squishygames

Weekly Update - August 11

Added 2025-08-11 13:26:16 +0000 UTC

Good morning, everyone!

Quick update, because I don't have a lot to show off this week! I wrote ten thousand words last week for the new update, but I didn't get much else done.

I spent a lot of time thinking about what I should and could do in the future, but not enough time actually doing things. I wanted to get to an art test for Trixie, but I was too busy thinking to get around to it. Some of that thinking was necessary, and some of it was woolgathering, and it's always hard to figure out where the border between those two activities actually lives.

You all know me for my work on Play Things, but I've worked on a lot of other games as well. I was a professional developer for fifteen years. I've even worked on a lot of my own games, though none of them, except Rabbit Hole, got anywhere beyond the very early prototype stage.

As I work more in indie development and speak to and learn from other developers, I've noticed a trend. It's basically the brain expansion meme - hold on! I'll go make the meme, rather than talking about it.

Here! It looks like this:

This is a process I don't think you can skip or take a shortcut through.

The big difference between Tiny Brain and Galaxy Brain is what the word 'important' means, and your confidence in implementation. Tiny Brain loves their ideas and thinks they're precious. Galaxy Brain recognizes the importance of ideas, but sees them as a way to serve a particular purpose.

I don't think you can get to the galaxy brain understanding here without going through the process of making games. You have to see implementation in progress - you have to see it done well, and see it done poorly - to get back to the importance of ideas.

So that's what I've been thinking about a lot, for many hours last week, as I work on the second-to-last chapter of Play Things. After this one and the next, we're on to the endings. Unless I am extremely slow, it's probably going to be finished this year.

When it is, what do I do?

What do I do next? What makes a good idea?