Today is the 10th anniversary of the development of my game LOVE, and I think it’s time to tell the story behind it.
I
was working in academia and as much as I love science, I was getting
tired of not doing something real. When you do research about something
like video games or video game production, you never really know if the
solutions you create would work in the real world. I was considering
doing something completely different, but then i realized that it would
be a waste to not use my skills, and in the end i really love making
games. One late night, after coming home from a conference, I started a
new visual studio project called project love. I worked on it all night.
The name stuck and so did the game.
I was way in over my head,
but I liked it. I decided to do everything myself, engine, networking,
graphics, sound, physics, gameplay and procedural generation. It may be
the most ambitious game project anyone has ever attempted, but none of
that was really a problem. 3 years later I released an alpha.
I
was very excited, but there were some problems. I fixed them, and then
there were more problems. I kept fixing problems, but the game just
didn’t work. No players came, the server costs started to outstrip the
income. The press loved my game, until they played it. It wasn’t without
merit, it just didn’t come together. It turned out that I had vastly
underestimated the design challenges in the creation of the kind of game
I wanted to make. I was essentially trying to invent an entirely new
class of games.
At the same time someone else, with my resources,
in my city, made a very similar game: Minecraft. The difference was
that his was a game people wanted to play. When you work on a big game
there are many people you can blame if things go wrong. I had no one.
The fact that someone else did it proved that it wasn’t an impossible
task. I was just not good enough.
I thought I wanted to make a
commercial game, but at every turn where I had the opportunity to make
it commercial or design it the way I wanted, I chose the latter. Many
people have told me I needed to market the game better or make it easier
to learn, but to me this was always secondary. To me, the game simply
wasn’t good, and until that was fixed, why bother trying to attract
players? I spent almost 4 years trying to fix the game, and while
improvements were made, it never worked.
All of this was really
hard on me, and I got fairly depressed. After 7 years, I finally gave
up. Love was just associated with too much pain. I had wasted 7 years
and so much money. I didn’t want to be a game developer any more. When I
told people what I did, people would inevitably say “Oh, like
Minecraft? I love that game”.
At my lowest point I was at GDCE
and Robin Hunicke (who BTW is awesome) gave a talk about the hugely
successful game Journey that had just come out. She told the story of
the horrible development of that game, about the infighting and the pain
that it caused. I thought to myself: would I rather have had that
experience, having a terrible time making something successful, or do
what I did: have fun making something no one else cared about. That’s
when i realized that I had done the right thing. I followed my dream and
I enjoyed the process, more than the result. Minecraft fucked me up,
but not as much as the guy who made it. I got passed it, and I came out a
better person. He is no longer my nemesis, I feel for him.
The
last few years I kept a note file with ideas of how I would change Love,
but I was scared to go back. I worked on the pivot model to be able to
finally understand how games work. Last year, I decided to take a few
weeks off to fiddle with Love. Just to see if I could apply any of my
ideas and how it would feel, I was kind of surprised by how good it
felt. And I was even more surprised by the changes I made. For very
brief moments, Love started to sing.
I don’t know what it means
yet, and I don’t dare think I have cracked it, but for the first time in
many years I’m excited about it. So yes, I guess this is my
announcement that I’m occasionally working on Love again (for followers
of my Twitch stream it hasn’t really been a secret). I was planning to
make a video showing off what I’m working on, but I don’t feel ready, so
I wont. Maybe I will some day. I don’t have a timeline or a release in
mind. This time I know I’m doing it for me.
My next project is
Unravel, and I can’t even imagine it being successful, but I know that
it will challenge and intrigue me for years to come. In the end I am a
scientist and an artist. I tried to not be but I am. I will always
rather boldly go where no one has gone before, than be one of the
popular kids. I’m not convinced I will ever make something that anyone
will ever will like and use, I will probably never be rich or famous.
But you know what? I’m going to live a really good life.
I haven’t played Love (I have a terrible laptop) but I have thoroughly enjoyed your C programming video and am planning on incorporating your techniques and C into my skill set. It feels overwhelming, but you’ve made C very attractive and accessible in ways that no other programmer has (at least to me).
Hello, I played this game a while back like more than a year ago and I loved this game so much. It is so beautiful and amazing but recently I haven’t been able to join any servers. Sometimes the servers show up on my screen and other times they do not show up at all. When the server does show up on my screen I click on it and my screen stays stuck at the downloading screen. As a person who donated I am wondering if we can get a new news update on this masterpiece? Has anyone else been able to play? I LOVE Love so much, it is seriously one of the most best experiences I have had. I tried E-mailing Eskil and have not got a reply. I really want to enjoy Love again please! If I can join the server I would gladly post streams of me playing it.
Hi Eskil, when you made Love available i had the feeling that finally a game had been published with… love!
Thanks for that, gl with Unravel and remember, put the same love in this latest project that you put in… LOVE
I can’t find any information about this game on 2017. Is the game even playable?
Good luck!
Nice post. I’m actually not a gamer at all (although creating one does appeal to me), but I love following along with your development of the game and your blog in general (you should write more!)
I think it’s great that your working on it again. I’m kind of similar in that I have a large project that I put a lot of my own time into, and I’m not sure if others will ever find it useful. I’ve started to take the longer view on it though, and accept that I’m ok working on it just for myself, and that I’ll work on it for many years to come, regardless of whether others actually find it useful. I just kind of want it to exist, so I will build it. Accepting that takes the pressure off, and I can just enjoy working on it for its own sake.
Love was a really inspiring game to me. I played it when it was free, then I paid, and I had many unforgettable moments within the game. I remember carving out the side of a cliff, creating a geometrically bizarre cave of my own will. People were getting deep into the underlying mechanics of connecting power sources and fighting, but I didn’t want to fight. The game was called LOVE and I loved playing it.
I always felt like Love would be great game in VR =] Cheers great post!
Wonderful post; thank you for being open and sharing with us. I’ve followed Love from very early on; before release, I think. I had read about it on a news site and fell in love with the concept. I played it a bit, but mostly College got in the way. It remains an incredibly unique experience.
I do hope you continue to work on Love. I would love to see more Love. 🙂
You made a thing out of pure ego and your ego kept you in the dark, which is its primary function. The thing was disliked, as it should, and you blamed others which doubled the pain.
Consider yourself lucky and learn the lesson, or you’re in for another round of ego trip.
I got interested in Love when it was already free to play. I tried to find something about it, some community or information, but there was almost nothing. And there were a lot of people like me trying to find something.
I managed to play by myself for some time, but I couldn’t understand a lot of things there.
Now I’m really excited and I look forward to the great comeback of a great project. I think now is a better time for projects like this because it’s much easier to create a community or to support people like you who create something.
Good luck with all your projects!
I followed the development of LOVE for a long time, very nearly from the beginning. The entire process, philosophies and incredible tech behind the game has always inspired me. You inspired me. To better myself and my leet programming skills. It was a hell of a journey and I always popped back to this blog once in awhile to see what else you were up to. It never really occurred to me how difficult a process it was from your point of view because you seemed so damn good at it. So full of great ideas. Its good to know you are proud of all that!
Hi Eskil,
I was playing game right from the beginning and was fascinated of the design and the huge amount of possibilities. I wanted to get my friends into that game but there were quenched of the noise in each rendered object. I liked that a lot because it have its own fancy way of creating a moody atmosphere.
But the most significant problem (i guess) is the complex playing of the game. If you compare to minecraft which damned simple and boring after a while. LOVE is for me a damned good way of creating a own way of playing a game and enjoining it. After six years from last playing LOVE i must say, i still remember many moments I had experienced while playing…
Fuck the money, you did a great job and and could be very proud of yourself. Just because you don’t hit the nerve of the mass of the people would not mean you failed, I thing you created something very special who needs time from the player, which the most of them wont spend for…
Love is/was great. The best memory I have of it was when an update broke the AI building construction and it started turning the entire planet into a death star. So excited for the possibility of an update!
If I had to bet money back in the day when neither Minecraft nor this game was popular, on one of them, I would have put in on this game. Just because it had this unique art style and direction. I even bought the game when it was still a subscription based game, and tried it out with a friend. As you have already mentioned that is the point where people stopped being interested in the game. And I have to say I did not really enjoy the game. Too many weird symbols I could not figure out. so many different things that seemed important, but I had no idea what to do in that game. So fun was not really there. But that didn’t stop me from thinking the game is interesting. It was all so mysterious, that I keept comming back and see in the development if things where changing. I am really interested to give the game another go, but I would like to not have the same depressing experience I had last time when I played the game, I would like to have. Let the players have fun exploring your world, and not too much at a time. I know it is a lot of work, but it was even more work to come to where you are right now, it would be sad if all that would go to waste. By the way you are great. Not everybody is able to write an MMO from scratch. You are in my personal list of People with amazing Skills, that I name in conversations.
Thank you, Eskil!
I love the game and I hope you’ll keep developing it.
May I give you my best wishes of success!
Cheers!
wanted to say THANK YOU for all your work and dedication and love.
i was here from the start, seeing all you ever did.
i was hugely inspired by your style, your way to do things and also the way you continued despite “no commerical success”.
i am very happy to read what you write 10 days ago, i still feel you are hurt inside, but i am happy because i have the feeling you will continue to grow.
thank you very much, from one “more art than playable” game developer to another 😉
Good luck with the next project, can’t wait to see work-in-progress screenshots!
Btw. “Unravel”, any relation to 2016 game “Unravel”? 😜
Great post, and great news! I love LOVE. Thank you. Keep having fun!
You are an inspiration to us who choose to toil in obscurity! Cheers!
“Love was just associated with too much pain”
There are truths, and there are truths! I’ve really enjoyed your posts and look forward to your continued explorations!
you are kewl. Bask in it!
You just seem to be one of the most interesting people I’ve ever followed. I have made a few comments on your blog over the years, and have been so intrigued with love (though I’ve never tried it)… but everything you say in this blog post resonates with me too.
Thank you for your vulnerable post, honesty, and all that shit. You’re cool.
Jason
I’m amazed by your game and tools. I’ve wondered at least a few times how it is possible for one person to do this. It makes sense that it has exacted a toll.
In terms of commercial success, I think it is a matter of trial and error to find the precise reward structure that provides some progressive drug as one gets further into it. That is what Minecraft stumbled on, where Instaminer failed.
I think it would be a shame to clone Minecraft though. Love is not just Minecraft with a different aesthetic. It is (or gives the illusion of being) a fully interdependent world, with its own alien logic to discover. I would love to take a 6 month sabbatical from work so I could play this to exhaustion in one long computer bender…
I just want to say that your blog posts have always been a great source of inspiration to me. And for what it’s worth: I never really saw the attraction of Minecraft, but I was always very intrigued by your ideas in Love.
Thanks for sharing!
I guess I will introduce LOVE to some of my friends.
BTW do you have an Unravel RSS feed?