speaker-0: I've just seen so many young people just run away on Twitter discussing politics or just like get addicted to gambling or something stupid. Like I'm happy there are young people out there that are just like, I wanna make games, bro. Just let me make my games and leave me alone. That I love that. And I I will do anything to bring more of that energy into the world.

speaker-1: Welcome to the Based Academy. We are your hosts, Big Box Sweet. And speak machine. No, it's just perfect. It's it's always off time if we say it's perfect. And me. Hello. You know, we we've had some ⁓ some very big guests. So we've had Big Box Sui, we've had ⁓ by this by the time this comes out we've we've had Lane from Boot Dot dev. We've had some ⁓ some really cool people, but I think it's one of the founding premises of the Based Academy was to kinda Try and showcase smaller people who have cool stuff going on. Today we have Fib from Fibware.

speaker-2: Say hello, hello. And it's true, I am tiny.

speaker-1: The way that I found you was for your Pi videos. you it's interesting how Pi almost seems to work like a seed for f like physics in video games. And if you adjust it, you seem to change the logic of how these games work. Can you talk about how you got the idea and how you implemented it with Minecraft and Pathfly?

speaker-2: Yeah, so there's like literally one source for this idea and it's Portal Runner. He made a video where he changed math in Portal Two and I basically just stole that idea and then applied it to Minecraft. I didn't even make the mod for Minecraft. That one was just a mod that I found, 'cause like, you know, if I can save the work, then I might as well save the work. ⁓ but then for the later on videos, I did actually make the mods myself for those. I just kinda wanted to see what would happen because I I saw that video for Portal and it was really interesting, but I was like, What would happen if you did that on another game? 'Cause I I hadn't really seen that before and I tried searching for it and it just didn't exist. So I thought that would be ⁓ a big hole in the market there.

speaker-1: One of the ⁓ 'cause you mentioned that you you sort of stole the idea. There's actually something you made a video that I found to be very interesting where you talked about you were working on a project, you're working on a video for a map, and someone actually finished the video before you. Yeah. can you can you speak on that?

speaker-2: Yeah, so I was gonna make a video that was about the history of Nuke. 'Cause that was another similar thing where it was like a video that I would want to see that didn't really exist, 'cause there were older ones, but they hadn't really caught up to the newer versions and there's been like a ton of changes since then. It was a history of the Counter Strike map Nuke. And like as I was working on it, I took way too long to work on this, which was the first mistake. But as I was working on it, three clicks Philip made a video that was like exactly what I was gonna do. And I think it would have done pretty well if I had gotten there before him, but like since he kind of already said everything I was gonna say, there wouldn't be really be much point. And it's not like the kind of video where you can have two different versions of it, because there's kind of just like one objective history of it.

speaker-0: I disagree. I think you can always make something yours. But again, if you if you're both looking at it from like the same angle, like ⁓ we're both just gonna cover the history, then yeah, I g I get where you're coming from totally. If I was gonna make a video on how on the history of the Golang mascot, not spoiling anything, and someone made the same video just based on the history, then yeah, like you have to add your own twist, whether it's like funny or you just go really deep into the history, like The guy there's this guy that does ⁓ source code reviews on YouTube. Can't remember his name, but he just goes really deep into like the source code of the game. There's like a million times the GTA source code's been done on YouTube, but he just did it so much better than everyone else, even though he was last to the market.

speaker-2: Yeah, that's true. I d I do see that.

speaker-0: So that should be your inspiration for the next one. Go ahead. Or just make it yours. I feel like doing binary style content like ⁓ just history. I don't think that would benefit you because you're not really broadcasting your thoughts on it.

speaker-2: Deep as possible. Yeah. Two separate. So maybe like more into the game design of it or something like that. Exactly. My opinions of the changes. Exactly.

speaker-0: Yeah, because I like your opinions, dude. I've actually found you through your burnout video. Funny fact. Like I was just like really obsessed with like burnout, but I don't want like the traditional like, ⁓ take a holiday. Like, bro, if I like I am this close to being a knee, how many more holidays do I need? Like, I don't need another holiday. I need something else. And I really like I liked I liked your video on it. I just kinda played it in the background while playing chess and I was like, wow, this guy feels

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: Thank you.

speaker-1: If I might provide my my a POV as well. So ⁓ you shouldn't worry about making something that's completely unique because if you if that's your worry, you'll never put out a video ever. there's there's ⁓ I like to write science fiction, for example. It's one of the many it's it's what this my curse is that I'm I'm good at like whatever I try to do, I just get really good at it. And so I have this problem where I just have too many things that I can do. And so I have to kind of select what I what I actually want to do. But for when it comes to writing science fiction, I've just accepted that it's impossible to truly write something unique. There is the Latin expression nichil novisubsole, which means nothing new under the sun. That expression is like two thousand years old, something like that. So if you you know, if if you look at it like the most well-known science fiction ever, it's just like something that already exists but in space or in the future, right? So The Hunger Games is just battle royale in the future with like communisty elements. the foundation series by Asim by Asimov is the fall of the Roman Empire in space. None of it like none of ⁓ Dune, right? Like the Dune book. The Dune book is Hamlet. It's young prince is about to inherit the throne, the evil uncle kills the king, the dad, the young prince has to flee. He has to raise an army, come back, get rid of the Uncle and reclaim his throne. Literally, like done a billion times over. It's Hamlet with space witches and drugs. That's that's that's what Dune is. Right. What is unique about it is the voice of the creator. So Dune is unique because of Frank Herbert's voice when he wrote it. Half-Life is is unique because of the voice of Gabe and all the people who contributed. Minecraft Is actually inspired by a previous game that looks suspiciously like Minecraft, but is more of a multiplayer. I can't remember what it's called, but it's like multiplayer fine minor that you can the most successful indie game essentially ever ever made, billions and billions of dollars made by a single man initially, blah, blah, blah. Like it's literally, it looks suspiciously like a like a different game ⁓ made before. So you shouldn't worry.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah.

speaker-1: My take is that if you wanna make like you should make a yours in the sense that for example, 'cause I wanna get into this. ⁓ I've got notes in Neovin very based. For example, so I know that you're working on a game engine. Yeah. I think I think you might have been 'cause I know you did I saw a video where you made one for like like a Mr. Beast game, but I think the one with Doctor House might be is that a different engine?

speaker-2: Mr. Beast one was that one I had less time to work on it, so it didn't really get very far. And then the the ⁓ one where I've got the Doctor House test texture, that one is more of a 3D one that like it it's gotten further along, but I have kind of scrapped that now to make it 2D. And that that's actually what my ⁓ like profile video is running in. So that's kind of the direction I'm moving in now because Making a three D game would be a lot of work. And I think a two D like kind of pixel art one would be a lot easier. So I'm sort of geared the engine towards that. And also just making it more like ⁓ clean. Like ⁓ do you know the game Animal Well? Yeah. That That game is running in its own engine as well. Really? And it really sort of inspired the way that I ⁓ wanted to design my engine because it's very simple.

speaker-1: No.

speaker-0: Seen some clips around, yeah.

speaker-2: And it's very clean about how it does things. And it's like, you know, it's like Casey Muratori's philosophy where everything is allocated up front and it's very ⁓ reliable and like never crashes and stuff. And so ⁓ my old 3D engine was more like dynamic, whereas this one is more structured and the lifetimes of everything is more ⁓ clear and explicit. But just going back to like that creativity stuff, that is something that I kind of struggle with. is figuring out how to take something that already exists and make it more unique. Cause I I honestly like I've spent so much time programming stuff that that's like where all of my skill has gone. And I haven't really spent too much time coming up with ideas or like actually practicing getting my ⁓ voice out there, which is part of why I started YouTube. Like when I started my channel it was during ⁓ a time where I was taking like a month break from programming.

speaker-0: Yeah, dude, my my channel actually started from like out of me wanting to quit entirely. I was the corporate grinding out some good old Java and Spring Boot and I'm like, this cannot be I cannot do this for 40 years. Holy crap. I hate programming. Like, if this is what it is for the next 40 years, I need to go online at least like talk about it. Because I do like the activity. It's a fun activity. And more on your more on your game dev note, ⁓ I'm not sure if you've played the game limbo. It might be a bit past

speaker-2: Was at Yeah, I have, I have.

speaker-1: Limbo's based, yes. Yeah.

speaker-0: It's one of my favorite it's one of those games that I just got kind of obsessed with and I played it like multiple times just to see the Easter eggs and solved the puzzle in different ways. They were initially built with their own engine as well. And yeah. One of the reasons why it was black and white is because the developer just couldn't be bothered adding colors. He was just like, Screw this. I can't I cannot add colors to this game engine, bro. I'm I'm out.

speaker-2: Ha ha.

speaker-1: It's a fish or not a bug.

speaker-0: Investors like begged him like please make it multiplayer, make add colors, and he was like, No, it's my game.

speaker-2: Ha ha.

speaker-1: Well, you see, 'cause ⁓ since we're talking about the creative stuff, so what you could do and this is obviously you can do it's your channel, you can do whatever you want, but if you wanna make a yours, one way to do this is to talk about a topic that's been discussed before. But do you know Tech Lead?

speaker-2: No, I d I don't think I do.

speaker-1: Okay, so the meme there's this meme that he started where like he talk about stuff parentheses as a millionaire, right? So like yeah, so like he's he's a technical worked at Facebook, he made his own game, whatever, ⁓ supposedly a millionaire. But he did this meme where he would talk about a topic as a millionaire in parentheses. And so you can make something yourself. For example, if you if you want to go down the ⁓ making your own engine route, you can talk about a map. in s a map a map in Half-Life or a map in any kind of map, for example, but you talk about it from the perspective of someone who's making their own engine. So that becomes like that becomes the filter for which for which you talk about it as an example. And then you can also talk about your ⁓ your engine and sort of tell people about it in the process, right? So that's an example of how you can make a yours. Where there there could be a million videos about the history of a certain of a certain map, but if you add the twist of ⁓ it's about it's it's it's from the perspective of someone who's making their own engine, then that can be it can become your own thing. Yeah.

speaker-0: Like Primogen videos, like no one really watches a Primogen video to hear his opinion as a Netflix engineer. They come to it for his take, like his unique take that he's developed over the years.

speaker-2: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm I'm trying to figure out a way to kind of like shortcut to that 'cause you you you have to like build that up, right?

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, it takes a while. It's it's also the dichotomy, like if you want to be a creator, you just cannot at the same time be a very good engineer. The two things just don't go hand in hand. Because video editing and the creative process takes as much time as programming. So you'll notice like the greatest programmers that do a bit of content, like Jonathan Blow or KC, their setups are very minimal.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Because people come just because of how good their work is. If Casey was recording in the back of his car with like a little microphone in a dark alleyway, I'd still listen because of how good he is. It's Casey. So th that's another way you could do it. You could just build your rep as like a cracked game game programmer. And, you know, I've tuned in as you're a college student programmer, so I'll tune in then as well.

speaker-2: That's true, but I do want to make like indie games. So I feel like I've kind of gotta get better at the other parts. Like I I don't think I'm good enough at that creative stuff, at like coming up with storylines and like unique ideas that are interesting. And so that's sort of where I'm trying to improve now. 'Cause I feel like I've kind of gotten good enough at programming.

speaker-1: Here's the thing, like YouTube is headed more of a direction of like it's becoming more about the personality of the of the creator with a certain with a s a certain like that's why that's Primogen moved away from ⁓ tutorial videos more towards like reacting to stuff. And it's sure like the the news itself is part of the dr is part of the thing that pulls people in, but it's it's his personality that makes people stay and watch the video. And so he like if if you want to be an indie ⁓ an indie developer, you you still Like you could be the best engineer, but if no one finds your game it it doesn't exist, right? Like especially now with all the slop going up on Steam twenty four seven, there's how many games that go on Steam every day. It's it's a ridiculous ridiculous number. I thought it was hundreds.

speaker-2: Thousands, I think. ⁓ Hundreds, thousands, I don't know. A lot that are just like spam that no one's ever gonna see. But like out of the few good ones, it's it's still like hundreds.

speaker-1: I mean, eve like h here's the thing. Like you have to in today's attention economy, you you have to be able to to command attention. That's essentially the the ticket. Like if you're gonna ⁓ invest skill points, you're almost better off just like not putting too much in the engineering sometimes and just like having some like ⁓ attention skill points invested, like being able to make videos that draw attention, because then Like you you can you can make the equivalent of half life. Like it would be equally as revolutionizing and as re revolutionary and and amazing, but if n if it gets lost between the thousands of other games that go on Steam that day, it doesn't exist, right? So

speaker-2: That game ⁓ exists by the way. It's called Zorch. Zorg. It's just like yeah, it's like Zat Half Life. ⁓ it's also in its own engine. And it's like it's really good, but it's not too popular. I don't think many people know about it.

speaker-1: Zorch Maximum, short order cook, amateur engineer and professional slacker. See this this actually looks very interesting, but that's this is exactly it. If you can't command the attention, it doesn't the game you you might as well just watch anime instead of making that instead of making that that game. But ⁓ attention is really where it's ⁓ where it's at. ⁓

speaker-0: I would like to bend Shapiro your argument. Bellatro.

speaker-1: Go for it, go for us.

speaker-2: That's true, yeah.

speaker-0: Latro, that game I haven't I haven't played a video game in years and I had to play it. It just looks so infectious. And I think a large part of it has to do with the shuffle animation. It just triggers something in my neurons up there when I see the shuffling, I'm like, ⁓ my god. So yeah, I mean

speaker-2: I think there's something weird that happens with like games versus YouTube, where with YouTube the execution isn't really that important and it's kind of just like the idea and the thumbnail and the concept of the video and then as long as it's not like ruined by Yeah. But with games there's kind of like this weird reverse where there's like ninety percent quality wouldn't get you there, but then if you go up to ninety nine percent quality, it's like suddenly much better.

speaker-0: Like a game is always done in like the edges. So it's like everyone's heard that grind slop Pareto's principle, like, ⁓ you get 80% of the outcomes from 20% of the results. Video games are like you get like 99% of the outcomes from like just that 1% of extra grinding you do. Insane. Something as minuscule as like SFX. Like Balacio actually taught me the importance of like sound effects in content. Because even they're shuffling, like the sound effect that plays when they're shuffling or when it's dealt.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-0: You can only put that attention to detail if you love something you're making.

speaker-2: Yeah. I think the ⁓ Bellatro dev said that ⁓ there's like this fire effect that appears once you get like a really high score. I think he said that was like the thing that made the game feel real. And that's just like a it's a tiny detail. It doesn't even change gameplay, it's just an effect. But I I definitely see that 'cause it makes everything feel so much more impactful. Yeah.

speaker-0: No, I think it comes down to always building things or making things for yourself. You should never make things with an audience in mind. Because it's hard enough to predict what you're gonna do. Because I told myself it's really hard to predict what other people are gonna do. I predicted this morning. I'd wake up, I'd go to the gym, and then I'd smash out some work. Instead, I watched like four hours of Spider Man clips. So I don't know about you guys, but it's really hard to predict other people. So using yourself as a barometer for everything, whether that's your taste in content, what you're making, how you're speaking, how you're dressing, just keeping yourself at the center is very important. Because that way no one can call you out for being a LARP.

speaker-2: Mm. I'm not really used to that too much. I don't really talk about myself or my interest too much in real life. And this this channel was me like just going, fuck it. I'm gonna go crazy and like that's why it's like I'm not showing my face. I don't ha tell anyone my name. I don't even tell anyone in real life about the channel that I have 'cause I just want to be able to do whatever with no worry about like how it's gonna come off. I think

speaker-0: Having a corner of the internet where you can actually be yourself works in a two-fold situation where you're expressing yourself. But also it's just good for the internet. I'm so sick of curated personalities. Like there are people out there that have no thoughts of their own. They plug in their political opinions from like Hassan Piker. They get their fashion from Pinterest. And they get their diet from TikTok. And I'm like, you have no original thought in you. I am just I am just watching an amalgamation of all the worst opinions and the Gemini summaries from Google in a meat sack.

speaker-2: Yeah. So I'm in school for game development and a lot of the people in there like have creative ideas and stuff, but they're really scared to do them. Like 'cause it takes so long to make a game and i it's like such a high risk thing. Everyone feels really creatively like conservative and and not taking any risks. I don't I've heard this is a bigger thing in Canada where people are like really scared to take creative risks. But yeah, it's it's Really frustrated me because in those group projects where I'm working on games, like I want to do some crazy stuff sometimes. And they're just like, No, we gotta make a platformer.

speaker-0: Imagine being in college and being afraid of taking risks. Like that is four year period where you're meant to. That's crazy.

speaker-2: Like there's no

speaker-1: In my experience, usually some of the best projects out there are usually just like a complete maniac who says, No, we're doing it this way because I have autism and I've decided that this is you know, like like Rick and Mort I'm not saying look, Rick and Mort is is a is a good show, but like it's from my understanding it's it was like a very sort of two guys with autism going like this is what the show is gonna be. And you can

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ you can have like a thousand like have a committee of like a of like a hundred people, all of whom it's feel like have to contribute something because otherwise why are they getting paid? And that's that's how you kill ⁓ that's how you kill ⁓ shows and projects. Is there is there any way at your uni where you could have something like that, or is it just you have to have like ten people that you work with and everyone has to have a voice?

speaker-2: You definitely could. but it's it's hard. There's one group in my year who has like it's led by a guy who's very kind of commanding and everyone hates working for him, but they also make the best stuff.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yep.

speaker-0: Who's got ⁓

speaker-1: That's the matter. Gate new, right, that's the matter. Yeah.

speaker-0: Gabe Newell, to a large part Steve Jobs, all the Jonathan Blow all the really good games, products, anything you can think of are from really delusional, confident but talented people.

speaker-2: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-2: Yeah. And also like you don't even need too many people usually to work on a game. If it's like an indie game, you can just get as long as you can find like two people who have the same type of autism, then it it can work out pretty well. But I haven't really found anyone who matches my Tism like that.

speaker-0: What sort of drove you as a young person, what drove you to programming more recreationally than being obsessed with day in the life bang developer type videos and the because I feel like the younger generation, a lot of them are more attracted to the aesthetics of programming of a high paying job, remote work, good name logos on their resume, rather than the actual nitty gritty of yo, I'm gonna have to compile a Groovy app right now. Holy crap. Groovies on the

speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah. Well maybe I'm like if you want a high paying job, you definitely don't go into game development. But yeah, it's it's just I really like the process of doing it. It's like solving those puzzles and and optimizing and figuring out the best way of doing everything. It's like playing Factorio, where it's just kind of something that you can waste infinite time on. And I'm actually trying to waste less time on it now. But it has been very A very productive thing to waste time on.

speaker-0: I had a question. So do you enjoy the actual final output of making games or do you just like the process of making the game? Because for me a lot of the times when I was younger, right, I'd play like a need for speed or like a car game and I would customize the heck out of a car, but I'd never drive it. I just couldn't care less after I'm done.

speaker-2: I don't really care for the output that much, honestly. Like the process is ninety nine percent of the fun and the output. Like I still want a good output just because, you know, that's what it's all for. But like I fell in love with the means to do things and not the end. So like I have the means to do a lot of things, but I I have no idea which direction to go or what to spend all that time on.

speaker-1: I think that's the case with most programmers. Like mo like like most programmers never finish anything. It's like it's like a meme. because we like I I'm a recreational programmer. I've never worked as well, but I I I program recreationally. ⁓ different generation, I started with Pascal, not with Scratch. But But I like I I started I made this spell checker in C because I became autistically obsessed with the idea of how would I do that? Like I didn't look up anything, like I didn't look up ⁓ distance algorithms, nothing like that. I just thought, okay, if I had to invent the first spell checker, how would I do it, right? And it's now like ver like it's it's had like two or three iterations and I keep working on it. And the fun is just getting it to to produce to to to to work better. But once it works, I'm like, okay, cool. I can just like I I don't actually use it. It's just It's it's it's there so that I can become fixated on it for like a week at a time and then just ignore it for two months. Yeah. And go back to it and like, ⁓ yes, I gotta I gotta improve the the time that it takes. It's bit it's a bit zero point zero zero zero zero zero seven seconds. It's kinda slow. Gotta you gotta double that. Yeah. Like ⁓ I think that's very relatable. I don't think I wonder if if if that's why like we kinda need people like Gabin or like That the you have to have someone in charge who's like, Okay, let's enough billy dallying. Let's actually let's actually get something done here. Someone results. Yeah.

speaker-2: I think he definitely meant that.

speaker-0: Because at one of my jobs, I actually learned Golang just because I wanted to put the sticker on my laptop and not be opposed. I was entirely driven by the mascot of like the Go for mascot. And then when I went in, I'm like, yo, this language I know a lot of people don't like Go. They have a lot of opinions. It's like it's slow, it's verbose, I guess, like 'cause it's so simple, it ends up being a bit verbose. I love it because of the mascot. I have no other reason. There's there's no technical reason where I'd use Go. Like I if I was trying to draft something really quickly, I'd probably use Python. And if I had a team and funding and ⁓ LGBTQ socks, I'd use I'd I'd use Rust. But I just love the mascot. I

speaker-2: He What better reason is there, really?

speaker-0: I like the mascot.

speaker-1: It's interesting how like these things how like random things like that can pull you can pull you into stuff. Like even f for me, like the reason why I got into into Neo of them is because I I thought it was beautiful. Like that was the original like I s I saw I s I saw this was before I found Primogen. He got like he got me deeper into it because it actually looked super like super fun to use. It wasn't even the utility, it was like a video game. Yeah. It was like it was like first it I thought, ⁓ this is beautiful. Like I can I can laugh. Look, look Look, I'm a hacker. This looks really cool, right? And then you actually like watch Primogen just zipping through his code base using it. Like, that's a really sick video game. I I want to learn how to do that. And then you do, and then you get to show off like your your mom's super impressed. Like, what's what she has no idea what's happening, just zipping through through new of him. sometimes so like sometimes we can get into things for just for what appears to be shallow reasons. But then you kind of get into it. It's like, ⁓ this is actually incredibly funny.

speaker-2: Yeah, I mean like it kind of just is a a hobby really that can be a profession. Like you don't get into programming just for the money and if you do, you're like never really gonna get that good at it. 'Cause it's Yeah. It's like such a a super deep well of autistic knowledge that you have to have in order to be any good. And you can't really do that unless you're doing it for like insane, stupid reasons.

speaker-0: gonna make that much money.

speaker-1: So here's something interesting. Because ⁓ of course we have to talk about AIs. It's unfortunately some inevitability. But ⁓ I wanna I wanna draw an interesting parallel. Yes, that is my feeling on it as well. ⁓ But I I wanna draw a parallel. So I was watching an interview with Gabe Newell. I've been playing Half-Life One on stream recently, so I've been delving a bit more into I I I always knew who Dave was because of not Dave ⁓ Gabe because of the meme, but yeah, like I would ⁓ I I've been watching some of his some of his stuff. And he made an interesting point. He said that when he got into programming, it wasn't a career yet. Like when he was a kid, he thought he was going to become a doctor because the programming wasn't wasn't a job. And then there was this this interesting period where it became a very lucrative career and you got a bunch of people who got into it because of the money. And now we're approaching we're we're kind of in a similar place where it's it's almost like we're back in the eighties when it's like, is it is it a career? Is it what's gonna happen in like 10 years? Like what's gonna What direction is this going to take in? And it's it's almost filtering out many of the people who aren't actually that interested. I obviously no one knows if it's gonna stop being a profession or if it's gonna just catapult like crazy and like gonna have to be like a lot of really cracked people who are gonna be left who are gonna be doing really cool stuff. But ⁓ how does it ⁓ what's it like to be in in college right now, given the current uncertainty around it?

speaker-2: That's tough. A lot of people that I know are like not really the best programmers, honestly. Like most people only know how to use game engines like Unity, and like only know how to use one of them too, and haven't really spent much time experimenting or trying other things. And so I don't really know how it's gonna go for them. But honestly, I f like I feel perfectly safe with AI and everything. Cause what I'm doing is more I don't know, like it's more of an art form where I'm just kind of programming for the sake of programming and I'm not really too worried about it taking my job 'cause I don't have a job.

speaker-1: I mean, that's fair. There's this fascinating concept. People are s people are very obsessed with potential. And potential is kind of useless. What you want is, and this is actually very useful advice for YouTube as well. ⁓ If you get something that works, if you have something that works, you need to hammer that as as hard as you can. Like you you need to

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: You should you should you should there's this meme of like you should never disrespect momentum and there's this truth to that. There's people like I've seen so many channels on YouTube who have like two or three really good videos that blow up and then they just kind of stop and they just do something else. And then ten years from now they're gonna look at it and they're gonna go, damn it, I had something really cool, but I was too busy playing wow all day or something. And if if if only if like that's one of the most poisonous like if only if only I would have done If only I would have if if only I would have hammered that opportunity as hard as I could, I'd be in a in a much better in a much better spot.

speaker-0: I don't think here's my hot take. I don't think potential exists. I think potential exists in the execution. Yeah. Because you could be like the greatest guitarist of all time, but if you're just jamming out in your room and you're not putting it online or just trying to execute it into a song, an album, or a discography, then what is it? You you don't even if you're that good, if your potential is that good, then you don't even have to be a big artist. I can say

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-0: Four of ⁓ a combination of four letters and words. C one hundred four eight. Does that ring a bell? It's the Minecraft background music.

speaker-2: ⁓ yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ my god, yes, I literally just saw that yesterday. Yeah, the the artist who made the background music. Yeah. What a what about what about it? Did you not make anything else after that or?

speaker-0: No, it's just his execution was so good. remember C one four eight. Like that is the beauty in execution. So yeah, I I disregard potential entirely. Like potential isn't a word. You you build evidence and you hammer in that evidence. But yeah, totally agree with like Christian's thing about like you don't fight against momentum. There's like so many beautiful things in physics that just come to life in like digital heuristics. Maybe maybe I'm maybe I'm going too schizo here.

speaker-1: ⁓ I see. Gopher, go for gopher.

speaker-0: But like a lot of like like what you said about momentum, right? Like recently I've been playing pool and yeah, just because my brain has just been fried from like twenty eighteen memes and four tan, like when I look at a pool table, I just think of all the permutations that a like that a ball can move the other balls. And when I started thinking about coding like a pool engine in my head, it kind of freaked me out in the beginning because I'm like, yo. There are so many ways to fuck this up. Like ⁓ Anyway, back to physics. The only reason that you can do any like the only reason p someone is good at pool isn't because that they are really good at like visualizing the board. They've just had the momentum of hitting the ball so many times that they can make really good bets on what's gonna happen. Like this goes this this again, schizo posting here, it's twelve AM. Forgive me. You cannot force any outcome in life. So if you go out and set the goal of I'm gonna make a million dollars, unless like you start with ten million, I don't know how you're gonna do that. The best you can do is stay true to yourself and just try things. You can just execute. And eventually one of those shots are gonna pay off.

speaker-2: Yeah. I mean that's what I'm doing with YouTube is I'm trying to spend as little time on each video as possible just so I can crank them out. But ⁓ what I said earlier with games kind of having the inverse effect where like that last one bit of polish really makes a difference. I haven't really figured out how to kind of resolve those two ideas where you want the surface area, but you also want every last bit of polish and and detail to come through. And haven't

speaker-0: Yeah, surface area. It's all surface area.

speaker-2: Re like those two things are kind of contradictory with games specifically. Like with YouTube it's it's pretty easy. You just kind of want as much as possible. But with games I I'm still not really sure.

speaker-0: Games is a really hard one for me as well, because like my favorite game of all time, Spider-Man 2 PS2, is probably the most janky looking piece of shit game in the planet. It's only when you sit behind the controller and you actually navigate the play yourself you understand how much effort was put into the physics swinging engine. So again, it depends on which like it depends on the bet you want to take. Do you want to take the bet that like, okay, maybe my graphics won't be the best, but I'm gonna nail this engine.

speaker-2: Mm. Yeah. And like Metric Chameleon is a another example of a game that's really janky, but it's just the idea is so incredibly good that it carries everything else. And it like was executed in a way where it's nothing is like ruining the idea. It just like does the idea enough justice to where it can come through, but it's still like the controls kind of suck, the painting kinda sucks, but it's just good enough.

speaker-0: Yeah, like I think we're in the worst era of video games right now. Triple A slot. Yeah. Triple A Slop. Like every game just looks the same, that same fucking outdated 2015 art style, just in six K. Everything everything is everything is Battlefield 3 reskin.

speaker-2: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Everyone I know who's like angling for a job at Ubisoft, I'm like, guys, they're not gonna be around for much longer. You don't really wanna get on that ship.

speaker-0: Like I I just hope someone smart buys the Assassin's Creed IP. That's all I'm hoping for. Yeah. I mean EA is also the company I hate the most because I wasted years of my life playing FIFA. And that is a game where I don't think I don't think you can find a game where s people spend it like forty to eighty hours a week on a video game but hate it. Like visceral hatred towards the game, but they play it just 'cause there's no other option. Maybe CS. Good point.

speaker-2: Yeah. Maybe counter strike.

speaker-1: If I could add something to what you were saying ⁓ a minute ago about finding that sweet spot of what you should do, I think that ⁓ look at ⁓ at a lot of a lot of games that I've really enjoyed ⁓ over over the years. And it's never the case that they did everything right. It's the case that they got the right thing. ⁓ So for example, Minecraft could have been infinitely better graphics wise. It could have been made much better. ⁓ it could have been made in Unity.

speaker-2: Right.

speaker-1: And then it would have shiny surfaces and like you could have you could have done that. You could have spent like two years polishing the graphics. Notch could have spent two years polishing the graphics of Minecraft. It wouldn't have made any difference. The it's almost like the the configuration of the choices was what gave it this charm. The music is w was a huge component of that. I don't think it would have been the same game without the music. The graphics, although imperfect, gave it character. I played I bought Minecraft in two thousand and nine. It was the first game I I grew up in Eastern Europe. let's just say that acquiring games by means other than the official channel was the norm in two thousand and nine in Eastern Europe. But it was the first game that I actually purchased legitimately. I got my mom's credit card, I Mom, can I just spend fifteen euros please? The items didn't even have name tags. Like you'd you hover over coal and there'd be nothing which like you just had to know that that was coal and you had to Google recipes. Like it almost it almost felt like the game had more charm back then. Everything is fed to you now. You can just search all the items and it's just there and it's like you've got a million character like like animals that no one really cares about. ⁓ it's almost like it was it was it was modified past its its its peak, ⁓ just for the s for the set for the sake of adding more content to it.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: You have to get a sense of a good configuration of things. Thus you know what to invest in and what not to invest in. For videos, like for example, for my videos, my very first videos, because I'm I'm a video editor, my very first videos were actually blew my current videos out of the water in terms of of like execution, like like visual quality. Like I I had this thing where I'd film my split keyboard from from from like top down and I had like a see-fruit terminal that would be superimposed over the keyboard, like just super mega like autism stuff. But then I I realized that that's not a configuration that I want to have. I want my stuff to be more about the memes and about the interaction with the audience. And so I came up with little memes. Like for example, at the start and end the video I I tickle my audience like this.

speaker-0: I hate it. I hate it when you do that. Like I feel so touched. And not in a nice way. ⁓

speaker-1: You keep coming to watch the videos. Hmm.

speaker-0: It's

speaker-1: It's it's a funny meme, right? Like it's you you have to find by experimenting, you have to find things that like people either love or kinda hate, but they still come back to to to to watch it. Like another one is like I j I do this like this like little smile like this that people absolutely love.

speaker-0: I hate it. The tickle and the little smile. ⁓ my and and and then and then you put on like then you put on your deep voice sometimes. And that just gets me. I'm like, bro, I know you're faking it. Like I've I spoke too deep. I know you're I know you're talking shit, bro. Like I know you're Christian male Batman in that.

speaker-2: ⁓ huh.

speaker-1: ⁓ my god. Yeah, exactly. But here's the thing like these all these little memes that some people love, some people kinda kinda hate, and like people still talk about and they still come back, they still watch. And it's like I've chosen to go. That's part of my configuration of what I do, right? It's more about like little in jokes, ⁓ little channel memes that happen naturally that people like like since I started live streaming, there are now like three or four new memes on the channel. That people just picked up on and made up randomly midstream. And now, like for my first live stream in Porto, I'm in probably Portugal right now. I I was by the beach. And by the end of the stream, I happened to be near like a massive Nivea ad, like this thing on the beach, like a massive ad for Naiva, like a bow. And I pointed the camera to her and I said, by the way, the stream is sponsored by Naivea. And then That became a meme. So like now that I'll put a photo on it on for the actual video on screen, but that that ad is now known as the Mogument or the Naivea Mogument. Because someone said it in chat randomly just became a thing. I think that ⁓ that's a p a per configuration that works for my for my audience really well and for my channel. It's all very kind of 2018 kinda kinda like PewDiePie at his worst slash best kind of kind of memes. I'm actually rewatching 2018 PewDiePie right now. I just I just have a yearning for that for that era. like you just to bring it back to the point, you just you shouldn't if you try to invest in every single ⁓ sk part of skill tree, you'll never get anything interesting. You have to kind of find a good configuration. Whether it's for content, whether it's for video for making video games, ⁓ you ha that's a s that's actually a skill. Knowing having a a good sense for what works and what doesn't and knowing which direction to take to take things in. Mm-hmm. ⁓ I'd say that that's my take on that.

speaker-2: Definitely.

speaker-0: ⁓ here's a really good idea I want to leave you with. let the constraints define your output. So going back to Minecraft, Notch built it in Java because that's all he knew. Like he couldn't be bothered learning Unity. He just knew Java. So he built it in Java. A lot of my videos in the early days were made on Canva because I didn't know how to video edit, but I could just snip it up in preview and just get the idea across. So that's sort of what formed my style, like the constraints, like a lack of RAM, for example. I only had like a I ha I literally started it on this laptop, which is like the base spec MacBook. And then as my autism grew, I just got better and better laptops. But I still keep a style that can run on an eight gigabyte MacBook. So yeah, you should definitely let like constraints. So for example, a lot of times constraints can be defined by your taste. Like I'm sure there's a part of game programming you hate. Maybe it's like

speaker-2: You are

speaker-0: UI. UI. UI. How bad are Japanese UIs? I'm not sure if you guys have seen like Japanese like websites.

speaker-1: Websites? Yes. ⁓ my God.

speaker-2: Awful. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I actually like that look. I love maximalism.

speaker-0: Trop. Th there's a case to be made. It's it's a it's a preference thing. But yeah, again, let your taste be the constraint. Like if you hate making UIs, then just slap together the worst UI you can and then just move on to things you love. Because eventually like if it's a good game, people will look past the UI. Like I mean, I I spent like five years on the PS two looking past the fact that I couldn't save 'cause my sixty four MD memory card is full.

speaker-1: It's actually ⁓ a really interesting point. Like for example, I'm curious what made you 'cause we're talking about limitations, right? And we're talking about like ⁓ like what what made you want to make your own engine? 'Cause obviously you could have just used Unity Slop, you could have just used whatever whatever these massive pre made engines. ⁓ what made you want to to do your own thing, to make your own

speaker-2: There's like a a whole five year arc here. So like five years ago, I ⁓ I think I saw some video about how Wolfenstein worked because it's like ray trace. So I saw that video and at the same time in school we were working with ⁓ the language processing. I don't know if you know what that is. It's like a Java kind of add-on, whatever that makes it easier to do OpenGL stuff. And so I made basically like a Wolfenstein. clone in processing. And then that sort of made me realize like, wait, I don't actually need to use an engine to do this stuff. And then throughout those years, I made like a rigid body physics engine in C because I I wanted to learn C as well, because I had only used Unity before and I wanted to try Unreal. But I was like, ⁓ man, C that's confusing. So I was like, I'm just going to strip out all the Unreal stuff and just learn C. And then I When I did that I realized, wait, I actually kinda like working with stuff on its own without having to deal with anyone else's code. And so that Yeah. And so like after I made that physics engine, then I kind of I made like a web based thing that got pretty far. Like it was a multiplayer shooter, but I it I quit as soon as I realized that

speaker-0: Dream bro.

speaker-2: That the control W shortcut to close the tab was not something that you could like ever turn off. And ⁓ so like anytime you would crouch and move forwards, it would just close the tab. And like the best you could do was ⁓ are you sure you want to quit message? And so like that was it like half a year of work gone at that point.

speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ my god, I love how bro realized like half a year into the game, like, ⁓ shit, I gotta remap all the controls.

speaker-2: Yeah, well, 'cause I was using Shift for Crouch the whole time. And then I was like, if I want people to have the option to use control for crouch, then I like I just can't do that. And I even tried like Cronker.io, if you know what that is, it's like the most popular ⁓ web shooter. And they have the same issue too. And the I like there's no way to fix that as far as I can see. So you just can't use control. But I wanted to make a movement shooter, so you gotta have control.

speaker-0: I think also another thing you should think about, ⁓ a bit a bit related, is pick what you want to suck at. Should always cause when I got into programming and I saw Java, I'm like, I'm happy to suck at this, bro. You know what? Public static void may kiss my ass. How about that, bro? Like I'm outta here. I don't want any of your spring boots. That's my raised finger, don't worry. I'm out. ⁓ so yeah, picking picking what you want to suck at is very important because

speaker-2: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: For example, I I kind of made the conscious decision when I got into content that maybe like I won't be like the best programmer of all time. I won't be anywhere near the conversation of, say, an L five at Netflix, let alone like a Jonathan Blow, Casey Muratori. But that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make because I like yapping.

speaker-2: Mm-hmm. At this point I kind of wish that I'd spent more time getting better at art and that sort of stuff rather than programming. 'Cause like those programming games like Factorio and ⁓ A lot of them are fake. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. I don't really see how I can make that without any art experience or skill. So now I'm trying to get better at art and I feel like I'm almost too good at programming.

speaker-0: The left room as well.

speaker-2: To the point where it's like not even helping me make those kinds of things. 'Cause you don't need to be like super great to make those. You just need to be good enough.

speaker-0: There's a diminishing return with programming. Like you could be the best C developer in the world, but at the point you're writing your own binaries. Yeah. Like your own kernel binaries, you just lost the sauce, man. Uhhuh. Put it in the LM and move on, man. It's like it's not that deep, you know. You can you can survive with like the three milliseconds your demon disconnects or whatever.

speaker-2: Yeah. And like picking what you wanna suck at. I've basically full committed to Visual Studio and C plus plus at this point. Like I'm never gonna learn Vim or ⁓ or Rust or anything like that. Like I'm I'm in I'm

speaker-0: I'm stuck in You also picked a language that makes it very, very easy to pivot if you ever wanted to. C plus is literally like learning how to it's not even learning how to learn a drive learning how to drive a car in manual, it's learning how to ride a horse. Like a schizo horse that hasn't taken its rabies.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: say is I mean there's two things I want to say. First of all, there's this meme that happens where everyone is as old as they are and it feels like like when you're 23 it feels like bro it's over. I'm unk now. Like I've only ever maxed all my points in bro you're 20 you're 22, 23, calm down. Like like you're you're fine. Like there are people out here who are much older. And once you once you once you realize that you are much wealthier than than me, for example, because you have more time. You were born later, therefore you have more time than I do. Being twenty two or twenty-three is a perfect time to realize, okay, maybe I did overinvest in programming. Maybe I should take some time to learn how to make pixel art or any kind of art that you decide you like. It doesn't take it doesn't take that long to get to get like Like I'm not a mas I am I am not a master of any particular skill, but I am really good at a bunch of different things. It's the cross-pollination between these things and it's the combination of these things that allows me to make interesting things. ⁓ if like I I used to run a photography filmmaking business, which then led into me doing video editing, which then led into me working for big YouTubers, which taught me how this whole YouTube game works, would tell me to do content, the fact that I learned programming when I was very young. Then like it's it all kind of came together in a in weird, interesting ways that that you could never really plan for. Then I ⁓ like I I I I got to know Sylvan and I then I got I got to meet big box sweet through Sylvan. Like you you cross pollination of like skills is is is something that that should never be taken for granted. You can spend time to learn some art. That's fine. You can you can spend some time to learn some music. You can even use what's that thing called? ⁓ Strudel, where you can essentially program music, right? Like you it's essentially like a I I I assume you know what I'm talking about. You can make Yeah. ⁓ like you can if you learn a bit of music theory, which is not very complicated, you can essentially do everything yourself. Now

speaker-2: I think I've heard of it. Yeah. I I know the idea.

speaker-1: The second point I want to talk about is that you probably shouldn't be doing everything yourself. like we people like us, we tend to have this idea of like we need to make everything ourselves. We need to it's it's gonna be mine, I made this game, it's mine. But some of the games that we praise weren't most of them weren't made by a single person. Like ev not even Minecraft. Minecraft had the the musician was a different

speaker-2: was different pass. Yeah. Not to make Like the latros like that. ⁓ there's other ones I'm thinking of that I can't remember. But yeah. ⁓

speaker-1: And remember that you also have a channel. You can make videos where you can kind of attract artists to your channel. Right. So ⁓ if you wanna make a game and you wanna focus on the gameplay, physics, ⁓ etc., maybe you don't wanna do environments or maybe you don't wanna do the music or the graphics. Maybe like whatever you focus on, you can find other people who want to work on on other on the other aspects of the game. ⁓ you should

speaker-2: ⁓ two.

speaker-1: You should you should do what you want to do, but be careful not to fall down this trap of into this trap of I have to do everything myself. You or someone in the project should have a vision for what the whole thing should look like, but you can and you probably should find people who can contribute to it instead of trying to do everything yourself. That's that's something that I've done in the past and I regret the fact that I tried to do projects entirely by myself and they never led anywhere because I had other things I needed to do. And so I have a bunch of projects that are never gonna be finished because I wanted to do everything myself. Mm-hmm. So that's something that I would ⁓ I would

speaker-2: Yeah, definitely. And it's it's hard to find other people to work with. Like s sometimes it seems like other people find partners for this sort of creative stuff pretty easily. It's like you need to all be aligned on the same vision, which is really rare, I think.

speaker-1: There is a hack to this. So you wanna look at people's track record, which can be difficult if you're younger. But for example, let me give an example. So ⁓ I know that Big Box Sui is dependable because I can look at his track record of videos. And I can go, okay, so so for for multiple years, he's banged out content on a regular basis. So I know that he has a visible track record. So I know that if we're gonna if we're gonna co-host a podcast for a while. I know that I can I can depend on him to to show up and to so we c that we can do the episodes. And ironically, this is a huge problem because most people are are not like that. The vast majority of people are are nowhere near dependable. And things sometimes get in the way, things happen, whatever. That's not what I mean. I mean that there are people who and I've met people like this. This go back back to potential now, right? I know people from when I was like a teenager who were fantastic. musicians, for example, who never did anything with that. That potential was for naught because they were just unreliable. You couldn't pin them down to save your life. Hey, let's meet at this time to play some guitar. Okay. You don't hear and then you you just you can't you don't hear bad for them for like two months. ⁓ yeah, sir, I was busy. Like most people are like that. Most people with potential are like that. They're drunk on their potential sometimes. You'll s you'll see that. And they are very difficult to To pin down, meaning that you probably shouldn't try and do anything with them. And the fact that you have a YouTube channel will help you with that because you will have a track record of videos. So other people can look at your stuff. Like, if like one of the reasons why I did contact you, essentially email is because not as obviously I found you for the for the Half-Life Pi video, but I saw that you had videos for like eight or nine months, going back like eight or nine months. I thought, ⁓ okay, cool. So So this this guy can produce stuff on a on a somewhat regular basis. He can put things out there. So if you want to find good people to work with, make sure that they have some sort of track record. That's a that's a that's a human. ⁓ is there anything else that you would like to ⁓ to talk about that we haven't ⁓ discussed?

speaker-2: That's a good tip.

speaker-0: Like to say something to Pid. Yeah? I think you're a very talented young man. And whatever you set your heart to do, don't listen to anyone else. Don't listen to anyone else in this world. Every decision that got you to the Half Life 5 video will get you to your next thing. I'm not sure what your barometer of success is, but always trust and always. That on yourself, because in the event that you fail, which is likely, you'll only have yourself to blame. But I'm not taking away the fact that you're extremely talented. I've never met someone that says, I'm going to just use C and Visual Studio Code, and that is it. I'm going to narrow my focus on that. Because both of those things are immensely painful. Thinking about Visual Studio Code gives me flashbacks to the time I was in the corporate gulag.

speaker-2: Yeah. Ha ha ha.

speaker-0: What

speaker-2: It'd be like that.

speaker-0: You're you're a very talented young man and if you ever need anything from me, yeah my Discord.

speaker-2: Thank you.

speaker-1: Okay. ⁓ that applies to me, ⁓ to me as well, by the way.

speaker-2: Very motivational.

speaker-1: I think it naturally happens. Like w when we have like a younger guest, maybe like as we're a bit older, maybe that just naturally happens.

speaker-0: I just love seeing young people do things with their life. I've just seen so many young people just run away on Twitter discussing politics or just like get addicted to gambling or something stupid. Like I'm happy there are young people out there that are just like, I wanna make games, bro. Just let me make my games and leave me alone. That I love that. And I I will do anything to bring more of that energy into the world because that's what we need. We need more games, less just weird content. I'll leave it at that.

speaker-2: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: Okay. Fib, is there anything that you'd like to promote? Anything that you'd like to to push?

speaker-2: I don't know, my YouTube channel. Yeah.

speaker-1: I'll overlay on top of the ⁓ on top of the that's a fibware for ⁓ for anyone listening, but I'll overlay it ⁓ on on top of the video.

speaker-0: All right.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-1: Okay, well Fib, thank you thank you so much for ⁓ for ⁓ agreeing to come on the on the podcast. This has been a blast. Thank you, yeah, it's been fun. ⁓ thank you, Big Box Sui, for ⁓ for showing ⁓ for mogging us with your with your aspect and for ⁓ agreeing to to to come on. ⁓ thank you to everyone listening. See ⁓ see ya next time. See you guys.