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Jonathan Blow - How to program independent games - CSUA Speech

Alexandre Franco · talk · Watch on YouTube

Indie game developmentGame programming & enginesSoftware architecture & design

What it is

Jonathan Blow speaks at UC Berkeley's CSUA about how to program independent games. He argues for keeping code simple, avoiding unnecessary work, and shipping.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as a talk whose advice on simplicity and avoiding unnecessary work applies well beyond games.

  • 9 people recommended it
  • 9 different months
  • 4 strong recommendations
  • first 2015, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “It's about much more than games. To me, it's about identifying and not doing unnecessary work.”

    About avoiding unnecessary work; applies beyond games; skip Q&A half.

    bajsejohannes, 2016-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?”

  2. “Every time I get stuck on a project, I watch this video.”

    Shipping working software before complexity collapses it; optimize developer effort.

    psyc, 2017-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: Which developers do you closely follow?”

  3. “Three talks that I tend to reference a lot and have had a huge impact on the way I think about software”

    Talk with huge impact on how commenter thinks about software.

    Stwerner, 2018-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?”

  4. “For many years one of my favorite talks about indie games development was Jonathan Blow's speech”

    Q&A on finishing Braid by keeping the project technically simple.

    tompark, 2021-02 · Strong recommendation · in “Making Games on Your Own as an Engineer”

  5. “But he has given some amazing talks.”

    Jonathan Blow talk among his amazing talks.

    kelukelugames, 2015-02 · Recommendation · in “‘Braid’ creator sacrifices his fortune to build his next game”

  6. “he has a great talk here: about "how to program independent games". Much of the advice seems to apply to other programming projects too.”

    Great programming talk with advice applicable beyond games.

    nulltype, 2015-09 · Recommendation · in “The Witness: the creator of Braid talks about his fiendishly difficult new game”

  7. “I've always encouraged people to check out Jonathan Blow's talk on this topic”

    Why simple, messy-looking code can be optimal given other factors.

    arriu, 2020-10 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Good C++ code bases to read?”

  8. “A long time ago I saw a good talk by Jonathan Blow wherein he made a point that really resonated with me.”

    Get good by shipping many programs, not specializing narrowly.

    lackbeard, 2021-01 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?”

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

Topics: jonathan blow, simplicity, premature optimization, shipping software, game development

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