This is the transcript of the talk I gave at the ALUO (Academy of Fine Arts and Design) in Ljubljana. It is turned into a blog post, with all the links shared. There are some good links and references here!

Thank you for inviting me.

It's also posted to YouTube here:

Links in this slide
* Tetrageddon.com
* Everything is going to be OK
* Electric Zine Maker
* alienmelon.itch.io

I started making interactive art on a computer, what would now fall under the umbrella term of "video game", over 20 years ago. The internet was a different place then. I can't count the amount of times that I was told by teachers, or other professional adults, that the internet is a niche that will die... Basically that I am wasting my creativity.
Despite how misunderstood the internet was, there was this immense possibility space for us artists to shape what it meant to create there. Anything was possible. It could become anything!
Schools were not teaching the type of art that I was interested in. This was net-art, websites, and all the fascinating ways that art was being explored in this digital context.
Then I believed that the internet, and as a result, websites were the future of art.

Some of my work...

* Tetrageddon.com An online arcade of minigames. It is filled with tangents, rabbit holes, spaces to explore the online fiction of all my work... This illustrates how your work can exist on a few levels, where the online space gets to blur what is and isn't the game. It exists in its own universe when it's more than just a standalone exe.

* Everything is going to be OK This is similar, but on the desktop. A collection of "minigames" that are each a way of exploring a different theme. It blurs the line between "software" and "game" by incorporating a lot of creative tools or silly things associated with software.

* Electric Zine Maker - a tool in the same fictional vein as all the above.

A lot has changed since the time that I started.
The internet is not a niche that you have to explain to most people.
Computers, technology, and the power structure of who gets to participate, and who is left behind is a constant push and pull between individuals and the giant corporations that turned this into an industry that's monetized.

In many ways I think that digital art is at a very interesting, and critical impasse, largely because of how the culture of the tech industry has shifted to become more of a monolithic extension of late capitalism... and, as a result of the tremendous amounts of money to be made, the way that emerging technologies like AI are being presented.

The type of creative freedom that I am used to is going to very much vary from the type of creative freedom a newcomer is used to... As such, I think it's important to maintain an understanding of what type of personal power we each as individuals have. It's important to realize the responsibility we have always had when it comes to participating and shaping the digital art or tech landscape.

Creating and self-distributing software, games, and websites, is still a concept that exists. As creators here, it is something we need to fight for in the way we choose to participate.

The way we participate is what gives things power.
I should point out that every mainstream established tool that you use to make your games, like Unity, or even Adobe products, began as an "underdog".
Unity more so, was viewed as an alternative to Flash games. At the beginning Unity was a tool that had a heavy amount of creative vision, drive, and inspiring philosophy behind it. It promised to be something empowering to everyone. It was an indie darling.
As it grew it kicked to the curb the very people who made it what it is.
This is an inescapable reality when industry, investors, and money are involved... but it's important to remember that these things became what they are not because of investors, or CEOs, but because of everyone (the "little people", the hobbyists...) that made it what it is.

Our participation is our greatest strength here.
The unique voice we bring to the table in the way we make and express ourselves as artists is what gives our work power.

Links in this slide...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil
* https://htmlforpeople.com/
* https://jackieisonline.itch.io/jackies-guide-to-making-a-website
* https://chollinger.com/blog/2024/08/why-i-still-self-host-my-servers-and-what-iv...

When I started it was common knowledge that you could create and host your own website. Anyone could make the next Facebook or Google. Participating in tech was in anyone's hands.
Even Google, at one point, had a motto of "Don't be evil". I think it has since abandoned that type of tech culture, but even so... These things grow, exist, and thrive because of what they promise to people like us.
When I started, anyone could make a Flash game, distribute it to run in the browser, and make a living from that work. Browser games were everywhere.

As our online spaces began to change with the emergence of social media, the way our online behavior was funneled into a handful of centralized websites owned by companies, the way our online social spaces became controlled by individual corporations rather than small people hosting their own communities, and the way our understanding of owning a computer has changed to be that of apps and the walled garden of the app store... It's really important to point out that our own interaction with tech may have changed to be extremely controlled, and seem like we have a dependency on corporations... but the original underlying structure still exists. We have power to exist independently, and create our own alternatives too.
At the core of it, we can participate our own way, if we know where to look.
You can still create websites, your own tools, distribute your own software... and how to do that is a very important understanding to cultivate.

Tech literacy is an imperative, especially in the era that we are in right now.

I'll make my point when it comes to AI...

Links in this slide...
* https://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/from-monopolies-to-tiny-tools-by-solo-devs
* https://www.possibilityspace.org/blog-oasis/

AI has existed since ever.
It's not new. You have video game AI, dialogue AI, grammar and spellchecker AI, social media algorithms could be described as that... It's not hard to find examples of how this is everywhere.
Come this new phenomena of large learning models, and AI generators, now it became a buzzword because tech today is structured to need "the next big thing" for it's hype cycles.
With these hype cycles comes a general mentality that we, as participants, need these large entities in order to enjoy these new things.
We can only participate as consumers, not creators of a tech.

AI, as the current buzzword, is something heavily hyped and mystified, that promises everything. It promises to be the "singularity" you hear about in science fiction, to true artificial sentient intelligence, to something that will replace all artists... That type of hype surrounding it is possible because of a sense of ignorance and helplessness cultivated in the average internet user.
Often conversations surrounding it can sound very much like fear mongering if you know enough about the technology. I have to think that ultimately, even this extreme black-and-white nuance-lacking criticism of AI serves the bottom line of corporations more than it does artists or creators criticizing a technology.

AI models are freely available, and if you so choose, you could install one on your own computer and have your own running that you train on your own work, or even start building yourself.
There are plenty of open source solutions that put that power in your own hands. When I say this I mean, completely bypass any services and really do it yourself.
Doing this removes the mysticism of buzzwords. You see that a lot of the promise of "true artificial intelligence", sentience in AI, and all this hype... is really just buzzword hype.
You quickly realize that they take a lot of time and effort to really produce anything worthwhile.

Anyone choosing to work with open source models would see that AI chat personalities are absolutely not self-aware sentient beings. This is the type of rhetoric that seems common if you read forums surrounding character AI communities, where kids panic if they lose a character and constantly ask if this is a real person... or on the other end of the spectrum you see the promise of "replacing all artists ever", and generally how companies describe these things... but they are really complex really flawed systems. The tech industry is structured to prefer hype over reality.
I think it's important to point out that this type of ignorance driven by buzzwords, is harmful to everyone. It disempowers us. It also creates a mentality that the only people equipped to build on and form the future of technology like this are large tech entities.

The fact that people think this is something greater than both their capabilities to understand or even do themselves, like exploring open source solutions, is what surrenders a lot of our own power to corporations who are abusing tech, or driving it in a direction that alienates everyone else.
Our critical participation is important in this age where we are being walled off as creators and distributors of software, games, and digital art.
Tech literacy is vital for our future... If we do not conscientiously participate in these things, even criticize these things with understanding of how they really work, then the only people left to drive the future of these technologies are corporations building a future that both disempowers us and does not favor everyone.

All this is true for game development too. Game development is an extension of the tech space.
It is not immune to these issues either. It is important to have a strong understanding of alternatives when participating here. If we do this, we create a space where independence, DIY culture, and creative freedom continues to thrive with our conscious participation.

For example, a while ago I posted a small thread on social media about how solo-development is a wonderful empowering thing.
As you can imagine it garnered some criticism, because that's what happens on social media, but the most interesting negative sentiment toward solo-development was quite a few people really believing that you can't make games on your own. Their point was that you need a team, budget, and the resources of many people to do that.
This is the type of disempowerment that I'm talking about. It's fueled by ignorance about DIY tech culture.

I make all my games completely on my own. I have no outside help in development, or distribution.
I learned to code, write, make sound and music, art... all on my own. I learned how to produce, market, and sell on my own. You can do that. Knowledge of how to do it is completely accessible. This type of creative independence and self-sufficiency is something that's always been part of computer culture.
I am completely self-taught. I do not have a team, or anyone, making games with me. I make everything on my own. My work has won enough awards, recognition, and made it into enough exhibits to go to show that it's of comparable quality.
I can't count the number of times that my work went up against work made by larger teams in mainstream festivals, and it actually won.

You don't need anything but your own determination and willingness to always learn. That's it. That's at the heart of computer culture. This space is for individualistic expression too.

That said, this type of ignorance in my examples, where people believe it's "just not possible" without a larger corporate entity, teams, or many resources... is something I think generally disenfranchises us of our digital world. DIY culture exists in all factors of tech, from distribution, to AI, to building things. So if we really educate ourselves and keep fostering our own independence, we create a positive future where tech, games, creation here... stays for everyone.

So all that said...

Links in this slide...
* https://enginesdatabase.com/
* https://tinytools.directory/
* https://roadmap.sh/
* https://itch.io/c/235488/cool-tools

For every mainstream tool there exists a dozen alternative that do just as much as the mainstream tool.
I often hear criticism that these alternatives are not "as good", but if you really go use this, and create a development ecosystem where you understand these tools and use them in an informed manner, you get more from them than you would from any commercial closed system.

I try to keep up with what gets posted on itch in my "cool tools" collection. This started when I began developing the Electric Zine Maker, and wanted to get a better understanding of other interesting, unique, colorful, or personable tools made by other small devs out there. I went into this unaware of how much exists. The diversity of tools, weird niche use cases, and interesting things that each solves, is incredible. Once you know about this space, you see it everywhere.

There are countless game engine alternatives. Initiatives like Game Engines Database exist to make finding them as accessible as possible. Game Engines Database is a large growing database of game engines that sorts content so you can find alternatives based on popular keywords like 2D, Agnostic, Scripting languages, or making games for the web or desktop...
The Tinytools Directory does the same but specifically for any open source experimental or tiny tool. You can find programs there for painting, writing, coding, making fonts... Websites like these are wonderful examples of how that space is endless. It's always growing. It's impossible to catalogue all of it.

When you look at a tool like Bitsy, Pico-8, or any of these tiny engines, it's easy to underestimate their importance or brush them off as small hobbyist things. These tools teach us the basics of creating something within the constraints of a system, as well as giving us space to grow from that. Small tools like these help us explore our ideas. For example Celeste was first built in Pico-8, you see how you can prototype and grow from these tools.
Every tool has a place here, and has something to offer. It's an exciting part of the creative journey to invent new ways to use all these.
I regularly use these smaller tools to structure my ideas. I also use them with my bigger project, as little tangents or hidden easter eggs.
For example, you can see some screenshots in the above picture... a lot of writing that you can discover in BlueSuburbia (which is my current project built in Unreal) are Bitsy, Pocket Platformer, or Decker games, bundled with the Unreal game. So, while exploring a visually high quality 3D space, you find these smaller fragments made in these lo-fi tools where you explore writing, or other contexts to experience. It makes the project much more compelling.

Godot has grown in strides since it's become a very powerful alternative to Unity. You can do anything in it, and I think it's a beautiful example of where games and software development intersect because it has a lot of capabilities to go beyond just making games in it. People make game engines using Godot, for example see RPG In A Box. The flexibility here empowers you to make some very unique things.

As you start participating in the independent tools space you find yourself becoming kind of a collector of unusual tools, and you start inventing uses for them. Like I'll find these silly tools for making animated gifs. I end up using these in my larger projects. After a while it's like you have these little secret techniques for making visually interesting games.

It's a very different mindset for making a game. It's not just about getting good at that one big development environment, like Unity or Unreal. It's about inventing ways to use tools in an interesting and expressive way.

Links in this slide...
* https://nekoweb.org/
* https://neocities.org/
* https://mmm.page/

This doesn't just extend to games...
There are countless web communities surrounding building and hosting your own website like nekoweb, neocities, or mmm.page. The later of which is an especially good example of an initiative that empowers anyone to create unique personal websites.
Most of these help you host it too, so you can be part of a community. It's a very personal way to exist online, much like how the old internet was.

If you are aware of all these interesting things, you can extend what your game is. Your game doesn't just need to exist in it's own little bundled .exe or installer. The fiction you create can exist on websites, that lead to your game, that has all sorts of other interesting extras surrounding it. You can take up digital space in really compelling creative ways.

* Mackerelmediafish.com

For example, I wanted the Electric Zine Maker to exist in a fictional universe. So it's kind of like a fantasy tool. I made this ARG-like website for a fictional technology it was supposedly built in, called Mackerelmediafish.com... If you go exploring that, you find this really cute little tangent and story about the fictional technology. Other tools and work are cited in this online "game".
It's a small illustration on how your work can exist in many contexts. You take up space in this beautiful compelling way with your games.

When it comes to alternatives, if you think of something you need or want or miss... there is likely a tool, platform, or space out there, usually open source, that serves as a wonderful solution.
They don't get the attention they deserve.
Our creative participation here is what will set the tone for the future.

The longer you are here, the more you realize how important it is to be as self-sufficient as possible when creating digital art like games.

Links in this slide...
* A short history of Flash & the forgotten Flash Website movement (when websites were "the new emerging artform")
* Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record

"...they were all started by people who swore they'd never sell out. I know those people, the old blogger mafia who started the CMSes, social media services, and publishing platforms where I find myself trapped. I considered them friends (I still consider most of them friends), and I knew them well enough to believe that they really cared about their users."

- Bluesky and enshittification

When I started, Flash was THE technology to use.
The toolchain was incredible. Macromedia listened to its user base, and so many people influenced the direction the technology took that it became this beautiful flexible thing you could use for anything.
It seemed like Flash would live forever. It was truly everywhere at one time.
Adobe bought Macromedia, and as a result of many bad decisions over the years, Flash is now gone.

Unity became the replacement for Flash. Unity was THE tool to use for indie developers. It was the indie darling. The people that initially worked there really created a beautiful tool driven by beautiful philosophies.
Based on a number of bad decisions, especially recent controversies with Unity, its future looks just as bleak as Flash's did.

We keep loosing our darlings to the same system. Understanding a larger toolchain, and getting good at many tools, especially open source ones, gives us a way out from this pattern.

Good game design is engine agnostic. What you cultivate in one toolset, engine, or creative environment, easily translates to another. It's not wasted knowledge. Good game design, and development practices, are not dependent on the tools. They are an interactive language, and way of expressing yourself, that you (as the creator) explore, hone, and perfect over a long time. It's all interchangeable.
This is a creative journey where you develop your own design language and development methodologies for yourself.
Exploring many tools helps you on that journey, and it helps you claim a type of independence from bad decision making on part of the companies that you rely on for your tools.
It's always been sad to see when creators that rely so much on a tool like Unity, or Flash, or web art... say that a certain decision from the driving forces behind a platform or technology completely destroyed their will to keep creating.
I've seen it often. It's incredibly disheartening. We don't need to keep falling victim to that.

Breaking out of that cycle starts with participating in alternatives.