PsychOdyssey and Parenthood

How a 33-Hour Game Dev Doc Became a Crash Course in the Industry for Me and My Son

Hi, I'm David and this is my place to talk about what I love most: making video games with my 13-year-old son Luke. Last year, we released a Roguelike called Brawlberry. Now we're working on an Irish-themed couch-coop 3D Platformer called Druids Crown. This is my place to talk about how this is going and to nerd out on all things games and game dev.

The six-year timeframe of the development of Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2, synthesized down into 33 crisp hours of raw game development footage, is like crack to me. As an aspiring full time game dev, it truly is the best look I’ll ever get into the industry. I devoured it on my first viewing, lost sleep, and definitely let things slide around the house. But watching a group of creatives chase my dream while pursuing theirs felt like a siren’s call. It is a truly unique documentary.

It’s a true marvel. Honestly, it must have hurt the company to offer such an honest glimpse into their development cycle. It shows everything: the highs and lows, firings, money woes, acquisitions, a global pandemic, people joining, people leaving. (Watching one of the lead animators quietly move remotes still brings me to tears, and that’s in one of the early episodes.) All of it is laid bare, edited into a brilliant, digestible package.

Adding to this amazing package is the fact that it has roots in my own gaming history. LucasArts’ point-and-click adventure games form the foundation of my early gaming memories. They were some of the first games I ever experienced, or more accurately, watched my family play over their shoulders. Monkey Island remains one of my favorite games to this day. Honestly, I could write an entire article about its recent return ( and that ending, my god).

The first thing I did after finishing it was drag Luke, my eldest boy, into a Discord call and put on episode one as second-screen viewing while we coded together. One thing I worry about with him is making sure he understands that entering the creative world of game development is not something to take lightly. Double Fine gave me the perfect lesson to share, wrapped in an entertaining experience.

What started as second-screen viewing quickly became something we made time for on the main TV in the house. It’s now a constant reference point for our game dev discussions and has done wonders for tempering his expectations about working in the games industry. Yes, it is a dream job and incredibly rewarding work, but as the documentary shows, it's also difficult, full of crunch, criticism, and uncertainty.

Even in a place like Double Fine, which is clearly a standout workplace in the industry, these issues still rear their ugly heads.

We worked through all 33 hours of content, and he loved it. He hasn’t rewatched it quite as many times as I have, but it was an amazing bonding experience for us. We talked at length about the challenges one developer, James, faced, coming in as a beginner and being thrown to the wolves to design the game’s first level. It was sink or swim, and watching James navigate that experience was something I made sure to highlight for Luke.

All of us adults have been there in our early careers: wandering around, not really knowing what’s expected of us, not having the experience or knowledge yet to meaningfully help our colleagues. Watching the workplace dynamics and politics unfold in the doc was eye-opening, and it's the kind of thing I only really learned in my first “real” job at 18. Leading Luke down the path of the creative, I feel an even greater responsibility to expose him to this reality as early as I can.

I often find myself checking in with him as we go deeper and deeper into game development, “Are you sure about this?” even if not explicitly. Showing him PsychOdyssey was definitely one of those check-ins.

I worry that my “notions,” as my wife calls them, like building a game in my free time or maybe starting a studio someday, might lead a young, impressionable kid to follow an unrealistic and punishing path. I want to prepare him for the worst while still supporting him toward the best.

PsychOdyssey has been the best tool I’ve found for doing that so far.

Its all free on youtube and if you have any interest in the process of making games, there is no better glimpse into this world.