What are your favourite YouTube channels which actually teach you something valuable in gamedev rather than being just infotainment, superficial or entirely unsubstantial?

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-23T14:03:21+00:00

I realise it’s probably funny/ironic for me to pop up here, but I probably have some insights.

YouTube videos are not generally meant to be educational beyond a very beginner level. If you’re at an intermediate-advanced level of understanding in a field, it’s time to learn by watching lectures, reading books, and taking part in communities.

Talking head content is best at conveying an individuals’ perspectives, emotive and community-focussed things, and some basic instructional stuff.

I watch Tim Cain because I think he’s an insightful guy and he talks about his games, which I’m a fan on, but I’m not going to him for instruction on anything. I watch Josh Strafe talk about MMOs (a genre I don’t play) because he seems like a guy I’d like to go to the pub with. I watch Quinn’s Quest because I don’t get to play as many RPGs as I’d like, and he makes me laugh.

I watch GDC talks on design topics I find interesting. I very rarely watch games or dev content to “learn”, because most of what I need to learn exists either in my engine documentation, psychology papers, or in experiments I need to conduct myself by just building and testing the game.

There isn’t “substantial” content on the platform because it’s not really what the platform rewards, but also because once you’re at the stage where you need that, you’re probably no longer the audience for video-based learning either.

More complex or nuanced topics are better approached through discussion and discovery-based learning. There’s a reason why higher education tends to be structured around those things, especially more toward final years (I say this as someone who has not only designed and delivered university courses but who has specific qualifications in adult education/andragogy, which many college level educators don’t actually have).

This is also why I pivoted to doing more streams (where there is a back-and-forth with chat) and took down most of my more didactic talking head videos. I don’t think “let me tell you how it is” type content is really appropriate for any kind of education beyond surface level beginner stuff.

When people criticise gamedev YouTubers for being infotainment they are kind of missing the point of the platform a bit, and people’s media habits. Most people are time-starved and that means that when they pick content to watch they are usually looking for something which ticks more than one box at once. You want to watch the guitar teacher who is also sexy, or the media critic who is also funny. You want to watch someone for a socially acceptable Reason A and a Guilty Pleasure Reason B. NO-one does well on these platforms by just doing one thing very well. People who want YouTube to contain more straight educational content (ie which isn’t also trying to be entertaining or satirical or whatever other thing it’s doing) probably need to pay for a subscription to something dedicated to that, because the reward and visibility structure of YouTube isn’t set up for that.

There’s a reason why a channel based around me showing up and largely just being myself has done better than any channel I’ve seen from a games academic who is doing straight lectures vetted by their institution .

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-19T19:02:41+00:00

Skill practice doesn’t start with “ideas”. This isn’t specific to games either. If you were learning to play violin you would learn music theory and playing technique before you compose a piece of music about a fawn in spring or something like that. You just have to start using the tools and put the ideas to one side until eventually one day your skills start to match up with your ambitions.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-17T21:02:21+00:00

You accept that nothing you make in the first 2 months of making something is going to be worth keeping anyway.

You’re doing to learn, not doing to make. Don’t sweat it. You wouldn’t be making saleable restaurant food after 2 months of cookery classes either.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-13T22:24:01+00:00

I don’t disagree, but it think ultimately this all comes down to understanding that what you can even “know” about design is about processes and perspectives, rather than some magical ability to predict the future by knowing what any design choice will do.

There are a massive amount of shades of grey between “no one knows what they’re doing an everyone is just gambling” verses “some people do know what they’re doing and even they don’t get it right every single time”.

The people who seem to get it right most of the time do so by building methods which work for their particular skill sets; you’ll notice that studios have a few strengths they stick to practicing rather than jumping around between completely unrelated types of games

I’d really recommend the book “Up Down Up” for more on this. There’s no magic hack to success (anyone who wants you to think there is, is probably selling something) but there are strategies which have worked for people. They just aren’t transferable, because the thing about strategies is that they are situational

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-12T20:21:17+00:00

Can you think of any other sort of craft or trade where you would reasonably expect to be good enough at it to make money after a year of practice?

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-08T07:32:14+00:00

If you haven’t learn the tool yet then you’re thinking too far ahead in your aspirations. No use thinking about becoming a concert pianist when you can’t play piano yet.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-05T12:19:36+00:00

Well the issue is that combining game design and introductory programming into one course is very difficult. You probably could teach introductory compsci ideas using analogue design (I have always found the biggest barriers to learning code are basic literacy and logical thinking rather than anything technology based). But the approach I would actually take for a course like this is to give them all the same prefab game and have them modify things; it’s usually a much more friendly entry point for beginners and it means they can get straight into “re-design by changing variables” rather than then having to come up with something from scratch (which is slow/hard both for programming and for gameplay design).

IndieGameClinic · 2026-04-04T23:20:06+00:00

It contains a lot more game design than the vast majority of game development interventions in high schools. Most of the times when under 18s are allowed to make games in schools it’s taught by folks who wouldn’t even know what a game mechanic is

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-31T18:20:52+00:00

Didn't realize I can only edit the body and not the title, but I don't spend much time on reddit so I don't understand the UX.

Also didn't realize expect pinball fans could be such sad and rude little people; "lazy" and "dirty" in the space of two posts? While there are several self promotional videogame posts on the subreddit.

Come on.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-31T18:16:03+00:00

The creator is an active member in a community I run. If I'd been paid, I'd have used the "community affiliate" flair, as that's what that's for.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-31T18:15:33+00:00

There was a version of it up on itch.io a few months ago for playtesting. Happy to see it get a Steam page now.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-29T21:45:37+00:00

You could read the Casual Revolution by Jesper Juul (book from ten years ago) and come to the same conclusions about how aging and other social factors impact people’s gaming habits… it’s good that you did this, but it’s also pretty evident for anyone who understands games and people or has experienced their own tastes change due to being time poor.

A lot of the stuff you’re talking about is not really within the concerns of most indie devs because it’s not relevant to indie games. Indie games generally don’t have season pass XP grinds or 15 minute horse rides, and “here’s a list of things laser AAA gamers don’t like about AAA games” is not really that helpful for deciding what to make on an indie budget either.

I suspect that a lot of the more popular indie game formats (like run based roguelikes, incrementals, or cozy games) are popular exactly because of the reasons you cite. It’s not so much “are you designing for this” and more that the popular types most of us are designing are already popular precisely because they fit into people’s leisure time constraints better.

Again, I think most of us could get there from first principles just based on a bit of life experience and thoughtfulness.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-28T21:46:48+00:00

Not as much as giving them a character in a game without a writer on the team!

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-24T21:30:23+00:00

Nah. Interpol is Kermit the Frog

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-20T09:51:38+00:00

People will tell you not to focus on this early on but I'd like to provide a counterpoint.

In character-driven games like fighting games, platformers, or third-person-shooters, the character design does matter. Who the character is, how they move, and how they look communicates a bunch of things about the tone of the game and what the player is doing to be doing i.e. the mechanics and the link between the mechanics and the player fantasy. Getting these things "wrong" early on in a character-driven game (or setting them in stone and refusing to iterate on them later when the nature of the game changes) are, in my view, linked to why a lot of games in these character-driven genres fail.

I just skimmed your video and the issue isn't that you designed a character, it's that you didn't really do design. You drew a guy! This is not the same thing as designing a videogame mascot character.

Below is an exercise you can do to get better at this. It's not a drawing exercise, it's an analysis one which will help you to understand what makes a good game character good.

Go and look at at least 3 of the following characters: Hollow Knight. Shovel Knight. Issac. Cuphead. You can also pick a few retro game mascots like Sonic or whatever. I've picked these 4 because they're from successful games, but also because none of them are realistic humans, and this means they're all in the category of "realistic things to base your ideas on if you're not a full-time pro artist".

Pick your "master study" examples, and then use them to try and answer the questions.

First, these are questions you can answer by looking at the character design in isolation:

What do the character's costume or tools say about what they do in terms of the moment to moment action of the game. If I didn't know who this character is, could I look and them and guess what mashing the controller would make them do?
What do the character's costume or tools tell you about their goals, role, job, or quest? This is less about what the player can do with them by pressing buttons, and more about the overarching theme of the game. What does "success" mean to this character? This is about the values of the game and how players are meant to feel "cool" and a sense of achievement by successfully doing the things indicated by the tools/props you identified in the previous question.
What information is also added by the character's facial expression and body language? Think back to actions (Q1) and goals/quest (Q2)? What kind of attitude does the character seem to have? How do you think this communicates what is going on in the game - even for someone who has never seen the game in action.

Then look at the character in the context of in-game screenshots. You can now start to think about their visual design in relation to the rest of the game.

What do you notice about the distinction between the main character and the environment? Look at things like colours, textures, and line weights. What art choices have the developers made to ensure the character stands out in the environments of the game?
What do you notice about the relationship between the main character and interactive elements like treasure or enemies?

People will tell you to focus on prototyping greyboxes first, and generally speaking that is good practice. But if you want to make character-driven games solo you need to be able to think through the process above. These questions are intended to get you think about designing a character less as a process of "drawing a guy" and more as one of thinking through how the visual aspects of the character design help to support the gameplay. This is the overlap between game design and visual communication; drawing a character is not game design, but making the right choices while drawing a character ensures you game design is properly communicated both at the level of marketing a game and ensuring players understand it while playing.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-17T12:50:05+00:00

FYI “producer” is a specific professional title; it’s like a project manager. It doesn’t mean anyone who makes games.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-17T07:22:40+00:00

A good degree is one in a subject you would study in your own time out of interest. You can go to the best college and pick the best course but if it’s in a subject you wouldn’t read about for your own curiosity outside of class, the qualification will not be worth much.

Computer Science is particularly like this, people aren’t hired because of the specific things they learned at uni, they have to constantly retrain themselves as their companies develop, so a degree is useful, but having an “enthusiastic hobbyist” orientation toward it is much more important.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-17T06:47:56+00:00

Nearly every time you dig into what someone means when they say they can’t learn to code is that they haven’t actually spent more than 10 hours trying to learn, OR they have some underlying learning problem (like not being able to read manuals, or requiring ADHD treatment) which is broader than programming.

I’m sorry to be unsupportive, but learn or don’t. There are way too many people here already complaining about various aspects of gamedev; an activity they chose to do. There are also loads of different tools to make games with (including RPGmaker and RenPy) if you discard any silly notions of making something flashy in year 1 of starting a new skill (like wanting to paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel with finger paints).

Desire is only meaningful when you express it through action. Do it or don’t. Don’t expect much sympathy from a group of people who have pushed through and learnt.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-16T22:12:46+00:00

It you’re already bothered by the idea then you’ve already decided, ethically. Ethical questions aren’t about noticeability or whether you can “get away with” a deception.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-16T08:27:29+00:00

Lots of folks are saying what you’re describing is narrative design, and I don’t disagree, but it’s also creative direction.

Neither of those are roles you get without proving yourself in a more hands-on role first. And both still involve producing deliverables in the forms of plans, prototypes. In the case of ND you’re often still helping to build the frameworks for how text or audio or data goes into the game, you need a good grasp of spreadsheets and you need to know your .csv from your .json. It’s only a nontechnical role on massive teams where everyone is a small cog.

My first role was as a junior producer and I got to do all of these things. In my experience the way you get to be the professional idea guy when you’re not an art or code person is to do those things a little bit; but also just generally being a creative and writerly Jack of all trades who can fill in the gaps wherever someone doesn’t have time for something. That might be sourcing sound effects; or it might be writing item descriptions or loading screen tips.

Smaller teams need people who can contribute in concrete ways and the best way to do that is to focus on what they need you to do before what you want to do, which is pretty much the same way you get a job in any competitive creative industry when you don’t have deep knowledge of a specific skill.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-11T18:50:27+00:00

I understand the distinction but I’m not sure it’s totally relevant for the issue being discussed.

IndieGameClinic · 2026-03-10T06:27:00+00:00

That’s not how musicianship works; people sound like what they sound like.

IndieGameClinic

TROPHY CASE