Jonathan David Blow (born 1971) is an American video game designer and programmer. He is best known for creating the independent video games Braid (2008) and The Witness (2016). Blow became interested in game programming during middle school. He studied computer science and English at the University of California, Berkeley, but left to start a game company. After the company closed during the dot-com crash, Blow worked as a game development contractor. He co-founded the Experimental Gameplay Workshop and wrote a monthly technical article for Game Developer magazine.
Blow became famous in 2008 with Braid. He used the money from the game to fund his next project, The Witness, and started a company called Thekla Inc. After a long development period, The Witness was released in 2016. Like Braid, it received good reviews and made money. During its development, Blow became frustrated with C++, the programming language Thekla used. He began designing a new programming language. Full-time work on the language, called Jai, and a new game using it started after The Witness was released. A tool for the Jai language is currently in a testing phase.
Blow’s games are known for being creative and challenging. They use custom game engines and have larger budgets and longer development times than most independently funded games. Blow was featured in the documentary Indie Game: The Movie and is known for his strong views on the gaming industry. Since the 2020s, Blow has faced criticism over his political opinions.
Early life
Jonathan Blow was born in Southern California in 1971. His father worked for a company that made military equipment, and his mother was a former nun. He has four siblings, including two brothers and two sisters. Blow was raised as a Christian and attended church regularly with his family. He went to middle school in Northern San Diego County. There, he took a computer class for fifth- or sixth-grade students. The class used a VIC-20 home computer, which introduced him to programming and computers. When his parents saw his interest, they bought him a TRS-80 Color Computer. Blow learned to program in BASIC using exercise books from RadioShack. In high school, he created games for a Commodore 64. Some of the games were inspired by Indiana Jones and Pac-Man.
In 1989, Blow studied at UC Berkeley. He studied two subjects at the same time: computer science and English. He originally planned to study physics but changed to computer science because he "felt called in that direction." He was a member and leader of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association and the eXperimental Computing Facility, a student group for computer science enthusiasts. While in college, Blow wrote science fiction stories, which he published using a fake name. He studied at UC Berkeley for five years but left before finishing one semester. He said, "I felt very sad about being at school. I didn’t like it. I didn’t have a good time."
Career
After leaving UC Berkeley, Blow worked at a software company for six months before joining Silicon Graphics as a contractor. At Silicon Graphics, he helped adapt Doom and Doom II to work on a set-top box. In early 1996, Blow co-founded Bolt-Action Software in Oakland, California, with Bernt Habermeier, a person he had met earlier. An artist later joined the company, and together they created Wulfram, a 3D action-strategy game for up to 32 players. Players controlled heavily armed hovertanks in the game.
At its peak, Bolt-Action Software had 14 employees. The company closed in 2000 because of an economic downturn. In a 2020 interview, Blow said he believed 1996 was the hardest time to start a video game company because of the shift from 2D to 3D games. Some parts of the game were difficult to create, but Blow said the experience taught him valuable lessons. He added, "We went broke, and I was burned out for several years after working hard… but that’s how I became a good programmer."
After Bolt-Action Software closed, Blow worked as a contractor for game studios with large budgets. He contributed to games like Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Deus Ex: Invisible War, and Thief: Deadly Shadows. In 2002, Blow co-founded the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at the Game Developers Conference. This event highlights new game ideas and mechanics. Around the same time, he wrote a monthly technical column called The Inner Product for the magazine Game Developer.
During this time, Blow moved to New York City, where he learned about an IBM research project involving servers based on cell processors. Blow proposed an idea for a physics-heavy, online, multiplayer game about giant robots attacking a town. He and Atman Binstock worked on the game. Blow handled the client-side code, graphics, and gameplay, while Binstock created the physics engine for the server. After submitting their report to IBM, the team shared the game with Electronic Arts, who were not interested.
Blow’s other work included programming particle effects for Flow on the Sony PlayStation 3, reviewing code after MTV bought Harmonix, and contributing to the music-action game Phase on the iPod. He said, "I was just moving forward and doing the best I knew how, which was programming."
In December 2004, Blow created a prototype for a 2D puzzle-platform game involving time manipulation. Five months later, he began turning the prototype into a full game. By December 2005, the first version of Braid was completed. Much of the work was done part-time because Blow also did consulting and martial arts training. He felt the early version’s graphics looked unprofessional and hired David Hellman to design the game’s art. For the story, he drew inspiration from books and films like Invisible Cities and Mulholland Drive. The game’s narrative is shown through text, environmental art, and gameplay, and has been interpreted in many ways.
In mid-2007, Blow signed with Microsoft to release Braid on its XBLA platform. He felt time spent on certification could have been better used to improve the game, but noted Microsoft gave him freedom in design. He estimated spending over $180,000 of his own money to develop Braid. Released in August 2008, Braid received widespread praise and made Blow a millionaire. It was one of the first indie games on seventh-generation consoles.
In 2010, Blow co-founded Indie Fund, a group that supports independent game developers. He appeared in the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, discussing his work on Braid. By 2014, Braid had earned over $4 million, which he used to fund The Witness (2016).
The Witness is a first-person puzzle game where players solve challenges by drawing paths. Blow wanted to create a game that used non-verbal communication, teaching rules through gameplay instead of words. He aimed to help players experience small moments of understanding. He estimated solving all puzzles would take over 80 hours.
Work on The Witness began in 2008. Blow tested several ideas before choosing one, even though it was a 3D game, which he initially disliked. He hired full-time developers and founded Thekla, Inc., where he is president. The game was revealed in 2010 with three people working on it. Blow hoped to release it in 2013 as a PlayStation 4 launch title, but delays occurred as the game’s scope grew. By 2015, the team had expanded to eight members. At the time, it was rare for a small studio to spend seven years on a game.
The Witness was released for Windows and PlayStation 4 in January 2016. Blow reported over $5 million in sales during its first week, and it became popular on illegal download sites. The game received critical acclaim and was nominated for awards like BAFTA and Game Developers Choice. It was featured in "Best of the Decade" lists by IGN, Polygon, NME, CNET, and National Post.
Towards the end of The Witness’s development, Blow grew frustrated with C++, the programming language used. He called it overly complex and said it made development harder than necessary. In 2014, he discussed creating a new programming language for game development on his Twitch channel. He considered languages like Go and Rust but decided to design his own. He estimated such a language could reduce development time by 20% and make programming more enjoyable.
In 2014, Blow began designing a new language, codenamed Jai, and created a compiler for it. The first year and a half of work on Jai was part-time because Thekla was focused on The Witness. In mid-2016, he worked full-time on Jai, a game engine written in Jai, and a new game called Order of the Sinking Star. In 2023, Blow described Order of the Sinking Star as "the biggest single-player puzzle game ever made," estimating it would take 250 hours to complete at a normal pace and over 500 hours for completionists.
Blow hopes Jai will make game programming easier and allow developers to create more with less code. By working on Order of the Sinking Star, its engine, and Jai simultaneously, he can test and refine the language early. As of August 2023, the Jai compiler is in a beta release.
In August 2020, Thekla announced Braid, Anniversary Edition, a remastered version of the game. Blow said the remaster will stay true to the original, avoiding changes that alter the game’s core design.
Artistry
As a young person, Blow enjoyed playing text adventure games made by Infocom. His favorite was a game called Trinity, which he said had a big impact on how he thinks about games. In college, he liked playing a game called Netrek. Early in his career, he often played Counter-Strike.
Blow’s games are known for being creative, difficult, and different from what is common in the game industry. A review of Braid in GQ noted that when the game was released, most games were violent and repetitive first-person shooters. However, Braid tried to make an artistic statement that went beyond this trend. The puzzles in Braid are described as very challenging. Time magazine called The Witness "categorically defiant" and said it was widely seen as a game made by a genius for people who are also very smart.
Blow’s games cost more money and take longer to make than most games funded by individuals. They also use custom game engines. Braid had a larger budget than most independent games at the time. The Witness was mostly funded by the profits from Braid and cost nearly six million dollars. The time it took to develop Braid and The Witness was unusual for independent games. Blow created a custom game engine for both games. For The Witness, this process took a lot of time. He explained that when development began, pre-made engines like Unity and Unreal Engine were not powerful enough to make the game. Blow also said he wants his games to last a long time, so having his own engine allows him to keep supporting the game, unlike pre-made engines that do not offer such guarantees. The artist of Braid, David Hellman, said Blow was not worried about time or money and always focused on making the best game possible.
Blow said he tries to make games that he would enjoy playing and find interesting. He wants to understand the world from many different viewpoints and explore truths about the universe through game design. He likes to explore how simple ideas can be changed in many ways. He described his ideal player as someone who is curious and enjoys being treated as a thoughtful person. Blow hopes the skills he gained from making complex games helped him create a programming language called Jai that is better designed than most.
Blow started a company called Thekla because he wanted creative freedom, not because he wanted to run a business. He used most of the money from Braid to fund The Witness independently, which gave him full control over the game and allowed him to avoid changing it to please a publisher. The team that worked on The Witness said Blow gave them a lot of freedom. Blow does not set strict schedules for game development at Thekla. He said, "We don’t do it like Electronic Arts. We don’t pick a time period and release the game. We’re just trying to make the best game."
Public image
Blow has been described by VentureBeat as someone who does excellent work and is known for sharing his thoughts about the gaming industry. He has been called a "prickly genius" and is seen as one of the most thoughtful and insightful developers in the game industry, though his opinions often cause disagreement. Blow explained that he shares his honest opinions about games, including whether he thinks something is good or bad and why. Stephen Totilo of Kotaku noted that Blow's criticism focuses on trends in the industry, not on specific people or games.
Blow believes that certain storytelling elements, such as mood, character, and setting, can work well in games. However, he thinks games, as a whole, are not very good at telling stories compared to books. In 2016, he said the storytelling in games was much lower in quality than in literature. In 2018, he pointed out that many modern games include design choices that weaken their structure, even though similar problems existed a decade earlier. He believes progress in the medium has been slow. Blow does not think microtransactions are always unethical, but he criticizes mobile games that seem to be designed only to include microtransactions or show ads. He also calls social network games harmful, explaining that while games like SimCity and FarmVille look similar, SimCity encourages problem-solving, while FarmVille focuses on keeping players engaged for long periods.
Blow believes games could play a larger cultural role and help people understand the human experience. He aims to create meaningful games but has expressed concern that some games, like certain massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), use fake rewards to keep players hooked, which may harm people.
Although Blow is seen as a leader in independent game development, he does not like being called an indie developer. He feels the independent development scene has changed, and he no longer fits into it. In 2019, he noted that while it is now easier than ever to create and release games, progress in game design has not been as significant as people believe. He mentioned that a game called Stephen's Sausage Roll, which he once called "the best puzzle of all time," was rarely discussed by developers, suggesting the field has not advanced much. These comments led to online attention, which Blow found concerning. He stated, "The job isn't to be in a community; the job is to make a good game."
Blow believes much of today's software is of poor quality. In a 2020 interview, he said, "I think we're now in a situation where everyone is flooded with low-quality software, and everyone wishes they had higher-quality software." He thinks much of what programmers do today is wasteful and described programming in 2021 as dealing with unnecessary complexity. He has criticized modern C++, calling it a poor language, and created a programming language called Jai to improve the experience for programmers.
In December 2025, game developer Alan Hazelden, who used two of his own games in Order of the Sinking Star, criticized Blow for his political views, including support for Donald Trump, negative opinions on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and views on COVID-19 vaccinations. Two other developers from the same project, Sean Barrett and Jonah Ostroff, also shared Hazelden's comments on social media.
Personal life
Blow has been described as very private. He started kung fu training while working on Braid. He practiced for 15 hours each week near the end of the game's development. Through the training, he learned meditation techniques that helped him with game development. He said, "I don't know if I would have finished Braid if I wasn't doing kung fu." During the early development of The Witness, he practiced tai chi. Blow likes to dance a lot. He went out dancing several nights a week while working on The Witness. He found that dancing helped him think of new ideas. In the 1990s, he took a notebook to dance clubs to write down programming ideas that came to him while dancing.
Blow is active on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and the streaming service Twitch. His online activity includes talking about game development and sharing personal political opinions. These opinions include opposing vaccines, supporting the presidency of Donald Trump, and criticizing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. This has led to criticism from other game developers.
Works
The list below includes only games in which Blow played an important part in creating. Games where he is listed under Special Thanks are not included.