Jonathan Blow
Jonathan Blow | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | 1971 (age 52–53) |
Nationality | American |
Education | University of California, Berkeley (dropped out) |
Occupation(s) | Game designer, programmer |
Organization(s) | Thekla, Inc. |
Known for | Braid, The Witness, Jai programming language |
Website | http://number-none.com/blow |
Jonathan Blow (born 1971) is an American video game designer and programmer. He is best known for his work on the independent video games Braid (2008) and The Witness (2016).
Blow was born in California, United States, and became interested in game programming while at middle school, and studied for a double degree in computer science and English at the University of California, Berkeley. After dropping out of college, he and a friend started a game company that closed following the dot-com crash, after which he worked as a game-development contractor. Blow co-founded the Experimental Gameplay Workshop and wrote a monthly technical column for Game Developer magazine. Blow gained prominence in 2008 with Braid.
He used the financial success of Braid to fund his next game The Witness, and formed a company called Thekla Inc. After a lengthy development period, The Witness was released in 2016, and like Braid was critically and financially successful. During its development, Blow began designing and creating a new programming language after being frustrated with C++, the language Thekla used to program the game. Full-time work on the language, which is code-named Jai, and a new game implemented in it began after the release of The Witness. As of 2022[update], Jai is in closed beta; in December 2021, its compiler reached beta version 100.[1]
Blow's games are known for being artistic and challenging. They are made with custom game engines, and have larger budgets and longer development times than most independently funded games. Blow featured in Indie Game: The Movie, and is known for having strong opinions about the gaming industry.
Early life
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/TRS-80_Color_Computer_1_front_right.jpg/220px-TRS-80_Color_Computer_1_front_right.jpg)
Jonathan Blow was born in Southern California in 1971.[2] His father worked as a defense contractor for TRW, and his mother was an ex-nun.[2] He is the fourth of five siblings, having two brothers and two sisters.[3] Blow was raised as a Christian; he said his family "went to church every Sunday".[4] Blow attended middle school in Northern San Diego County.[5] While there, he attended a fifth-or-sixth-grade computer class where the VIC-20 home computer provided him with his introduction to programming and computers.[2][5] Blow said; "That was my favorite thing at school. I got it right away."[5] When his parents noticed he was interested in computers, they bought him a TRS-80 Color Computer, on which Blow learned to program in BASIC, often using exercise books from RadioShack.[6] In high school, he programmed games on a Commodore 64.[7][2] Some of the games he programmed were inspired by Indiana Jones and Pac-Man.[2][8]
In 1989, Blow attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate, double-majoring in computer science and English.[3] He started as a physics major but switched to computer science because he "just felt called in that direction".[9] Blow said of the computer-science major; "you had to know what you were doing" while the bachelor's degree in English was "all about bullshitting things".[9] He was a member and president of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association, as well as the eXperimental Computing Facility, an undergraduate computer-interest organization.[10][11][12] During college, Blow wrote some science fiction, which he published under a pseudonym.[13] He spent five years at UC Berkeley[3] but dropped out with less than one semester to go[14] because he "was really depressed about being at school, I didn't like it. I didn't have a good time."[15]
Career
1994–2000: Career beginnings and Wulfram
After leaving UC Berkeley, Blow worked at a "really boring" enterprise software company for six months,[16] before taking a contracting role at Silicon Graphics, where he ported Doom and Doom II to a set-top box.[3] In early 1996, Blow co-founded the game company Bolt-Action Software, which was based in Oakland, California, with Bernt Habermeier, whom Blow had met in the eXperimental Computing Facility.[3][17][12] An artist later joined the company,[12] and they created Wulfram, a 3D action-strategy game for up to 32 players.[18]
At its height, Bolt-Action Software had 14 employees. It folded in 2000 due to the dot-com crash.[3] In a 2020 interview, Blow said he was convinced 1996 was the most-difficult time in history to start a video game company because of the transition from 2D to 3D titles.[19] A number of components of the game were challenging to implement, but Blow learned from the experience—he said; "we went broke, and I was burned out for several years after that from working hard ... but that's how I became a good programmer".[20]
2001–2004: contracting work
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Game_Developer_June-July_2013_Cover.png/220px-Game_Developer_June-July_2013_Cover.png)
After Blow closed his first studio, he worked as a contractor for game studios with large budgets. Games he worked on include Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows.[21] In 2002, together with Chris Hecker, Doug Church and Robin Hunicke, Blow co-founded the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at the Game Developers Conference.[22][23] Around this time, he wrote The Inner Product, a monthly technical column for magazine Game Developer.[24][25]
During this time, Blow moved to New York City, where he was introduced to an IBM research project about servers based on cell processors, which IBM had partly developed.[26] Blow pitched them a proof of concept of a physics-intensive, online, multiplayer game about giant robots attacking a town.[27] Blow and Atman Binstock did most of the programming for the game;[28] Blow wrote the client-side code, graphics, and gameplay, while Binstock wrote the physics engine to run on the server from scratch.[27] After submitting their final report to IBM, the team took the game to Electronic Arts, whom Blow said "were like, 'Yeah, we're not impressed' ".[29]
Blow's other contract work included particle effect programming on Flow on the Sony PlayStation 3;[30][31] code review following MTV's purchase of Harmonix;[30] and programming on the music-action iPod game Phase.[32] Blow said of this part of his life; "I didn't really know what I was doing in life yet, I was just stumbling forward like people do sometimes, and doing the best that I knew how to do, which at that time was programming".[33]
2005–2008: Braid
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/Jonathan_Blow_-_Montreal_International_Games_Summit_2007.jpg/220px-Jonathan_Blow_-_Montreal_International_Games_Summit_2007.jpg)
Blow created a prototype for Braid in December 2004, and began work on the game five months later.[34] Much of the work was done part-time because Blow also did consulting work and martial arts training.[34] By December 2005 Blow had finished the first version of the game but he felt the graphics and art style "looked extremely amateur".[34] After many "false starts" trying to find a good artist, he hired David Hellman, who created all of the game's art.[34] For the story, Blow drew inspiration from some of his favorite books and films such as Invisible Cities and Mulholland Drive.[34] The game's narrative is told through textual exposition between worlds, environmental art, and gameplay. According to Blow, the narrative is "big and subtle and resists being looked at directly".[35]
In mid-2007, Blow signed with Microsoft to release Braid via its distribution platform XBLA. Blow felt time spent meeting the XBLA certification process would have been better spent polishing the game, but he noted Microsoft was "very hands-off" with game design, and that "the final game is exactly what I wanted to put there".[36] Blow estimated he spent more than $180,000 of his own money to develop Braid.[37]
Braid was released in August 2008 to universal acclaim,[38] and made Blow a millionaire.[39] By 2010, some other indie games had become commercially successful, leading Blow to co-found funding organization Indie Fund in 2010.[40] Blow appeared in the documentary film Indie Game: The Movie, in which he discusses his experiences developing and releasing Braid.[41] In 2014 Blow stated sales of Braid had earned more than $4 million, which he used to fund The Witness (2016).[39]
2009–2016: The Witness
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Jonathan_Blow_-_Game_Developers_Conference_Europe_2011_%282%29.jpg/220px-Jonathan_Blow_-_Game_Developers_Conference_Europe_2011_%282%29.jpg)
Blow's next project was The Witness (2016), a first-person game in which players solve puzzles by drawing paths. Blow wanted to create a game using non-verbal communication; the puzzle rules are never explained with words but the puzzles teach the player the rules. Blow felt solving puzzles in this way could generate epiphanies for players, and tried to design the game so the player experiences "miniature epiphanies over and over again".[42] Blow estimated solving every puzzle in the game would take more than 80 hours.[42]
Work on The Witness began in 2008. Blow created prototypes of several game ideas before choosing the one he liked the most, despite it being a 3D game which he "absolutely didn't want to do".[43] Throughout development, Blow hired developers full-time and founded the company Thekla, Inc., of which he is president.[43][44][45] The Witness was revealed to the public in 2010, when three people were working full-time on the game, and by 2015 this number had grown to eight.[43][42] Blow hoped to release The Witness in 2013 as a launch title for the Sony PlayStation 4 but the game was not released until 2016.[46] At the time, it was very rare for a small, independent game studio to spend more than seven years on a game.[42] Blow said The Witness became "a much bigger game than I thought", and that "as long as it looked like we were going to have the money and time ... we decided to make it the best thing we can".[42]
2017–present: Jai programming language, untitled sokoban game, and Braid, Anniversary Edition
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Jonathan_Blow%2C_Gamelab_2018_%2842432130094%29.jpg/220px-Jonathan_Blow%2C_Gamelab_2018_%2842432130094%29.jpg)
Towards the end of development of The Witness, Blow became frustrated with C++, the programming language Thekla used to implement the game's engine. Blow considered the language to be over-complex, noting; "C++ is a powerful language in some ways ... but it makes [software development] a lot harder than it should be".[47] In September 2014, Blow delivered a talk on his Twitch channel about the possibility of a new programming language designed for game development.[48] He evaluated alternative systems-level programming languages such as Go and Rust, but ultimately expressed the desire to create a new language.[48] Blow estimated a new programming language designed for game development could reduce typical development time by at least 20% and advance the art form by making programming more enjoyable.[49] He also said the language would be relatively easy to create compared to creating a game like The Witness.[50]
In 2014, Blow began designing the language, which is codenamed Jai, and started creating a compiler for it.[47] In 2020, when asked about the name of the language he said that in many projects "people put all their effort into the cool name" before working on the project, and that he was "doing things in the opposite way".[51] The first year and a half of work on Jai was part-time because Thekla was shipping The Witness.[52] In mid-2016, full-time work on Jai, a game engine written in Jai, and a sokoban game built in that engine, began.[52] Among other things, Blow hopes the language will improve the experience of game programming and allow programmers to build more functionality with less code.[47] By working on the sokoban game, its engine, and Jai at the same time, Blow is able to test the language's design and adjust it early in its lifetime.[53] As of 2023[update], the Jai compiler is currently in closed beta and reached beta version 100 in December 2021.[1] Blow regularly streams work on the sokoban game, its engine, and Jai on his Twitch channel.[54]
In August 2020, Thekla announced Braid, Anniversary Edition, a remastered edition of Braid.[55] Blow said the remaster will be faithful to the original, noting Braid will not get the "Greedo shoots first" treatment—a reference to a change made to Star Wars.[56] Thekla planned to launch the game in early 2021.[56] As of June 2023, the game has not been released.
Long-term project
In 2013, Blow began making a prototype for a single-player game that was not a puzzle game.[57] In 2018, Blow said the game had 40–50 hours of playable content. He intends for Thekla to make the game using the game engine being developed for the sokoban game, once it has matured. He plans to work on the game for 20 years, releasing it in installments. Each installment will make the game larger and more complex.[58]
Blow noted one of his goals for the project is to expand his design abilities, and stated; "I want to design something that is out of my comfort zone that will make me [a better designer]". The game will be similar to Gravity's Rainbow in having a "high dynamic range" and in how the work "is not afraid to leave you behind when it flies. It expects you to do some work and come with it".[59]
Artistry
In his youth, Blow liked playing text adventure games by Infocom; his favorite was Trinity, which Blow said "affected me in a relatively deep way in terms of the way that I think about games".[60] In college, his favorite game was Netrek.[61] Early in his career Blow frequently played Counter-Strike, which he said "taught [him] a lot of subtle things".[62]
Blow's games are known for being artistic, challenging, and not following industry trends. In a retrospective on Braid, GQ noted the game was released at a time when the market was dominated by violent and repetitive first-person shooters, yet "made an earnest effort to make an artistic statement" that went beyond this trend.[63] The puzzles of Braid have been described as "tough"[64] and "formidable".[65] Time described The Witness as "categorically defiant", and described its reception as being "widely quantified as a game created by a genius for geniuses".[66]
Blow's games have higher budgets and longer development times than most independently funded games, and have custom game engines. Braid was built with a relatively large budget for independent games at the time,[67] while The Witness—which was largely funded with the profits of Braid—cost close to six million dollars.[68] The development times for Braid and The Witness were very rare for independent games at the time.[68][42] Blow chose to create a custom game engine for both games because he wanted full control over every aspect of the game, and ensured he could provide the game in the future.[69][a] Braid artist David Hellman said Blow was not stressed about time or budget, and that for him "the game always came first."[70]
Blow said when he makes a game, he tries to make something he would want to play and be interested in.[71] He wants to understand the world from many perspectives,[72] and tries to uncover and understand truths about the universe through game design.[9] Blow enjoys exploring the permutations of a simple idea.[68] He described an ideal player of his games as someone who "is inquisitive and likes to be treated as an intelligent person".[73] Blow hopes the design skills he developed by working on complicated games have made Jai better designed than most languages.[47] According to Blow:
People have this idea that entertainment is supposed to let you get away from your life for a little bit ... for me it's the opposite. If I go see a film or a play or listen to music, it's because I want to go towards something ... and bring a little bit of that back to my life.[74]
Blow founded Thekla because he wanted creative freedom rather than out of aspiration goal to run a company.[75] He used almost all of the profits of Braid to independently fund The Witness, noting; "I was willing to put it all in the poker pot and make the thing I wanted to make, without interference".[68] Blow has described himself as a "benevolent dictator" who decides what the game is and ensures other people's ideas "work with the large vision".[76] Blow does not schedule development time for games at Thekla, noting; "we don't do it like Electronic Arts. We don't pick a quarter and ship the game. We're just trying to make the best game."[58]
Public image
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Jonathan_Blow_Portland_Talk_Sep_2013.jpg/220px-Jonathan_Blow_Portland_Talk_Sep_2013.jpg)
Blow has a reputation for doing outstanding work,[58] and is known for voicing his opinions about the gaming industry.[77] He has been described as a "prickly genius",[68] and as the game industry's "most cerebral developer, but also as its most incisive and polarizing internal critic".[78] Commenting on his criticism, Blow said "I honestly say what I think about games, and I honestly say if I think something is good or not, and why".[79] Stephen Totilo of Kotaku said Blow's criticism is not targeted towards individuals or specific games but industry trends.[80]
Blow often identifies trends in games he thinks do not strengthen the medium and restrain it from reaching its potential, or are unethical. Blow thinks there are individual elements of storytelling which work well in games, including mood, character and setting;[81] but considers games to be a terrible medium for storytelling in general.[82] As of 2016, he considered the quality of storytelling in games to be significantly lower than that in literature.[83] In 2018, he said many contemporary games include designs that are self-sabotaging and weaken the structure of the game they are in, despite such designs existing nearly a decade earlier, indicating stalled progress.[84] [b] He does not consider microtransactions to be inherently unethical,[85] but thinks many games made for phones are "just pretending to be games in order to have a microtransaction button or show ads".[86] He considers social network games evil,[87] and noted while SimCity and FarmVille appear superficially similar, SimCity is a creative activity that involves problem solving while FarmVille is about retaining the player's attention for as long as possible.[88]
According to Blow, games have the potential to have a much-bigger role culturally[89] and "heavily impact the patterns of human thought, and help define what it means to be human".[90] While Blow strives to make his games meaningful,[80] he has noted games with relatively empty gameplay, such as massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) which keep players hooked with fake rewards, may be causing real harm to people.[90]
Despite being seen as a role model for independent development,[79] Blow is uncomfortable with being described as an indie developer: he feels the indie game scene has changed into something in which he does not belong.[79][91] In 2019, he said the independent development scene had changed in that it was easier to make and release a game than ever before, but "if you're talking about progress in exploring the medium, I think the progress has not been as large as people assume".[81] Blow noted Stephen's Sausage Roll, a game he thought in 2017 "may be the best puzzle of all time",[92] was rarely discussed in development circles, indicating a stagnation of the development scene.[81] The comments attracted social-media attention, which Blow found troubling, noting; "most of the people who got mad are not people who successfully have created indie games. I worry about that. I'm just trying to give people the best advice, that's all."[85] He also said; "The job isn't to be in a community; the job is to make a good game."[85].
Blow considers much of current software to be of low quality. He noted in a 2020 interview "I think we're now in a situation where everybody in the world is flooded with low quality software, and everybody wishes that they had higher quality software."[93] He considers most of what programmers currently do to be wasteful, describing programming in 2021 as "mostly dealing with complexity that doesn't need to be there."[94] He has a low opinion of modern C++, describing it in 2020 as "a terrible, terrible language at this point".[95] He noted that programming in C++ can be a miserable experience, and was partly motivated to create Jai in order to improve the quality of life for the programmer.[47] He was a lot happier about his day-to-day work once he began work on the Jai compiler.[47]
Personal life
Although several of Blow's hobbies are well-known, Blow has been described as being "intensely private".[2] Blow began kung fu training when he began working on Braid, doing 15 hours a week towards the end of development.[96] Through the training he learned meditation practices that helped him with game development, noting "I don't know if I would have finished Braid if I wasn't doing kung fu."[97]. He practiced tai chi during early development of The Witness.[78] Blow is an avid dancer, and went out dancing several nights a week during the development of The Witness.[94][2] He discovered that dancing helps him generate ideas, and during the 1990s took a notebook to clubs to write down programming ideas that would come to him on the dance floor.[98]
Works
Video games
Only games where Blow has had a major role in development are included below. For example, works in which he is credited under Special Thanks are omitted.
Year | Title | Role | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
1998[c] | Wulfram | Design, programming | [12] |
2001 | Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee | Programming | [99] |
2003 | Deus Ex: Invisible War | Additional programming | [100] |
2006 | Flow | Additional programming | [31] |
2007 | Phase | Programming | [32] |
2008 | Braid | Director, programming, design | [101] |
2016 | The Witness | Director, programming, design | [43] |
Films
Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2012 | Indie Game: The Movie | Himself | Documentary | [102] |
Notes
- ^ Off-the-shelf game engines rarely provide access to source code, resulting in less control over any game built with them. Using an off-the-shelf game engine also comes with a risk that the company that created the engine stops supporting it (e.g. it goes out of business). This usually means the game can no longer be updated and released on future platforms.
- ^ For example, a game may ask a player to make a decision based on a list of possible outcomes with their probabilities, but it is possible for the game to use a different set of probabilities when selecting an outcome. Blow considers designs which do this to be self-sabotaging, and said that games which did this belong in "the most central, deepest, most frozen circle of hell."[84]
- ^ The game was released in an open beta on TEN in July 1998.[18]
References
Citations
- ^ a b @Jonathan_Blow (December 24, 2021). "We just shipped beta 100 of the compiler to The People" (Tweet). Archived from the original on March 20, 2022 – via Twitter.
- ^ a b c d e f g Clark 2012, p. 43.
- ^ a b c d e f Machkovech, Sam (September 17, 2015). "The man and the island: Wandering through Jonathan Blow's The Witness". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 18, 2015. Retrieved January 7, 2023.
- ^ Adam Ruins Everything 2017, 1:12:02.
- ^ a b c Noclip 2017, 4:45.
- ^ Noclip 2017, 5:12.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 5:45.
- ^ Noclip 2017, 6:11.
- ^ a b c Dahlen, Chris (August 27, 2008). "Game Designer Jonathan Blow: What We All Missed About Braid". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on May 4, 2009. Retrieved July 26, 2022.
- ^ Blow, John (June 22, 2011). "How to program independent games". Thekla Inc. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- ^ "Join the CSUA". 2022. Archived from the original on May 28, 2022. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- ^ a b c d Keur, Scott (February 8, 1998). "Interview With Wulfram Development Team by Scott Keur". The Multiplayer Online Games Directory. Archived from the original on July 3, 1998.
- ^ Blow, John (September 27, 2010). Games and the Human Condition (YouTube video). Retrieved April 23, 2022.
I used to when I was early in college, you know I wrote a little bit of science fiction and got some stuff published, it's under a pseudonym so you can't look it up.
- ^ Noclip 2017, 7:54.
- ^ Tone Control 2014.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:05:46.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:14:50.
- ^ a b Keur, Scott (July 24, 1998). "Wulfram Goes Open Beta !!". The Multiplayer Online Games Directory. Archived from the original on February 4, 1999.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:15:44.
- ^ Tone Control 2014, 20:00.
- ^ Tone Control 2014, 31:55.
- ^ Tone Control 2014, 27:28.
- ^ "Experimental Gameplay Workshop at GDC 2022 Celebrates 20th Anniversary". Informa PLC. February 11, 2022. Archived from the original on February 11, 2022. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
- ^ Clark 2012, p. 44.
- ^ Blow, John (2014). "Articles from The Inner Product". Number None. Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 30:00.
- ^ a b Tone Control 2014, 38:13.
- ^ Blow, John (2015). "Happycake Development Notes". Number None. Archived from the original on February 9, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
- ^ Tone Control 2014, 41:06.
- ^ a b Noclip 2017, 11:57.
- ^ a b "People". thatgamecompany. Archived from the original on December 30, 2007.
- ^ a b "FAQ". Harmonix. Archived from the original on July 5, 2008.
- ^ Noclip 2017, 15:21.
- ^ a b c d e Totilo, Stephen (August 8, 2007). ""A Higher Standard" — Game Designer Jonathan Blow Challenges Super Mario's Gold Coins, "Unethical" MMO Design And Everything Else You May Hold Dear About Video Games". MTV. Archived from the original on March 16, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- ^ McElroy, Justin (September 25, 2008). "Joystiq interview: Blow unravels Braid in postmortem". Joystiq. Archived from the original on January 28, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2009.
- ^ Parkin, Simon; Alexander, Leigh (August 8, 2008). "Blow: 'Unnecessary' XBLA Hurdles Hurt Game Quality". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- ^ Brophy-Warren, Jamin (August 8, 2008). "Video Games: Braid — Advisor". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 26, 2008. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- ^ "Braid for Xbox 360 Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved December 11, 2018.
- ^ a b Parkin, Simon (April 3, 2014). "The Guilt of the Video-Game Millionaires". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on September 7, 2015. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
- ^ Carless, Simon (March 12, 2010). "Independent Game Luminaries Announce Indie Fund". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on November 10, 2010.
- ^ Goldstein, Gary (May 18, 2012). "Review: 'Indie Game' captures the struggle to create". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f Kollar, Philip (September 17, 2015). "The Witness: The creator of Braid talks about his fiendishly difficult new game". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on July 2, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
- ^ a b c d Parkin, Simon (December 6, 2010). "Catching Up With Jonathan Blow". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Archived from the original on December 10, 2010. Retrieved December 6, 2010.
- ^ Blow, Jonathan (March 22, 2011). "Jobs!". Thekla, Inc. Archived from the original on December 7, 2011. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
- ^ Blow, Jonathan (August 6, 2020). "Announcing Braid, Anniversary Edition for PS4 and PS5". Sony Interactive Entertainment. Archived from the original on January 13, 2021. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
- ^ Parker, Laura (February 20, 2013). "The Witness confirmed as a PS4 launch title". GameSpot. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f Taylor, Ivy (July 3, 2018). "Jonathan Blow: 'C++ is a weird mess'". Games Industry.biz. Gamer Network. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
- ^ a b Wawro, Alex (September 19, 2014). "Video: Jon Blow on building a new programming language for games". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 22, 2014.
- ^ Blow, Jonathan (September 19, 2014). Ideas about a new programming language for games. Archived from the original on December 19, 2021. Retrieved November 27, 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^ AIAS 2021, 55:18.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:34:10.
- ^ a b AIAS 2021, 57:16.
- ^ AIAS 2021, 57:43.
- ^ "j_blow's Videos". Twitch. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
- ^ Hall, Charlie (August 6, 2020). "Braid Anniversary Edition coming in 2021". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on August 9, 2022. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
{{cite web}}
:|archive-date=
/|archive-url=
timestamp mismatch; August 9, 2020 suggested (help) - ^ a b Makedonski, Brett (August 6, 2020). "Jonathan Blow's next project is Braid: Anniversary Edition". Destructoid. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
- ^ Blow, Jonathan (March 1, 2019). Practice 2014: Jonathan Blow. NYU Game Center. Event occurs at 27:29. Archived from the original on December 19, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2019 – via YouTube.
- ^ a b c Takahashi, Dean (July 2, 2018). "Jonathan Blow: How Thekla is moving beyond The Witness". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
- ^ Blow, Jonathan (March 1, 2019). Practice 2014: Jonathan Blow. NYU Game Center. Event occurs at 45:47. Archived from the original on December 19, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2019 – via YouTube.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:03:35.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:04:36.
- ^ Interactive Media and Games Seminar — Fireside Chat with Jonathan Blow (AV Recording). mediaX Stanford. October 10, 2017. Event occurs at 1:04:21. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
- ^ Meslow, Scott (August 8, 2018). "Revisiting Braid, the Indie Video Game That Set the Industry Ablaze". GQ. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on March 19, 2022. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
- ^ Snow, Jean (August 13, 2008). "Review: Braid Innovates and Satisfies". Wired. Archived from the original on March 3, 2009. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
- ^ Hill, Jason (August 21, 2008). "Braid". The Age.
- ^ Peckham, Matt (June 9, 2016). "'The Witness' Creator Jonathan Blow on Science, Language and Reality". TIME. Archived from the original on January 9, 2017. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
- ^ Juul 2019, p. 177.
- ^ a b c d e Parkin, Simon (January 29, 2016). "The Prickly Genius of Jonathan Blow". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on January 30, 2016. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
- ^ Moore, Bo (September 17, 2015). "This Sprawling Puzzle Game May Be Your Next Obsession". Wired. Archived from the original on January 24, 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2023.
- ^ Clark 2012, p. 45.
- ^ Adam Ruins Everything 2017, 7:15.
- ^ Adam Ruins Everything 2017, 48:07.
- ^ Hillier, Brenna (January 28, 2016). "Who is The Witness for? We asked Jonathan Blow". VG247. Archived from the original on January 29, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
- ^ Adam Ruins Everything 2017, 7:44.
- ^ Juul, Jesper. "Interview with Jonathan Blow". Handmade Pixels. Archived from the original on December 3, 2022. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
- ^ Tone Control 2014, 1:03:33.
- ^ Barratt, Charlie (August 10, 2011). "Jonathan Blow interview: How to fix the adventure, innovate mainstream games and do a sequel right". Retrieved January 10, 2023.
- ^ a b Clark 2012, p. 42.
- ^ a b c Alexander, Leigh (June 6, 2014). "The Witness: Modeling epiphany". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on January 31, 2016. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
- ^ a b Totilo, Stephen (August 10, 2011). "Jonathan Blow, Opinionated Creator of Two Video Games, is 'Attempting to be Profound'". Kotaku. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
- ^ a b c Whitehead, Dan (May 30, 2019). "Casual Connect: Indie development is 'stagnant' says Braid creator, Jonathan Blow". GameDaily.
- ^ "'Videogames Are Terrible For Telling Stories' Says Jonathan Blow". Play. June 2, 2015. Archived from the original on June 7, 2015.
- ^ Marsh, Calum (January 27, 2016). "Jonathan Blow: 'I want to make games for people who read Gravity's Rainbow'". The Guardian. Retrieved April 7, 2020.
- ^ a b Game Developers Session (October 3, 2018). "Keynote - Jonathan Blow". YouTube.
- ^ a b c Ong, Alexis (July 30, 2019). "Jon Blow: "The job isn't to be in a community; the job is to make a good game"". Games Industry.biz. Gamer Network. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 58:10.
- ^ Caldwell, Brandon (February 15, 2011). "Jonathan Blow interview: Do you believe social games are evil? "Yes. Absolutely."". PC Gamer. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 59:30.
- ^ "Jonathan Blow on future of video game industry". CBS This Morning. CBS. August 13, 2012. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
- ^ a b "MIGS 2007: Jonathan Blow On The 'WoW Drug', Meaningful Games". Game Developer. November 28, 2007. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
- ^ Juul 2019, p. 143.
- ^ Adam Ruins Everything 2017, 1:31:30.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:36:23.
- ^ a b Zuegel, Devon (August 2, 2021). "Jonathan Blow talks good design - for video games, team structure, and beyond". Notion Labs, Inc. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
- ^ On the Metal 2020, 1:32:22.
- ^ Tone Control 2014, 1:14:12.
- ^ Tone Control 2014, 1:20:15.
- ^ Jonathan Blow (April 7, 2014). Attempting Deep Work (YouTube video). Utrecht: Indievelopment conference. Event occurs at 21:24. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
- ^ Oddworld Inhabitants (November 15, 2001). Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee (Xbox) (1.0 ed.). Microsoft Game Studios. Scene: Credits.
- ^ Ion Storm Inc (December 2, 2003). Deus Ex: Invisible War (Microsoft Windows) (1.0 ed.). Eidos Interactive. Scene: Credits.
- ^ Parkin, Simon (September 12, 2008). "Jonathan Blow: The Path to Braid". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on December 20, 2008.
- ^ Rapold, Nicolas (May 18, 2012). "The Sweat, Tears and Passion Behind the Pixels". New York Times. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
Sources
- Juul, Jesper (2019). Handmade Pixels. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262042796. LCCN 2018056263.
- Clark, Taylor (May 2012). "The Most Dangerous Gamer". The Atlantic. Vol. 309, no. 4. Atlantic Media. pp. 40–51. Archived from the original on March 28, 2022.
{{cite magazine}}
: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Cantrill, Bryan; Frazelle, Jessie (January 26, 2020). "Jonathan Blow". On the Metal (Podcast). Oxide Computer Company. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- Conover, Adam (January 18, 2017). "Episode 18: Game Designer Jonathan Blow Unpacks 'The Witness'". Adam Ruins Everything (Podcast). Maximum Fun. Archived from the original on January 14, 2023. Retrieved September 10, 2022.
- Gaynor, Steve (February 15, 2014). "Jonathan Blow". Tone Control (Podcast). The Idle Thumbs Limited Liability Company. Archived from the original on January 14, 2023. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- O'Dwyer, Danny; Jayne, Jeremy (producers) (April 2, 2017). The Witness Documentary (YouTube video). Noclip - Video Game Documentaries. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
- Price, Ted (May 9, 2021). "Braid and The Witness Creator, Jonathan Blow". The AIAS Game Maker's Notebook (Podcast). Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)