Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles • Hacker News Board

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#321

Post by Johanx64 » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:30 PM UTC

AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #269

cloudhead wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your point is? Shipping garbage is better than not shipping anything?

Some people actually have mouths to feed. Some people don't have the luxury of preaching for whatever ideals they have without a need to release anything in 10 years; that doesn't make their products "garbage".

> Some people don't have the luxury of preaching for whatever ideals they have without a need to release anything in 10 years

Wait, how did they gain this "luxury"? Are they trust fund babies or something?

Or did they earn their big stash of money by producing "garbage" and now retroactively are preaching ideals that they themselves didn't follow or what?

This line of "criticism" doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

After all both in question live off money they've made and/or are making from their (arguably) uncompromised quality work.

That is to say their uncompromised quality work has directly resulted in them being able to not release anything for close to 10 years, and practice their ideals in software they ship even if the "shipping" takes 10 years to do.

It would be more fair to say, that most people don't have the craftmanship and skill (and not the luxury) to be able to produce high quality work and software that enables them the so called "luxury".

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#322

Post by mariusor » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

ragazzina wrote: post #307

NeutralCrane wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing their point. They are saying they start with relatively benign views, and the intense overreaction to those views drives them to support much more extreme views, like what you are describing, that they otherwise might not have. I can't speak for Blow, but that definitely seems to accurately describe the arc Rowling has taken over the last 7-8 years.

I am not missing their point at all, you are missing mine. >drives them to support much more extreme views, like what you are describing, that they otherwise might not have. The view I mentioned was the one that got Notch (one of the public figures mentioned by GP) the reaction from the internet in the first place. A bit disingenuous to say this was a moderate conservative talking point before he got sent spiraling i…

I am not an expert on Notch's slide into craziness, but I'd argue that the episode you mention it might not be the start. His start was as a "anti-SJW" game developer which got him hated and vilified by his former fans.

I'm not saying these people were rays of sunshine before, I'm saying they could be talked to without them foaming at the mouth and you face palming at how unhinged they were. I was using the meaning of benign attached to tumors.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#323

Post by troupo » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

jackling wrote: post #302

azemetre wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying I don't like their attitudes but it's a viewpoint I am struggling with myself. I'm starting to realize caring about all these minutia of details that don't really matter for my professional goals. I know my software isn't special, caring about pumping out as much performance as possible when I just sling JS professionally feels a tad myopic? What is the point of it just continues the pattern of procras…

Yea I largely agree with you on that point. I think when discussing Jon, Casey (and to add another, Mike Acton), there's actually a series of advice that they give that get lumped into a whole, and people don't really see the parts of what they're saying and instead focus on the part that sounds most critical to their work. I do agree that if you take from their "teachings" that every dev needs to optimize every thin…

> I don't think he has a problem with people using engines. From what I've seen he's played, and loved games that used engines in the past

He's also said quite openly that if you're only starting, it's fine if you reach for a ready-made engine. It's that you should try and understand how things and systems work as you progress.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#324

Post by skeskinen » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

dsego wrote: post #57

Laremere wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Witness is, in my opinion, simply one of the best games ever made. There are many layers to the game, and moments of insight that the game leads you to, but also trusts for you to make the final connections. However, I do understand why some consider it a slog. There are many puzzles in the game that people will dislike, indeed many puzzles that I disliked. It seems Jon prioritized finding all of the interesting…

How do you compare it to the Portal games or the Talos principle? I find those superior in puzzle mechanics, sense of achievement and playing dynamics. They can be challenging but you never feel aimlessly going around without a purpose like the Witness. There is good review of the game on youtube by the title "The Witness - A Great Game That You Shouldn't Play", it covers a lot and resonates well with my experience,…

I love the Witness, like the Portal games and hate the Talos Principle. To each their own, I guess.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#325

Post by torginus » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #299

torginus wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an important distinction has to be made between personal values and opinions, and politics, both in the confines of this discussion and generally in society. I think the lack of this distinction has led to much, and very painful and bitter online discussion, whereas people in a tribalist political mindset try to pigeonhole others based on a throwaway statement into either a friendly or enemy camp. I broadly a…

> Politics imo is the worst sort of tribalism No it's not. Politics is the negotiation between two or more people who want conflicting outcomes. > they might disagree on what the important issues are, or what should be done about them, but thankfully that doesn't necessarily stop them from being the best of friends. The Republicans are led by white supremacists and they hate me for being transgender. Please stop carr…

I am not from the US. I don't have a horse in this race. Please do not imply I am somehow 'carrying water' for the Republicans, whatever might that mean. I do not have any negative feelings toward you for who you are, and I assume you're a competent individual, although I would prefer if we were having a technical debate instead of whatever this is.

I apologize if I come across as impolite, but I assure you that has not been my intention. Please understand that that there is no hidden meaning behind my posts.

In fact I enjoy the fact that Blow can talk shop about things he disagrees with (such as enterprise software with call stacks 50 levels deep).

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#326

Post by barbazoo » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

torginus wrote: post #78

piker wrote: post #10

I always find Jonathan Blow and Casey Muratori to be great educators and advocates on the “simplicity” end of the spectrum. Jonathan can be super abrasive and comes with some political baggage, but does a good job advocating against what he perceives as unnecessary complexity in software. Opponents would suggest his domain and cherry-picked examples create the perfect environment for his positions and that he does ta…

Political? The most political I've seen him get was when he spoke out against the idea of accepting technical compromises for the sake of not hurting people's feelings and being PC. As in, you get to be cranky as long as you're arguing for the highest quality solution

I don’t know any of the context but how could hurting people’s feelings ever be relevant in the context of technical implementation of the game if that’s what we’re taking about?

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#327

Post by wahnfrieden » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

jstimpfle wrote: post #296

__alexs wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference in participation within STEM between men and women is not well explained by biological differences. Blow has repeatedly claimed that it is actually the primary factor and seems actively disinterested in other explanations. This is "controversial" in that it's a position that is not well supported by evidence and he has repeatedly used his platform in the past to make unsupported claims to the contrary.

Is the opposite explained? I haven't read literature on the topic, and I'm by the way also somewhat of a sceptic of science on such topics, as a layman. But it seems super obvious that girls/women on average are not wanting to spend their teenage years in the basement programming geek stuff, like many boys/men do. In my experience, here in Germany, and you can probably extrapolate to the West in general, it's not lik…

They are encouraged in surface level, performative ways. The actual communities are incredibly off-putting.

edit: speaking industry-wide. of course there are "not all men" type spaces in local communities.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#328

Post by bitexploder » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

biophysboy wrote: post #272

torginus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political? The most political I've seen him get was when he spoke out against the idea of accepting technical compromises for the sake of not hurting people's feelings and being PC. As in, you get to be cranky as long as you're arguing for the highest quality solution

He gets political.. Just as an example, he claimed that it was obvious that COVID was a lab leak in 2021. This is not obvious at all if you read Michael Worobey's rigorous work instead of rely on Blow's arrogant intuitions. I will still play Jonathan Blow's next game, but I think he is a bit of a hack outside of game design.

Most of us are grossly unqualified to provide opinions on any domain save some hyper specialized domain we invest years of effort into. I always think about that when reading comments on the Internet :)

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#329

Post by smileson2 » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

I'm really intersted in giving this game a shot since I'm a big fan of puzzle games

personally I've never really meshed with a number of blows opinions but it is interesting to hear his reasoning and where he's comming from which is what opinions are for

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#330

Post by deadbabe » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

EvilTrout wrote: post #204

piker wrote: post #10

I always find Jonathan Blow and Casey Muratori to be great educators and advocates on the “simplicity” end of the spectrum. Jonathan can be super abrasive and comes with some political baggage, but does a good job advocating against what he perceives as unnecessary complexity in software. Opponents would suggest his domain and cherry-picked examples create the perfect environment for his positions and that he does ta…

Blow and Muratori gained a following of engineers by bashing existing popular languages and engines, claiming they were all garbage. They both started this after the Witness came out, 10 years ago. Since then, guess how many games Muratori has shipped? 0. (He cancelled his announced game.) Guess how many Blow has shipped? 0 so far, but it sounds close now. These engineers spent their time ragging on other developers…

The problem with people like you is you’re all about the money, all about the end product, never about the craft.