Catching up with Jonathan Blow
I recently did an interview with Jonathan Blow, Independent Game Developer and creator of the highly appraised puzzle/platformer game Braid, to ask a few questions about his success and what he is up to now. Braid, which took him over 4 years to finish, has received a lot of praise and is a great game from top to bottom. Currently, it is available on Xbox Live and PC, with the Mac version coming soon. I can’t recommend the game enough…it’s a must play in my book!! Here is what Mr. Blow had to say from the interview with me.
Gameattic: How did you get started in the industry and what made you decide to go for it as an Independent Game Developer?
J.Blow: Way back in 1996 I started a game company with a friend I’d met in college. We just decided to go do it. Even though we were often poor and eventually had to close the company down, I learned a tremendous amount from that.
Gameattic: What inspired the idea behind Braid?
J.Blow: Braid is inspired primarily by a couple of books, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams. I wanted to make a game a little bit in the form of these books — where there’s a series of worlds you visit, and each world has a what-if question at its core that shapes everything that happens there.
Gameattic: What new project(s) are you currently working on and when can we expect a new game from you?
J.Blow: I am working on a new game but not saying much about it yet. It will be quite a while before it’s done, so don’t hold your breath!
Gameattic: How has the success from Braid shaped how you approach your work now?
J. Blow: I don’t think the success of Braid has changed anything, but the actual making of the game (before I knew whether it would succeed or fail) changed a lot about my design process, and gave me a new perspective about what is interesting in game design. Braid was by far the best thing I ever worked on, and a large part of that was just due to interesting gameplay that somehow already existed but that I was lucky to uncover. In the process of uncovering those things, my idea of what is interesting to play has changed a lot. It’s difficult to explain how.
Gameattic: With the popularity of mobile gaming growing at a rapid pace could we see a mobile version of Braid makes its way to the iPhone?
J. Blow: It’s unlikely, because controlling a platformer on the iPhone doesn’t work very well. I’m not totally closed to the idea, but someone would have to show that it would work very well.
Gameattic: Once you finished development of Braid how did you market the product with Microsoft? And now that you are finishing up the PC and Mac versions, are you going to reach out to PS3 and Nintendo Wii in the future?
J. Blow: Microsoft called me and said they were interested in the game, so talks proceeded from there. If other publishers are interested in the future, I am happy to talk to them. A PS3 version may happen, but right now I am undergoing the necessary first step, applying to become a PS3 developer. That seems to take a long time and I can’t really talk to Sony about whether they really want the game until after that is complete. (I’m not sure why the process takes so long, as Microsoft worked very quickly — hey, it’s a small downloadable game, not something with a $40 million budget — but everyone works their own way, I guess). I am also open to discussions for WiiWare, but that one is hard since I don’t see how the game can fit. Nintendo recently added the ability to save games on a large SD card, but the question is, how many people are going to do that now. Is it going to gain widespread adoption? If a game requires substantial storage space, are fewer Wii owners going to download it? Stuff like that.
Gameattic: When you started developing Braid back in 2004, considering the amount of time, energy and money it took to make it, would you have been able to do that in today’s economy?
J. Blow: Yes, probably. The economy right now isn’t very different from 2004 when it comes to software that actually performs real tasks, especially video games.
Gameattic: What advice would you give someone starting out on their own?
J. Blow: Just start making games. That’s how you get it done.
Gameattic: We are currently seeing lots of gaming companies such as Electronics Arts taking huge losses and laying off hundreds due to mass production of low quality games. It seems that games are being rushed out to meet demand, yet it took you over 3 years to make a superb title. Should they be taking this same approach? What are your thoughts?
J. Blow: Electronic Arts is in a fundamentally different business, and what is best for me is different from what’s best for them. I don’t think any advice I could give EA would be helpful.
Gameattic: With many avenues available now, such as Xbox Live, Playstation Network, iPhone etc., does this present more opportunities to Indie developers to showcase their games?
J. Blow: Yes, clearly it does.
Gameattic: As new games and systems come out we, as gamers, tend to lose our passion for the old games forgetting that they are what made gaming what it is today! So, what games are you hiding in your attic?
J. Blow: I don’t play old games very much. Really they weren’t very good compared to the games of today! (And I don’t mean in terms of graphics, but rather, playability, and the density of ideas contained in a game). That’s a good sign, though, it means that game developers have been actively improving for the past couple of decades. Hopefully we can keep it up.
Gameattic: Thank you so much for your time and good luck with your future projects!
