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Juice it or lose it - a talk by Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho

grapefrukt · talk · Watch on YouTube

Game designIndie game development

What it is

Martin Jonasson and Petri Purho take a bland Breakout clone and add layer after layer of 'juice' such as easing, particles, screen shake and sound until it feels alive. A live demo makes the effect of small feedback details obvious.

Why Hacker News recommends it

The go-to recommendation on game feel and polish, cited by HN as one of the best talks for anyone making interactive things feel good.

  • 12 people recommended it
  • 12 different months
  • 4 strong recommendations
  • first 2013, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “is the best presentation I've seen on the matter.”

    Funny demo of bounce and particles transforming game feel

    glitchdout, 2013-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Show HN: Four months of indie game dev”

  2. “It's a pretty fantastic watch that shows what just a few small design decisions can do”

    Small design decisions that change audience impressions

    arcadius, 2014-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Show us your work in progress”

  3. “Gotta be one of the best talks for anyone trying to make things interactive that also feel good.”

    Best talk on making interactive things feel good

    akilism, 2016-06 · Strong recommendation · in “It’s cheaper to build multiple native applications than one responsive web app”

  4. “There's this awesome presentation on YouTube showing how a boring game can look awesome”

    Shows a boring game becoming awesome through juiciness

    whatever_dude, 2017-02 · Strong recommendation · in “The Cool Cam (2007)”

  5. “Looks like google needs to watch this video on how to make a good breakout game”

    How to make a good breakout game

    niles, 2013-05 · Recommendation · in “Google Celebrates the 37th Anniversary of Atari's Breakout”

  6. “there is this talk by Petri Purho (Noita) about making a bland game feel fun to the user”

    Making a bland game feel fun

    woko, 2021-02 · Recommendation · in “Making Games on Your Own as an Engineer”

  7. “I'm reminded of the talk”

    Juice talk relevant to this juicy game

    jedimastert, 2021-05 · Recommendation · in “Show HN: I open sourced a game I just released on Steam, written in Lua”

  8. “this classic gamedev talk, well worth a watch”

    Classic gamedev talk defining juicing

    p1necone, 2022-11 · Recommendation · in “A lobbying blitz made sports betting ubiquitous”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: juice, game feel, polish, game design, breakout, ux

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