Wookash Podcast Tim Bekkers | You Should Push These Buttons
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Sep 20, 2025 Tim Bekkers, an indie game developer and the creative mind behind The Button Effect, shares his fascinating journey from building engineering to game design. He discusses the inspiration he drew from modern art and games like The Witness, leading to his minimalist puzzle concept focused on buttons. Tim explains his rigorous prototyping process, where he explores hundreds of designs to balance challenge and enjoyment. He also provides insights into his solo art workflow using Blender and outlines his marketing strategies for reaching wider audiences.
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Prototype Broadly, Polish Selectively
- Experiment widely with mechanics and iterate heavily to find promising puzzles from many trials.
- Keep the successful ideas and copy them into cleaner, polished levels for coherence.
One Idea Per Puzzle Works Best
- Good puzzles usually center on a single idea and avoid repetition or unnecessary complexity.
- Overly complex puzzles often hide multiple ideas that might be better split into separate puzzles.
Organize Prototypes And Track Ideas
- Name and categorize prototypes by stage (prototype, iteration, sequence) to manage many variants.
- Keep a list of idea names and descriptions so you can place missing mechanics later in the level.