UIBuzz - Software and game development

Peter: 00:00

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the UI Buzz podcast. I am your host, Peter Witham. You can find me and this podcast at peterwitham.com. I did not realize it had been a month since my last episode, so apologies for that.

Peter: 00:13

But it has been a very busy month, so I'm going to try and go through some of the things that I've been doing and some of the things that are just sort of happening out there in the development world, particularly with the gaming focus, I think, this one. I have noticed reading through many blog posts and newsletters and a lot of other things that I follow, it seems that the general trend after doing some analysis and questionnaires from folks who know way more than I ever will about these things on Steam, the Steam users don't seem to be that bothered about the use of AI. Now I wanna stress there that this is people who use Steam to play games, buy games, all of that kind of thing. Now interestingly, the statistics apparently show, and this is based on a lot of things that I've read out there on the web, nothing in particular, that it's really developers who seem to be the most upset about AI and the use of AI on Steam games in particular since this is primarily where the user base came from. But it's also no surprise, really.

Peter: 01:29

Right? And I'm not judging that either way. I'm just saying it makes sense that the people who have the biggest opinions about this is gonna be the people that make things, whether they give them away for free or sell them or whatever. Users ultimately don't seem to be that bothered, which is what I've been saying all along, which is users care about the end product. Right?

Peter: 01:53

They don't care what you use to make it for the most part. And so in many ways, I feel vindicated in that statement and hope that, you know, it continues to be that way. But it does perhaps force some people pause for thought. You know? And I've said this before, and I'm not gonna go deep into AI on this one again either way.

Peter: 02:17

But it's the folks who use AI to make things and the folks who don't use AI to make things that have the biggest opinions on this. But, ultimately, you should all care about the end product. And as far as the end product goes, at least for Steam users and other platforms too, they don't seem to be too bothered either way as long as they get a decent game. And that is exactly how it should be. Now leading into that is something that I have released my Mufu game or moo f o or mofo, however you wanna pronounce it.

Peter: 02:55

It's up to you. I'm trying to get used to pronouncing it as moo f o because, you know, it just plays better. And I released the game. Now it's only released on itch still, and I think I'd mentioned this before. But the reason I'm mentioning it here is not only because it's out there and I want you to go play it, there'll be a link in the show notes, but also because I did use for two things.

Peter: 03:18

Now I used it to create the splash screen because I created a splash screen, and it did a damn sight better job than I did. Simple as that. And I was like, you know what? I should go with this because it's just better. I know folks will slam me, some folks, for using AI, and they say, oh, look.

Peter: 03:37

AI slop. Okay. But it's better than what I can draw. Now the reason I mentioned that is because I also used AI to do some math code for some of the movement for me because I just it's not something I'm good at. Simple as that, really.

Peter: 03:56

And so I quite rightly check the box on Itch in this case that says, yes. I used AI to create some content. But my issue with that is not checking the box. The issue is that you don't get to explain what you used it for. Right?

Peter: 04:16

Because in my opinion, there's a hell of a big difference between I used AI to make an entire game or most of a game, and I used AI to generate one or two assets or solve a code problem for me. You know, I think that's a big difference, and I think that you should be able to be a bit more granular when you check a box that says, what do you use it for? You know? For the people that care about that kind of thing. So, anyway, I wanna talk about it because MuEFO is out there.

Peter: 04:48

It was a one dot o now, and it is, I think, pretty solid. Yes. There there is a long way to go with it. But, again, you have to release the base version of whether it's an app or a game. At some point, you gotta release that 1.o and say to yourself, I have put in enough effort that I need this to go out in the world and get feedback, good or bad, to know whether I should continue to put more effort in to build in the planned features, experience, whatever it may be that I have listed to do, but I have not yet implemented.

Peter: 05:29

Because you need that data. Right? You need to know whether there's anybody at all interested in playing that game or not. And, yes, it's a tough call. I've said this before about what does a one o look like, but there is a fine line where you say, I've put enough hours in that there's enough there for someone to play this.

Peter: 05:49

It's a solid experience of what it is and see what they say or see how it plays out there, if you pardon the pun. And then decide, okay. Great. I should keep putting in the effort or nope. This one's a bit of a dud, and I need to walk away.

Peter: 06:06

Right? And the only way to know that is at some point put something out there in the world. So that's where I'm at with that right now. Interestingly, along with this, I wanna talk about something else that I've done recently, which is over the past couple of weeks, I have really done, frankly, almost next to nothing on any of my side projects, personal projects, out of the day job stuff, whatever you wanna call it. Right?

Peter: 06:34

Hustles, whatever. And the reason being is I wanted to step back, take a bit of a reset now that I've got these things out there, and just sit back and look at the data and try and figure out what is worth my effort going forward, what maybe shows some promise, or what do I want to pursue, or should I let it go? You know, all that kind of thing. And I've spoken about this before in other episodes, so check them out. But also worth noting, in that couple of weeks of not doing anything, my sleeping has improved, and I seem to be a lot less stressed in the evenings because I don't feel like I need to be working on a project every night.

Peter: 07:20

Now that's questionable, of course, to pay you know, there are gonna be folks that say you should always be working on these things and pushing them. Otherwise, how's it gonna happen? And then on the flip side, I'm gonna put forward the mental health argument of sometimes you just need to stop and say, wait. Is this worth it? How do I feel about this?

Peter: 07:40

How do I feel when I'm not doing these? And make a judgment call on where you wanna go from there. And I've been doing that, and it's been great. I have just been playing some games with some friends on a livestream on Saturday nights playing as a group, have thoroughly enjoyed that. And it's nice to not sit down in the evening and feel like, oh my gosh.

Peter: 08:04

I have to work on something. Because I'll be honest, folks. None of my apps out there, none of my games out there, even these podcasts, they are not getting enough viewership or usage or purchases or downloads, however you wanna phrase it, that any of these feel like they really will have a negative impact if I just stopped doing it. On the flip side, of course, you can always argue the more you do, the more it's gonna have a positive impact, and I would agree with you completely. But I don't have enough users, viewers, listeners, whatever, to be pressured either way.

Peter: 08:49

You know? And I and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way to any users or anybody that's bought my apps or plays my games or anything like that. I just mean that the numbers are so low that it's almost a case of probably no one would even notice if I didn't update them. And I'm just being honest. Right?

Peter: 09:06

Honest and transparent, and I think we need more of that. Now the sad part is, of course, like with this podcast, it's all fallen to the wayside a little bit, and I love making these podcasts. But truthfully, to be absolutely transparent with you all, the only thing I've ever done that has done what I would call really good numbers in the context of comparison to other things is the compulsive podcast, which did fantastically well on the numbers as far as I was concerned and certainly got a lot of listeners. But that was a difficult one to keep the content going, but that's the only project I've ever done that has had such a large amount of users, listeners that it was a very tough decision to make as to whether I should continue it or not. Everything else is so small that no one's gonna notice for the most part other than me.

Peter: 09:59

And all of this comes back to say about artificial stress that you put on yourself and this belief that this project that you're doing that has maybe 15 players is somehow so important when in reality, it is only so important to you because the world is not even noticing it if I'm just brutal about it. That is something I recommend for all of you to stop and think about. Right? What are the numbers? What is the the statistics behind what you're doing, and are you making it seem like a bigger thing to yourself than it really is?

Peter: 10:35

And stop and think about that. It's gonna be a different answer for every single one of us. But that's what I got for you in this episode. I just wanted to put all those things out there to catch up. I do wanna talk very soon.

Peter: 10:48

I mean, I'm trying to structure it a bit about some of my experiences with shipping this game on Godot and some of the the pluses and the minuses that I've had there, and I do wanna dive into that some more. I also wanna put a video out if I'm gonna go through all my archives of things that I've recorded whilst developing the game and putting it all together into trying to make some kind of, like, lifetime of the app from zero to one and put that out there probably on YouTube as well. And I'll let you know about that. I think it would be beneficial for those who've always wanted to make a game but don't know how or wonder, like, what's the reality of it like? And I wanna put that out there to show you, look.

Peter: 11:34

Here's me doing a side hustle on this game because I wanted to make it, and this is what it looked like in progression. That's it, folks. If you wanna reach out to me and you wanna come and talk about things, please do. Peter Witham dot com forward slash contact. Love to have a conversation.

Peter: 11:50

Love you to come on here and share your thoughts, whether you're an app developer, whether that's web, mobile, whatever it is. Right? An app developer or a game developer. I would love to have conversations about this stuff, especially on game development where I'm still consider myself very much a newbie even though I think I've made seven games or something at this point. But that's it, folks.

Peter: 12:13

Have a great time, and I will speak to you in the next episode.