Word Play and the future of GMTK

Hello Patrons, Mark here.

So... today is the day! Word Play is coming out on Steam in about 10 hours. There will be a video premiere to go along with it - but as my backers, you can see it right now, and ad free - watch it embedded above or on YouTube here.

Now - none of this was meant to happen.

When I finished Mind Over Magnet I was pretty much done with game development and was excited to return to making YouTube videos. And yet, less than a month after launch I was back in Unity making game number two. Whoops.

But, I'm really glad I did it.

For one - this game is just pretty darn good, in my not-so-humble opinion. So I'm glad it exists. But for two - while I'm proud of MOM and learned a lot while making it, it was also a bit of a disaster of a project. I made so many mistakes in terms of scope, planning, prototyping, and more... but Word Play gave me an opportunity to learn from those errors and "do it right" this time.

I'm really proud of the fact that Word Play came together in just seven months. I can hold it up as an example of game dev done right - and talk about it not as an example of what NOT to do, but actually as an example of how to make a game in a smart, sustainable way.

This will feed into all future GMTK videos - but especially my series Game Dev 101, which I'm looking forward to returning to in the coming months.

Game 3

So... onto game number three, right?

No.

That is not going to happen. Or at least, not for the next few years.

For one: I really do feel like I've scratched that game dev itch now. I feel like I've accomplished what I want to accomplish and got what I wanted out of the process. If I wanted to go further with game dev then I'd have to take it to the next level (a full team, publisher, funding, etc) and that's just not what I want to do.

Also, making Word Play was hugely draining. Even though it came together quickly and I almost never crunched on it... it was still all I could think about for seven months straight. It still had me waking up at a stupidly early hour, thinking about bugs and perks and patches. It still left me wrecked with doubt and indecision and imposter syndrome.

And finally - I've got some big changes happening in my personal life which just aren't compatible with a big multi-month or multi-year project. So I'll be glad to have YouTube where I can make and release stuff in a matter of weeks.

The future

So... the future of GMTK is to return to where I started. But now with a wealth of experience behind me. I now have two games. I've been in the trenches. And so I will be able to bring all of that to my future video essays.

And that also means more game-making... but not for game-making's sake. Instead, for the benefit of videos. So think of things like Platformer Toolkit or the Zelda UI demonstration. Or perhaps a quick week-long game jam project that can be spun into an interesting video.

I should note that both Mind Over Magnet and Word Play will take up some time going forward. The console port of MOM is out soon and so will require some press and whatnot. And Word Play is destined to be released on iOS later this year. Plus, I want to add some more features to Word Play down the line.

So I'm going to try a new set-up where I work on videos for 4 days a week, then spend the last day just doing maintenance and whatnot on my games. We'll see how that goes.

The immediate future

But if we're talking about right now... well, this week will likely be focused on fixing all the bugs that people find in Word Play's 1.0 release.

Then I better start prepping for GMTK Game Jam 2025!

And then! And then. And then and then and then. I will finally be back. Back to YouTube. Back to GMTK. Back to "Hi, I'm Mark Brown, and this is Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design".

Thanks for your patience during this time. It really means the world to me.

Mark