediately began wondering those things, and hoping you don't feel a need to compromise on quality just to get the quantity. Either way, I'm looking forward to playing this game when it's finally done, since I'm a big fan of puzzle games. I think you touched on it in an earlier video where you discussed controls (and making them work on both a keyboard/mouse and a console controller), but I hope this game will be coming to consoles so I can play it there!

it's always a good day when gmtk uploads

You are awesome! I don't really play much videogames and i'm not into making one but you keep me entertained for a few years now. The background you made looks sooooo good. I wish you all the best for the development and can't wait for your next video!

I m happy to see your progress, I know exactly how difficult it is to keep up until finish a game 😄 keep the great work up!

Its kind of sad for me to hear you talk about how cool is to see other people playing your game and having fun. I have been making games for about 6 years, and the only people who would play them are my closest friends, and they would drop it after a week or so. I pour my heart into them, and whenever someone actually playes them they compare them to successfull indie titles, but i cant for the life of me gather intrest. Its so bittersweet to hear you got to expiriance it on your first game and i am still waiting for a single bit of feedback from someone i DONT know... Idk why i feel like venting this out in this comment section though, its not really the place.

TBH i dont like the new background that much for a couple of reasons: 1. Color Palette: Before the Background change your game was greatly colorcoded: a neutral, desaturated gray for everything that wasnt as important, with a lighter shade for the floow which was a bit more important, but still not the focus. Then, your magnet blue and red greatly popped out, as they were the focus #1 and drew all the attention to it, and lastly the yellow player also popped out really great as it was the only yellow thing and obviously was important too. 2. Theme: The gray walls just visually don't fit with the pipes etc. as they could easily be anything with plates. 3. ACCESSABILITY You yourself did a great video on the topic, but i think, colors should be able to be distinguished as easily as possible for everyone in the name of readability. People with Tritanopia, a type of colorblindness as far as i know will have a harder time differencing the background from blue magnets. How i would improve it (in my view) 1. Make it less saturated. This will make it less distracting and more accessible to ppl with tritanopia. The tone of the greenish tiles you had in a clip looked way better to me. 2. Revision the floor/wall/roof texture to maybe make it a bit more greenish (but this kind of makes the cables less visible :/) and maybe intagrate a bit of the piping there

Nice update. Really love the end of level transition you did

Your sound effects are just delightful! I loved the little POP! when the pipe is unplugged for the level transition.

6:12 ElecHead is an outrageously good game. I absolutely 100% recommend that people play it, one of the best puzzle platformers I've ever played

"If I have an idea to do something and I'm excited about that idea, its really hard to not just focus on that thing intently until either I burn out or the thing is done." This. This right here. I have spent basically every moment of more than 5 years, basically a full time job of just moving project to project each week for that whole time. I know i have the skill to make and release a game. I have all that time of experience, Ive even gotten far many times. But once i think of a new idea my creative ADHD brain refuses to work on anything else. Even with the "I NEED to make something, anything" mentality, it becomes easy to just lose complete passion in the project. I do know its something we've all experience to an extent.

I love the level transition! It looks sooo satisfying! Can't wait to play the finished game.

Love this video. You can see the struggle in the dev process and then how it pays off. It doesn't make developing game seem easy-breezy which I think is a testament to how those dev vlogs are good at actually explaining your process of developping the game. Anyway we're rooting for you, gambate!

Man i think you are giving yourself very little credit, this game legit looks and feels a lot better than the great majority of puzzle platforms out there. We tend to overcriticize ourselves so i kind of get it but this has far exceeded the level of "first game from an inexperienced dev" and is at least visually and mechanically at the level you would expect a successful indie game to be.

Today I learned that KZfaq keeps track of how long ago a video was uploaded down to the second, when it's been less than a minute. This seems unnecessary to me! Oh well, 22 seconds gang??

I'm so inspired by you! me and my team have been working on an android game and the only thing left is setting up the levels which is my duty. I've been struggling to find the motivation to finished specially since we paused working on it for a few months to deal with other matters. this video came out just at the right time for me and I thank you and wish you good luck!

i love that end of level animation and its sound effects and also those backgrounds are awesome also remember that when making a level, you dont need to make it perfect right away. You don’t even need to make it good. That can come later when editing it

Would you mind adding a summary of the keypoints in the description ? I like your videos, but for some reason, at the end, I can't remember a thing you've told.

You want to make THIRTY levels? You don't have to be Baba is You. If there's 10 good levels, great. If there's 15 or 20, slightly greater. If the game never is done because you've got 20 good ones and 9 ok ones, and nothing more, it's time to say done and move on with your life. You've got a youtube to run!

I cant wait to see what you do next with your game. Its really cool and inspiring and makes me want to make my own game. Keep up the good work!

The more I see about this game the more I love the whole concept and the kind of puzzles, feels like something you'd see on the aperture labs from portal. I'm so excited to see more

Now make it a souls-like

You should totally interview Eric Barone, aka ConcernedApe, the person behind Stardew Valley ☺️, since the both of you are solo developers 🥰

Mark thank you! Thank you for making this series. Thank you for being so honest about the challenges and the good and bad of this experience. I decided to have a go at making a game just this week after years of dreaming about it and your series inspired me to do it. However I am going to follow your advice and create some simple clones first to learn the basics. Something I never would have thought of. Thank you

Great video Mark, keep at it! Thanks for keeping us in the loop with your progress