Javascript and Game Development w/ Tom Glenn - JSGamedev

Key Takeaways

today's video we're going to talk to Tom Glenn to see how he got started with JavaScript the word of game development and what he's actually going to talk about in the upcoming JS Game Dev conference which is happening on September 28 and 29 online Tom is a software engineer and a game developer with a passion for creating and sharing educational content with 15 years of experience in the industry he has honed his skills in unity Unreal Engine and go down as the lead engineer of heroic Labs devrel team and the creator of a popular YouTube channel code with Tom Tom will be actually speaking at the DS Game Dev conference on September 28th and 29th so Tom can you please tell us more about yourself yeah no worries thanks Suzanne great to be here um yeah so like you mentioned I'm I'm a developer I've been a developer for 15 years at this point um feels like feels like a very long time I think I started back in in 2008 um I initially was a web developer so um yeah I got I got my foot in the door as a as an asp engineer um way back when and my career's sort of gone all over the place since then I did a lot of.net um I've worked at a bank digital agencies I've worked in simulations using using Unity um and yeah my latest is uh devrel position at heroic labs and uh they're obviously the the creators of the open source nakama game back end um so I do a lot of documentation project samples um a bunch of different stuff like YouTube content there and uh and yeah and get get to do cool things like this so is this this is kind of my dream job at this point I've been able to to move away from from you know the boring web development Bank inside of of engineering and uh it's something a bit more entertaining a bit more creative which which is always good awesome yeah thank you for the introduction Tom uh it's great to have you here it's great to meet you virtually and uh yeah it would be great actually conducted an interview with you today so Tom as a great game developer and having so much experience in the in the field for so many years can you please like share us like with us a memorable moments from your journey as a game developer yeah sure so um as I mentioned I I haven't been a game developer for for the entire Journey there um game development is something that I I've kind of done on the side ever since I was very little as a hobby and it's something that um you know I've been incredibly passionate about and wanted to to move into for a very long time um but I mean in terms of a memorable moment obviously I haven't worked on any AAA titles I've never worked in an actual game development Studio as such but um I I've always dabbled on the side and I think the most memorable thing for me and probably the reason why I initially got into um game development as a hobby as a creative Outlet is when I was about 14 years old I sort of stemming back from that original you know the origins Origins and web development for me um I I was heavy into PHP at the time um when I was about 14. um this was when I sort of started to dabble in programming as a whole um but I created a I was fascinated with online games and particularly at the time you know the the web was was becoming a real big thing people were getting access to it in schools and uh one of the big things there was these browser-based text uh text based online RPGs and they were you know you would log in um I think you know people would call them muds you would log in and you would have you know you create a character but there was no visuals to it right it was all just text based and uh they struck a real chord with me so I I ended up creating my own one it was called Tui morks it had a very strange name I don't even know where that name came from um but yeah I I created this on my own when I was about 14 and it it kind of took off back then I mean we had relatively speaking we had 2 000 members active members playing the game and uh it was a lot of fun it was it was enjoyable to make I mean I still have the the code and I occasionally I boot it up with a you know like an Apache server and my sequel um just to kind of remind myself of what it was and um I mean the code is horrendous right the code is terrible but it's it's something that I always look back on fondly and it's something that I would I'd love to recreate now that I have you know a lot more experience a lot more um skills in in the field and um yeah I'd love to remake it as an actual game that that has some visuals at some point um I I have numerous sort of open projects with with that code name with the toolbox code name of the you know various states of of development um but yeah it's it's something that it will always sort of stand out to me as as the key moment where I was like you know what this is this is a really enjoyable thing and uh I'd love to to get into the game development side of things so yeah I mean that's that's for me is the big one yeah that definitely sounds awesome I think uh most different game developers they met before they are all like feel the same feeling when they remember their first game especially back in the days and this uh yeah old javascripts and web games and those online games that's yeah that's definitely enjoyable So speaking of which and speaking of games um could you like highlight a recent projects or a game that you actually worked on and tell us exactly what actually made it that special yeah sure so um yeah I mean recently I've been heavily involved in uh Godot engine as you mentioned at the start and you know it's something that particularly during lockdown um I found myself getting involved in quite a lot I used to use um unity and Unreal Engine um but Godot really sort of stood out to me as this open source engine and I kind of ended up as part of learning that that whole thing I ended up creating the the code with Tom YouTube channel and that allowed me that then to to you know share my findings shares tutorials and and various things um about the Godot engine and as part of that um I mean one of the one of the things that came out of that was was my position at heroic Labs um but also I have had the opportunity to work for a platform called quiver and quiver has basically stemmed out of the the lack of professional quality courses for Godot if you like and as part of that I I created two courses for them um one was a game called rap to run and another one was called curse of the Tomb now curse of the Tomb um I got the the chance to work with an incredible incredibly talented guy called Matt dye um he's a 2d artist and we put together a 2d side scrolling action game in godo4 and that project took probably about six months to create um it included a bunch of different things like you know Advanced platforming mechanics you've got coyote time in there um you've got sort of input buffering there's an upgrade system so your character can sort of you know progress as you unlock certain um certain skills in the game you you and the ability to Dash and do a bunch of other stuff like telekinesis attacks it was really really a fun project to work on and then out at the back of that we created a a course for good old four to try and teach people you know everything that it takes to actually build a game it's great having access to tutorials on YouTube and you know being able to go and say well how do I Implement a character controller how do I Implement an inventory system but there was nothing really that was cohesive and took people from you know the very start of the get of of their Journey on on the Godot engine and then all the way through to actually creating what could possibly be a fully released game um so that's that's something that um I've worked on in in the last six months it recently came out I did a video on my channel just um sort of promoting it and the response has been fantastic so far people are really enjoying it so um yeah I guess that's that's one of the the highlights of of things that I've worked on recently oh that's that definitely sounds cool and I think especially with uh being a YouTuber and sharing the The Game Dev like findings and the getting feedback from the community is definitely great just to create one like awesome games and actually awesome projects so that's definitely a win-win so when we speak about game development we know that there is too many things too many factors in a game so we would definitely love to know how like how you stay up to date with the latest trends and Technologies in the ever evolving world of game developments yeah it's a difficult one I mean as you mentioned it is continuously evolving and you know new trends in terms of you know games that are popular or particular features um they tend to come in waves and uh yeah it is difficult to stay up to date I mean I personally being on the YouTube platform itself I consume a lot of content on YouTube I mean everything from you know um devlogs to particular tutorials on on specific features but also you know there's a lot of channels out there that also cover game industry news um and and that's kind of my my primary source if you like for staying up to date with things um I tend to keep keep tabs on you know the the big major blogs so the unique blog unreal Godot their sort of blogs or sort of Staples of my my daily reading um but yeah Twitter again is is also a big thing for me I'm on Twitter all the time um I don't post as much as I I probably should do um but I I like to keep tabs of what's going on in there and particularly I I sort of focus Less on the the AAA side of the game industry and more on the ND development side and you know seeing what projects people have going on there and it's always good to see you know what people are working on because I feel like that sort of gives you that trajectory of of where the games industry is going I don't know there's a there's a lot of stuff going on at the minute around the unity stuff and it's it's just interesting to see people's takes on on various things within the industry and particularly on on Twitter itself but yeah for me YouTube is is my main source for inspiration and you know developer logs and and seeing where people are going and um and then yeah just just keeping tabs on on the major blogs I don't tend to go off and you know read a whole whole load of stuff because my time is very limited um but yeah they tend to be the main ones yeah um I think definitely Twitter is a is a perfect resource for any technology sort of nerd or guy uh with European development or web developments or anything I I definitely agree with you I'm a big fan of Toyota too uh even though I don't post that much either but I think uh yeah yeah people should open more Twitter tabs nowadays yeah so Tom it would be actually great if you can like share with us a lesson or an Insight you've actually gained from a past game development project that actually helps you in your current work yeah sure I mean the the huge one for me and this is something that I I struggle with on a daily basis is um managing the scope of a game project or any project in particular but you know since we're talking about games I think it's a huge one for particularly Indie developers who who might not have a full team surrounding them um a lot of the stuff that I do is is uh individual work as a solo game developer um and for me that idea of you know you come up with this idea for a game and it could be something huge right it's it's this big dream project that you've got going on in your head and um being able to execute that as a solo developer is incredibly difficult unless you have a limited scope right unless you have really refined what that game idea is establish what that core gameplay loop is and then just try and prune that down to its bare minimum just so that you can you can get that out of the door because you know one one thing for me in particular is I have this dream this dream game is for me is a big sci-fi game right I'm very inspired by games like Elite dangerous um the longest journey which is an adventure game but it's set in this sort of cyberpunk themed environment and of course with the latest Star field out as well that's it that's a huge inspiration for me and and this this sort of idea of this giant evolving sci-fi world is something that I would love to make but as a solo developer it's incredibly difficult to try and pull that off right I mean you look at Starfield that was in the works for I don't know something ridiculous like 10 plus years with with a team of hundreds or thousands of people working on it so I think it's it's that idea of um you know being realistic about like your time about your skill set um I recently worked on a project um it's called Magic and muskets and it's a sort of like a Diablo style um Boss Rush game if you like it's it's isometric it's 3D it's top down and it it began really well we we me and Matt actually um who I mentioned earlier on we started this project together and we had all of these cool crazy ideas um for all for different Arenas that you could play in and we we progressed quite far with that initial concept but we quickly realized that you know 3D was neither of our skill sets if you like um he's a traditional 2D artist and I'm a engineer so the the idea of being able to animate and model and texture and Enlighten and all this other stuff quickly became very apparent that that was not our skill set now that's not to say you can't go off and learn those things but it's just being aware of how much time uh investment things like that will take and whether or not that's actually going to limit you in your ability to actually create a finished product so so for me I guess if if there's any lesson I can share it's avoid scope creep make sure you're realistic about your goals and be prepared to invest the time in in you know whatever various skills that could potentially be completely unforeseen at the start of a project um that's not to say don't chase your your dream game absolutely do um but just just try and be a little bit more grounded when you approach it like yeah I think that's uh as definitely a valuable lesson and I what I find like um in the game industry particularly actually a lot of Indie developers look up into this very huge Triple A games like Starfield as you mentioned or uh I don't know yes games made by Rockstar or something it's just crazy I think they they should just um have a little less expectations and look more into like the Indie side of the game development because that's what's going to actually suit them more unless they want to actually join like a triple egg like team or something so that's definitely a valuable lesson time yeah absolutely you know it's it's difficult to get um it's difficult to get out of that mindset of you know I'm gonna create this this huge uh all-encompassing game it's it's something that you know game developers in particular are extremely passionate people right and uh it's it's difficult because typically we have these huge imaginations we have these huge worlds we're inspired by a lot of things that we see and uh we don't often think about the limited time that we have as individual people um you know and how many how many how much resources went into some of these titles like you mentioned like GTA for example um so yeah it's it's a difficult one but it's it's hard to curb that sort of appetite for that huge game um but it's it's definitely a lesson that I'm trying to take on board more now as I approach different projects so Tom will be actually a speaker on the next year's Game Dev conference which is the biggest conference about game development so we would all love to know more about like the talk of you time so can you like tell us more about what are you actually going to talk about at the GS Game Dev yeah no problem so um my talk is basically um it's all about social features and social engagement within games so we we've seen a huge Trend recently particularly in the mobile space where games are making this push to be um you know more involved in that social space get people competing get people you know talking about games together and playing as a collective group and we see this with things such as you know Candy Crush Saga um you know Royal match and all this sort of stuff where um it's no longer it's no longer acceptable really to just have this game in isolation you kind of you want to be able to invite your friends you want to be able to compete on a leaderboard you want to be able to do all sorts of things like having private messages and group chats and guilds and so on and so forth so my Talk's really about how or what impact that can have on for example player retention monetization opportunities and and how practically we can Implement that in in your JavaScript games so um obviously I I work for Heroic Labs as part of the developer relations team there so I have a lot of insight into how people can use nakama the the open source game back end to to implement some of these features now Nakamura is a a hugely popular back end that provides you with the ability to implement all of these social features in your game um extremely quickly extremely easily and so my my talk rather than being very sort of theoretical and talking about the the pros and cons of how you might do this and you know trying to to trying to explain some of that stuff um it it Dives very quickly into the Practical aspects of things it shows you how to implement for example leaderboards in in your game and yes so we we dive into some of that so I think it's going to be incredibly useful and valuable to to people that are either starting the the game development Journey right now or have an existing project but don't really know how to start fitting some of these social features into their games hopefully it will provide um some some insight there in into how to get started with that so Tom will be actually speaking at the next biggest game development conference the GS Game Dev you can actually catch up with us and actually be part of the talk on gsgamediv.com happening on September 28 and 29. looking forward to Media online so Tom also has actually a really awesome YouTube channel that actually like has everything about game developments and a Game Dev word and unity and go Dot and on your engine and much much more so it would be actually great if you could just look at this channel it's called code with time you can find Link in description below and Tom can actually tell you more about that yeah no problem thanks um yeah so like say I mean I created this during lockdown and uh I I kind of took a step away from it for a while but I'm back now and I I basically have a lot of uh Godot content on there I'm starting to create some more guitar for Content I'm hopefully the the Sci-Fi theme game that we we mentioned earlier on I'm gonna be creating a multiple series relatively unfiltered it's not going to be tutorialized it's going to be a lot about me just going through that journey of becoming uh being a game developer really and just sort of showing you that unfiltered um highlight reel of of of how how that gets done um so yeah if you want to come over and join the channel I have tutorials on there and and news industry news about um about the game development industry in general and uh yeah it'd be great to see you guys over there awesome awesome great talk uh Tom it's been actually great having you today on the interview it's been like a great guest great great knowledge we know about now and thanks for sharing all this information about the game developments it's been really really fun and uh so yeah thank you Tom thank you guys for tuning in today and uh yeah yeah nice to meet you too yeah catch you hopefully in the next video see you guys peace cheers guys take care