I love reading these kinds of posts. Whenever I’m reminded that I’m not alone, I get a little bit more self-compassion and that makes me more excited to release my game and helps me appreciate all the progress and hard work to date.
I’ve been working on King of Kalimpong [0] on and off since playtesting a one-week prototype of it in 2014. I had no idea how much work a networked physics vehicle/movement shooter game would be. (I should have, I was 8 years into a programming career).
Working part-time was critical (for many reasons), but so was learning that progress is a product of discipline, not motivation, and that I needed to learn “infinite endurance” (I think that’s what Chris Hecker called it).
Once I adopted the perspective that I was some finite number of 3-4 hour blocks of concentration away from turning a goofy idea into a game that anyone could play, finishing became something that felt inevitable — as long as I kept going.
I’ll take the time to write about my experience after I release (which is now months instead of years away) in case any other game developers get anything out of it. Until then, thanks for another reminder that I’m not alone!
I have a game with +10 million installs on the both app stores, the truth of it is making the game is about 25% of the work - the rest is dealing with marketing, screenshots, videos, user reviews, Ad/IAP SDKs, waiting for Unity to switch between platforms, dealing with Unity bugs/upgrades, etc..
When you're making the games it's a joy - the rest of the stuff can be a real grind.
With that kind of insight into each market segment, what monetization model are you seeing working the best on each platform?
I've had an idea for a small mobile game in mind now for a while, but I find the idea of potentially having to place ads in it to make back some of the investement not appealing. So I delay starting the project.
The dream would be to be able to offer it for a low price (1.5$ - 3$) and reach enough of an audience.
I started making games right after I joined my university. Those were simple flash-like games with simple gameplay and basic UI/UX. Fast forward 10 years; I started a game studio and we’re a team of 50+ but still making really simple games for mobile. Not that we didn’t try making “huge” games but constantly creating new games and publishing them and seeing them succeed is what it takes to keep making games. As an indie developer, you’ll probably make a dozen or more games before people actually play one of your games. It’s a long battle but making many simple games is more important than trying to make a blockbuster in the first try.
You're optimizing for revenue/chance of success, not for the creation itself, which most world-class indie games are optimizing for (e.g. stardew valley, dwarf fortress, celeste, hollow knight, etc).
Also, building a million simple mobile games will not magically compound into making you a great complex/deep game builder.
Not trying to say your strategy is wrong, I just don't agree with your strategy if someone's goal is to build the game they have in mind, exactly like they have it in their mind (assuming it's more than a simple mobile game). It will help in terms of general "steps" to have built a couple simple games before sure, but that's about it.
I have played a lot of flash games, but mobile games become boring very fast to me. I think this has to do with the input limitation of the device : touch with one thumb on half the screen. Maybe this force mobile games into limited gameplay choices.
Interesting story. Could you comment on the economics of running such a studio, which seems to be relying on casual gaming. A bit of insight into the market as well.
"Destroy hordes of ever-improving enemies and their Mothership. Alcyon Infinity is a fast shooter/bullet hell with dynamic movement and risk management. Up to 4 Co-Op players with Controllers."
I'm doing a stealth release, primarily for my own sanity.
There is something different about having it out for the World to seen rather than working on it for 3 years and giving up in the meantime (happened twice).
The magnitude of the marketing work ahead is kinda daunting, but at least I have some kind of anchoring to realspace for prospective players.
A game you can play and refund is more tangible than a forum with promises...
This is timely. Since I’m on sabbatical, I decided to spend 6 months cramming Unreal Engine 5 and Blender to see if I could cobble together enough expertise and the bones of a project to work on together with my now five-year old son over the coming years. I always loved gaming growing up and I figured it would be a great way to get him interested in, and learning, a broad range of skills that might help him along the way in future.
To be honest, it’s been more of a commitment than I expected, but I don’t regret the time spent at all and I think it’s something my son will come to treasure. Sketching imaginary animals into a text book and seeing them come to life in-game a few days later is a magical experience for a kid.
I’d just repeat what a few others have said herein: for hobbyists, keep your expectations for what’s achievable nice and low, make sure you enjoy the journey, and perhaps think about it as something you put an hour into every day, rather than one-focusing on hitting concrete milestones, many of which may remain out of reach for months. Oh, and checklists: write loads of them and keep them handy!
I’m working on a 2D game conceived by my 9-year-old who had played enough games that he was inspired to make one. He was thrilled as soon as the first animated graphics came onscreen. More valuable than my programming skills have been my project management skills: keeping the scope achievable and focusing on realistic milestones is a little harder when working with a 4th grader. It’s been a great learning and bonding experience for us both. Best of luck to you!
Have any of you made a game, not just by yourself but only for yourself?
I haven't (other than some basic terminal-based games when learning new languages, etc), but I've thought of a few that I know I would like but don't want to put in the time/effort to make them something that someone else would like.
I also wonder about what to do when you have an idea that you know is way bigger than yourself, but you're not in the business of producing things that are way bigger than yourself? I've had a few of those, too.
Payed for the graphical assets 10 years ago, made a soundtrack and most of a game, then got a reality check and moved out to contract work for a year on a polished turd game under a crazy Youtuber (Fuzecat).
Came back, worked on a second version and composed a soundtrack again. A month before we would have had a nice version to show to publishers got ghosted by the artist, got a reality check and went to contract work for a medium studio in Paris, worked on 2 pretty good games (WRC8, TT:2) that were good only through the sweat and tears of people on the ground. Returned home afterwards, half the people I knew there changed job.
Came back right for Covid years, worked freelance debugging and adding features (Neurodeck), then started again on my project...
Why?
Because sometimes there are things you have to do I guess :p
I took only what worked from previous iterations, and cut as much things as I could.
The end product isn't what I started with anymore, but at least I got to the point that I could make it "Real", it has an options menu, and you can remap all inputs and there's and "End" and so forth.
I made at least 5 different prototypes within those 3 iterations of the same 2D Space Pew-Pew game:
- open world scriptable missions and universe
- fully scriptable universe for a Star Wars mod
- Survival action
- Pokemon Style
- Roguelike
- Bullet Hell (current one)
Only one has everything that makes it a full contained and shareable experience that I can play if I want 10 years from now :p
When I started learning programming 25+ years ago, I started a tetris clone. I was learning Pascal (Borland's TP 7 anyone?) as well as creating the game. Took me 2 months and was a smash hit among my colleagues at Uni. Next I did 5-in-row (Tic-Tac-Toe's more interesting big brother), which was another smash hit among the same colleagues. They were preferring playing those games instead of listening to the undergrad when we were in laboratories. Still have the source codes for both games somewhere. Good times.
I made www.chesscraft.ca for myself, mostly to survive my brutal commute to work pre pandemic. Today I still prioritize features I'll enjoy most, even tho I have 250k installs now.
The game will also never have ads, even tho lots of people tell me I'm missing out. Then again, those people haven't or can't build fun games.
Can't speak for Unity but you can make a pretty complete Unreal game solo in around a month or so if you've done it before.
I'd love to release some of my work (for free ofc) but I'm never truly happy with how limited my 3D art skills are so I always shelf it after finishing all the fun programming bits.
Me, actually- I've played in the past flash game Taberinos- before I've found out what its title was I've made a similar game for myself - and that's how BOINK! has been made: https://lukaszkups.itch.io/boink
I think video game success is probably distributed like startups. Maybe 1 in 10 will have real success, a few might break even or make a little and most will end up never making enough to cover the costs to create. The work is massive and the pay off is not guaranteed. Creating a video game by yourself is not for the money, it's because you're driven to create the idea you see in your mind.
Perseverance and conditioning yourself to be comfortable with (or even excited/inspired by) long periods of unfinished-ness are core competencies in practically every demanding project I've embarked upon - not just software, literally anything that can't be started and finished over a weekend.
A WIP is often largely indistinguishable from a complete and utter broken disaster. When the project necessarily takes a long time, that work-in-progress state can start convincing you (and your peers/family/friends/onlookers) that it's not a work-in-progress but a total failure. The only difference between those two realities is abandoning it vs. finishing it.
Some (most?) people lack the grit to get through that trough of "unfinished-or-failed?" ambiguity.
That's a lot of text trying to describe what I've found is the real substance behind "real developers ship".
And somewhere in all this, you still have to have maintain enough perspective to know when to cut your losses.
As a developer, and builder of things in general, I have hella respect for anyone who does such projects.
I've been working on my site: https://golfcourse.wiki for some time, and this is exactly how I feel all the time. Thank you for the encouragement.
I know this is a good idea. I know it will help people. I know I can either monetize it long term or even have it function as a non-profit. I also know it will take many years to slowly build to the functionality and content quality that I'm aiming for. Holding onto that long term view is extremely challenging.
Most days are just watching nothing happen, or slowly, slowly adding a single course (aggregated sites litter the golf internet, I want the opposite). One day I'll post on the golf subreddit and have 1000 users, get positive feedback, and the next two weeks just 5 users per day from google. And the kicker is, I'm genuinely embarrassed by some of the sub-optimal code and real lack of functionality I haven't addressed, even though I'm honestly very regularly working on it.
The best advice i got from a friend: only look at one-month or two-month increments as far as users. Day-to-day can get depressing, but on a bi-monthly basis, I've had slow-and-steady growth. At the same time, while I'm only up to 700 commits so far (vs 2000 in the article), I do have serious anxiety that I'm wasting years of my free time building something that won't amount to anything but a couple hundred upvotes on reddit, so I look at it as my unique hobby. I like mapping courses and making course books. It's my site and my hobby, and I'm fine if it's just me doing the work alone for the rest of my life. I believe that much in the project.
I've been making video games for a long time and while it's true they can feel unfinished for a long time, they shouldn't ever feel completely broken/disasterous/failed. One of the key things when making a video game is to make sure that it is fun and playable as early as possible into development, and when someone is grinding away working on something that isn't fun that's a pretty huge red flag to me.
The most difficult part about software engineering and IRL engineering is the feeling of “everything’s broken always” and just constantly needing to fix or tweak things. I understand that’s the job description basically but nice to hear it articulated by someone else
Real developers ship = real writers write = real painters paint, etc.
If you want to create things — anything, you put your ass in that chair every day regardless of whether you feel you are accomplishing anything. Eventually, you will start to make progress towards your goal. It gets better as you become better at staying the course.
Highly recommend The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which is a short, but important read on this very topic.
And, if you need some encouragement or diversion about the joy and reward of learning and how it get help you achieve "flow" and happiness from your work, please read:
Some Advice On Happiness From A Few Good Movies
https://moviewise.substack.com/p/going-through-an-existentia...
I very much admire the dedication to stick with coding and designing SV, but I also understand at some level how it works. But creating the art and music may as well be wizardry. Eric being able to do that also is awe-inspiring.
This is a great post, thank you for writing it. I got into programming 20 years ago because I wanted to make games, and I spent my teenage years in the 2000s building web games. As a high school project I spent a year building a turn-based strategy web game (https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1460221157634830337).
I have recently gotten back into it to explore things I never got a chance to do before like building an AI and fog-of-war. Currently the game is inspired by Advance Wars, and you can see me play against my AI here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGeEeti22bM
I’m tweeting about the technical details and progress on Twitter:
Advance Wars is an absolute dream to clone. I had that itch too, and made a full clone with story mode in PICO-8 a couple years ago.
The challenge there was that PICO-8 has infuriating arbitrary restrictions on code size to limit the developers for fun lol. To get around that, I have code that swaps serialized memory between virtual "cartridges" in order to fit everything in.
Sadly that limits the game from distribution on the official PICO-8 network "Splore", because those games must be single-cartridge only, so I have a stripped down version without a campaign that is uploaded there.
The AI was by far the funnest to implement. Getting enemy ranged units to retreat correctly when they were in range of attack was such an awesome feeling. It really led me down a rabbit hole of making games primarily so that I could code fun AI
I've shipped quite a few by now and I'd preface by saying this person uses Unity as well.
There are many game devs that choose to roll their own... The code stats look quite different.
Also contractors... Some literally do everything by themselves.
If you're doing your own game out there, hang in there and strap on for n^2 the expected timeline!
I love making games because to me it's one of the hardest part of computer science... Not only you have to make something with immediate rendering, that runs at 60fps or higher and that is fun, full of contents AND unique in some way!
I started making total conversion mods for Half-Life 2 when I was a young teenager – I made the levels, models, wrote the gameplay code and so on. I never really recommend game development to anybody, because it can be quite an exhausting hobby (not to mention career), with a high cost and low reward ratio (note: in my experience!), but it sure taught me a lot about realistic project planning, budgeting the cost of features and so on.
The irony of video games is that they’re often associated (at least in America) with childishness. And yet, by any conceivable standard, they’re by far the most complex creative endeavor.
Creating a video game requires knowledge of the following: programming, graphics, 3D or 2D art tools, artistic ability, UI and UX design, game design, music production, cinematography, storytelling, copywriting, etc etc. It’s just astoundingly complex.
That's a broader theme. Watching TV is considered more childish than reading a book, even though TV content requires a lot more kinds of creative work in order to exist. The reason is that usually when the medium is richer, it demands less of its audience. Instead of imagining a scene, you're given its picture ready-made. Instead of actively following the lines of a story, you passively assimilate what appears before your eyes. It's less effort, and it's less active. It's common for people to watch TV in order to "turn off their brains" when exhausted. "Turning one's brain off" when reading a book is usually an accident, not an intentional thing, and happens a lot less.
Games demand more from their audience than TV, but you're still given a lot to consume passively, compared to a book: instead of imagining scenes, you're again given them as pictures. Games do compensate though with demanding that you make choices as you play a game, which may impact a story. Well... that's as long as the game is not an FPS, or a racing game, where choices don't matter for a story, as the story is either non-existent, or barely important; and what matters a lot more is your dexterity and reflex.
I agree. For a long time I felt games weren't art in the same vein as e.g. painting. More recently I've come to feel that's not true. As you say, making compelling games requires compelling art across multiple mediums. Add on top of that interactivity and agency! That's part of what's so satisfying about making them. It's an incredible challenge and measure of your ability.
This :) Got into dev maybe 20 years ago or so, because I wanted to build a game, but no one I knew could code. Eventually got annoyed enough and decided if no one (I knew) can code, then I should learn it instead! so I did. Now working as a senior dev (building mostly web stuff), but still not having built a game, I tried a few times (trying again at the min with Godot!) I now appreciate the people working on rendering, storytelling, animation, model creation and so much more, I am with you on the complexity, I think you have to try it to understand.
I think part of that is because we are expected to put up with frustrating software at work because we are getting paid for it so if the work is more work than it needs to be, well just shut up and do your job.
Games are supposed to be fun. The money goes the other way, so the annoyances are taken a bit more seriously. The creator has to take that frustration on themselves instead of externalizing it, which is more work for them.
Add to that the delight aspect, and games try crazy stuff that would never fly with business software. 'Safe' doesn't get you many accolades so you're essentially obliged to try at least a few things. And the shelf life is lower so even if you fuck up you usually only have to hear about it for three years and then you can try something new. Once in a while, every five years or so, one of those UI gambles ends up being adopted by the industry, so while not the most effective petri dish for general UX research, it still gets some results.
This is only sort of true. I’ve been making games for over thirty years and nearly hit twenty years of doing it professionally. The truth is you only need to be passable at some of those things. Even if you want to make a game by yourself. Whilst I don’t think everyone has a commercially successful game in them I also am pretty sure that’s way more to do with circumstance and project management ability than any sort of raw talent. On top of which no game is truly the work of one person even if the help is uncredited.
TLDR; games like movies are a sum of parts that is a lot less creative and original than might appear at first blush.
This is so true, except for that one glorious, fleeting period when iOS apps were new and you could be an overnight millionaire with something like Flappy Bird.
"programming, graphics, 3D or 2D art tools, artistic ability, UI and UX design, game design, music production, cinematography, storytelling, copywriting, etc etc."
Congratz on releasing! It's so so hard to actually reach that point.
I've made a number of games by myself as well as with small teams. It requires incredible focus, scope management, and tons of time. It's like boiling the ocean. For me, it's all worth it to create something original from start to finish.
I'm also a solo game dev with a recently released game.
All this is really spot on with my experience. It just not clear if the author hired an artist or he just recommends it...its quite common for Game dev's to claim they made a game by themselves but actually contracted out the music, art, animation, etc.
Somewhat of a bug bearer with me as there are some genuine solo dev's creating great work that get overshadowed with the whole solo dev marking spin.
It's certainly a huge endeavor. I probably have a pile of projects that I started and abandoned at some point for various reasons. The saddest of all was the first one that started to get traction... a story based game developed iteratively chapter by chapter where the writer got a hard case of imposter syndrome and just quit (it was just the two of us). Success is also hard to manage for some people.
Right now my newest moonshot is joining a friend who's just started trying to make an educational game for developers, that teaches you in a fun cyberpunkish style how to develop an NES from scratch, step by step. It's an absolutely bonkers idea but it's something we'd have loved to have and that we're having a blast making, just for ourselves. I doubt it's ever going to be successful if we make it to the finish line and ship it, but luckily it's just for fun. I'm thankful of posts like these, it helps getting motivated to make it through.
Hah, related question I had yesterday, is it procrastination, if you play your own game, instead of focusing on finally releasing it?
(my conclusion was, a bit, playing it is helpful to think about balancing and final polishing, but only playing it and not improving it probably does not help much. In either case, it is probably a good sign, to have fun with your own game ..)
After playing brogue for a couple of years, I'm really intrigued by rogue like development. I haven't started yet, but something seems more approachable about having a bunch of ascii characters as the gui.
I haven't made a game yet (not even a prototype) though I have been tempting for years. I can't point the issue, whether my coding skills aren't up to the task or because I can't make assets for my game, or because I can't hire a staff and my game ideas scope needs a team to realize them.
The problem is I don't know what is the right next step to take in front of all the issues aforementioned, and I have been thinking that for years without taking any step ahead or risking
Here, consider watching MIT's edx course on game design [0]. I found it a good overview of many aspects and a reminder that board games (paper prototypes) can play a role in designing a game. I'm assuming you've already watched Extra Credits videos [1] about beginning.
Make a very small scope game first. Start with Pong or Breakout or the like, with your own slight twist (can be as simple as adding some unique colors). Keep it so simple that you can easily accomplish it.
Then make a slightly larger scale game, like an infinite runner 2d platformer. Keep the scope small, but try to finish every aspect of it (menu, sound, etc). Once you have a finished version you can decide whether you want to add to it or start another project of slightly larger scope.
Don't jump into it trying to make your dream game. Start with making the game that you can realistically make, and then gradually expand as needed. Once you've fully finished a game you'll have a much better understanding what you can do, what you'll need to learn to do your next project, how much work it was for that scope of project, etc.
Make a game where everything is a solid colored rectangle. Then go back and see what it would take to turn one of those rectangles into a simple animated character. This type of gradual progressing will let you focus on things one at a time, decide your own limits (will I make my own walking animation? or will I use a premade asset? How long will one walk animation take?)
Practice with game jams. 24h to cram _something_ out, 72 hour to get a nice little demo of some mechanic or story.
The theme and restrictions take away a lot of the choice and apprehension. And you're laser focused on the end goal and _will_ release something since you have an end date.
Since you seem to really want to do it, I highly recommend that you set aside a fixed amount of time every day and just sit down and start something - anything. You’d be surprised how far that can take you. Don’t go over the hour, though. You’re looking for consistency, not intensity.
I'd say, make a small thing that works. Then another, and another. They might start as independent little projects, but eventually can grow up into parts of a larger whole.
This is really a sequence of seven games of totally different genres, which is definitely going to increase the difficulty and time commitment! It looks like an interesting game, though.
Great advice, wish I knew that earlier in my life. I mean the start small and finish experience. I have so many ambitious abandoned projects, I even lost track xD
its interesting to see how this differs from my own experience, from a time without game engines, 3d graphics libraries, the internet or even books for reference.
the point about actually finishing things is a great takeaway. the first game i finished /myself/ took a week, then got another week of post-launch attention... but that was after some 10 years of personal work to develop the skills, then another 5 years or so in the industry gaining experience.
i probably could have done this earlier, but i was constantly setting my sights higher than what was realistic.... but actually the lessons from doing that were pretty invaluable. today, i'm more than capable of filling any role in any of the specialised areas of programming required for games to an expert level... and a lot of that knowledge came from trying to build AAA quality features in isolation with little support - finishing features or engines rather than whole games.... so as much as i agree with the conclusion, i'm not sure it would have helped me to learn it sooner :)
Starting game dev is way easier than finishing it. Requires years of commitment with a super uncertain outcome. If you're someone who cannot take financial risks, you absolutely shouldn't be in game development unless you know what you're doing and unless you're fine with failure and an empty bank account at the end of it.
Anyone can get into game development with low risk. Why start with the gargantuan task of a whole game? e.g. you could be making flightsim addons. Paint a few liveries or code a simple plugin and people will find value in it pay for it.
Whenever I get to know a developer that dabbles with game development, most of the time I can be confident that they know their stuff.
It's such a demanding field that if you're passionate about it, you're bound to learn a lot of things. I don't do game dev anymore but the time I did taught me a lot about what I know now.
I dream of creating “the thinking player’s Stronghold” with more complex defences and economy, but articles like this confirm that it will only ever be a dream. Hell, perhaps DF is already 80% of what I want.
Consider modding! Using an existing engine that is malleable (or even has the assets you want) can be a great way to prototype or even achieve it without doing the really gritty stuff first.
Counter-intuitively, the more games you make at once, the less effort each one takes. Because you can share resources between them. Of course, they have to have something in common to capitalize on this.
I'm aiming to make about 20 games at once, at the moment.
Not much, I was able to make 9 levels of a very graphic intensive game in unreal over six months. Is it really that much work to take it from that to something that runs on all the platforms? I’m genuinely asking.
I often found people could get a concept up and running (nine levels is impressive) but that there were boring things still to do like high scores, saved games, control configuration UI, settings, etc. that were a sort of hurdle that many people weren't willing to invest in.
Then again, getting something just up to the point that it is playable, a proof of concept, is when you can really see if a game is fun or not. I have floppy disks full of games that never made it past that point because there was just ... something missing.
piinecone|3 years ago
I’ve been working on King of Kalimpong [0] on and off since playtesting a one-week prototype of it in 2014. I had no idea how much work a networked physics vehicle/movement shooter game would be. (I should have, I was 8 years into a programming career).
Working part-time was critical (for many reasons), but so was learning that progress is a product of discipline, not motivation, and that I needed to learn “infinite endurance” (I think that’s what Chris Hecker called it).
Once I adopted the perspective that I was some finite number of 3-4 hour blocks of concentration away from turning a goofy idea into a game that anyone could play, finishing became something that felt inevitable — as long as I kept going.
I’ll take the time to write about my experience after I release (which is now months instead of years away) in case any other game developers get anything out of it. Until then, thanks for another reminder that I’m not alone!
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1989110/King_of_Kalimpong...
hombre_fatal|3 years ago
Tarsul|3 years ago
intelVISA|3 years ago
bullen|3 years ago
vicarrion|3 years ago
prox|3 years ago
warrenmiller|3 years ago
MrDresden|3 years ago
I've had an idea for a small mobile game in mind now for a while, but I find the idea of potentially having to place ads in it to make back some of the investement not appealing. So I delay starting the project.
The dream would be to be able to offer it for a low price (1.5$ - 3$) and reach enough of an audience.
njsubedi|3 years ago
gnrlst|3 years ago
Also, building a million simple mobile games will not magically compound into making you a great complex/deep game builder.
Not trying to say your strategy is wrong, I just don't agree with your strategy if someone's goal is to build the game they have in mind, exactly like they have it in their mind (assuming it's more than a simple mobile game). It will help in terms of general "steps" to have built a couple simple games before sure, but that's about it.
Heyso|3 years ago
I have played a lot of flash games, but mobile games become boring very fast to me. I think this has to do with the input limitation of the device : touch with one thumb on half the screen. Maybe this force mobile games into limited gameplay choices.
kumarvvr|3 years ago
Really curious.
redanddead|3 years ago
iLoveOncall|3 years ago
[deleted]
Nemrod67|3 years ago
And it's way less fun (for most game dev people) to code the "perfect" version of an input remapping system or leaderboard system :p
Obligatory self-promotion:
I just released my Space Pew-Pew game on Steam in Early Access, complete with original 16bit-neoclassical OST!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/914930/Alcyon_Infinity/
"Destroy hordes of ever-improving enemies and their Mothership. Alcyon Infinity is a fast shooter/bullet hell with dynamic movement and risk management. Up to 4 Co-Op players with Controllers."
I'm doing a stealth release, primarily for my own sanity. There is something different about having it out for the World to seen rather than working on it for 3 years and giving up in the meantime (happened twice).
The magnitude of the marketing work ahead is kinda daunting, but at least I have some kind of anchoring to realspace for prospective players.
A game you can play and refund is more tangible than a forum with promises...
vicarrion|3 years ago
darkteflon|3 years ago
To be honest, it’s been more of a commitment than I expected, but I don’t regret the time spent at all and I think it’s something my son will come to treasure. Sketching imaginary animals into a text book and seeing them come to life in-game a few days later is a magical experience for a kid.
I’d just repeat what a few others have said herein: for hobbyists, keep your expectations for what’s achievable nice and low, make sure you enjoy the journey, and perhaps think about it as something you put an hour into every day, rather than one-focusing on hitting concrete milestones, many of which may remain out of reach for months. Oh, and checklists: write loads of them and keep them handy!
notduncansmith|3 years ago
checkyoursudo|3 years ago
I haven't (other than some basic terminal-based games when learning new languages, etc), but I've thought of a few that I know I would like but don't want to put in the time/effort to make them something that someone else would like.
I also wonder about what to do when you have an idea that you know is way bigger than yourself, but you're not in the business of producing things that are way bigger than yourself? I've had a few of those, too.
Nemrod67|3 years ago
I just released the third version on Steam EA, doing a stealth release for my own sanity. (https://store.steampowered.com/app/914930/Alcyon_Infinity/)
Payed for the graphical assets 10 years ago, made a soundtrack and most of a game, then got a reality check and moved out to contract work for a year on a polished turd game under a crazy Youtuber (Fuzecat).
Came back, worked on a second version and composed a soundtrack again. A month before we would have had a nice version to show to publishers got ghosted by the artist, got a reality check and went to contract work for a medium studio in Paris, worked on 2 pretty good games (WRC8, TT:2) that were good only through the sweat and tears of people on the ground. Returned home afterwards, half the people I knew there changed job.
Came back right for Covid years, worked freelance debugging and adding features (Neurodeck), then started again on my project...
Why?
Because sometimes there are things you have to do I guess :p I took only what worked from previous iterations, and cut as much things as I could.
The end product isn't what I started with anymore, but at least I got to the point that I could make it "Real", it has an options menu, and you can remap all inputs and there's and "End" and so forth.
I made at least 5 different prototypes within those 3 iterations of the same 2D Space Pew-Pew game: - open world scriptable missions and universe - fully scriptable universe for a Star Wars mod - Survival action - Pokemon Style - Roguelike - Bullet Hell (current one)
Only one has everything that makes it a full contained and shareable experience that I can play if I want 10 years from now :p
unnouinceput|3 years ago
zulban|3 years ago
The game will also never have ads, even tho lots of people tell me I'm missing out. Then again, those people haven't or can't build fun games.
intelVISA|3 years ago
I'd love to release some of my work (for free ofc) but I'm never truly happy with how limited my 3D art skills are so I always shelf it after finishing all the fun programming bits.
lukaszkups|3 years ago
mmcconnell1618|3 years ago
mritchie712|3 years ago
pengaru|3 years ago
A WIP is often largely indistinguishable from a complete and utter broken disaster. When the project necessarily takes a long time, that work-in-progress state can start convincing you (and your peers/family/friends/onlookers) that it's not a work-in-progress but a total failure. The only difference between those two realities is abandoning it vs. finishing it.
Some (most?) people lack the grit to get through that trough of "unfinished-or-failed?" ambiguity.
That's a lot of text trying to describe what I've found is the real substance behind "real developers ship".
And somewhere in all this, you still have to have maintain enough perspective to know when to cut your losses.
As a developer, and builder of things in general, I have hella respect for anyone who does such projects.
scoofy|3 years ago
I know this is a good idea. I know it will help people. I know I can either monetize it long term or even have it function as a non-profit. I also know it will take many years to slowly build to the functionality and content quality that I'm aiming for. Holding onto that long term view is extremely challenging.
Most days are just watching nothing happen, or slowly, slowly adding a single course (aggregated sites litter the golf internet, I want the opposite). One day I'll post on the golf subreddit and have 1000 users, get positive feedback, and the next two weeks just 5 users per day from google. And the kicker is, I'm genuinely embarrassed by some of the sub-optimal code and real lack of functionality I haven't addressed, even though I'm honestly very regularly working on it.
The best advice i got from a friend: only look at one-month or two-month increments as far as users. Day-to-day can get depressing, but on a bi-monthly basis, I've had slow-and-steady growth. At the same time, while I'm only up to 700 commits so far (vs 2000 in the article), I do have serious anxiety that I'm wasting years of my free time building something that won't amount to anything but a couple hundred upvotes on reddit, so I look at it as my unique hobby. I like mapping courses and making course books. It's my site and my hobby, and I'm fine if it's just me doing the work alone for the rest of my life. I believe that much in the project.
TylerGlaiel|3 years ago
dieselgate|3 years ago
djitz|3 years ago
If you want to create things — anything, you put your ass in that chair every day regardless of whether you feel you are accomplishing anything. Eventually, you will start to make progress towards your goal. It gets better as you become better at staying the course.
Highly recommend The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which is a short, but important read on this very topic.
fitnessrunner|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
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ssss11|3 years ago
moviewise|3 years ago
If you need a break, seeing this documentary about it will be worth your time: Indie Game: The Movie (2012) https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/indie-game-the-mo...
And, if you need some encouragement or diversion about the joy and reward of learning and how it get help you achieve "flow" and happiness from your work, please read: Some Advice On Happiness From A Few Good Movies https://moviewise.substack.com/p/going-through-an-existentia...
wedesoft|3 years ago
mr337|3 years ago
1 - https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3137017/how-do-you-...
rhincodon|3 years ago
acheron|3 years ago
umvi|3 years ago
cpojer|3 years ago
I have recently gotten back into it to explore things I never got a chance to do before like building an AI and fog-of-war. Currently the game is inspired by Advance Wars, and you can see me play against my AI here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGeEeti22bM
I’m tweeting about the technical details and progress on Twitter:
* Basic explanation and code examples: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1460221157634830337
* Map Editor: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1488510688389566464
* Fog of War: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1547967785015189504
* Testing Infrastructure: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1538299796334686208
* Random Map Generator: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1537444893580136454
I’m currently working on the game design to make it “inspired by Advance Wars” instead of just a clone.
Lambdanaut|3 years ago
The challenge there was that PICO-8 has infuriating arbitrary restrictions on code size to limit the developers for fun lol. To get around that, I have code that swaps serialized memory between virtual "cartridges" in order to fit everything in.
Sadly that limits the game from distribution on the official PICO-8 network "Splore", because those games must be single-cartridge only, so I have a stripped down version without a campaign that is uploaded there.
The AI was by far the funnest to implement. Getting enemy ranged units to retreat correctly when they were in range of attack was such an awesome feeling. It really led me down a rabbit hole of making games primarily so that I could code fun AI
You can play in your browser here: https://lambdanaut.itch.io/picowars
tacker2000|3 years ago
keyle|3 years ago
There are many game devs that choose to roll their own... The code stats look quite different.
Also contractors... Some literally do everything by themselves.
If you're doing your own game out there, hang in there and strap on for n^2 the expected timeline!
I love making games because to me it's one of the hardest part of computer science... Not only you have to make something with immediate rendering, that runs at 60fps or higher and that is fun, full of contents AND unique in some way!
Then you haven't even started marketing...
racktash|3 years ago
danielvaughn|3 years ago
Creating a video game requires knowledge of the following: programming, graphics, 3D or 2D art tools, artistic ability, UI and UX design, game design, music production, cinematography, storytelling, copywriting, etc etc. It’s just astoundingly complex.
yakubin|3 years ago
Games demand more from their audience than TV, but you're still given a lot to consume passively, compared to a book: instead of imagining scenes, you're again given them as pictures. Games do compensate though with demanding that you make choices as you play a game, which may impact a story. Well... that's as long as the game is not an FPS, or a racing game, where choices don't matter for a story, as the story is either non-existent, or barely important; and what matters a lot more is your dexterity and reflex.
aschearer|3 years ago
Trigg3r|3 years ago
hinkley|3 years ago
Games are supposed to be fun. The money goes the other way, so the annoyances are taken a bit more seriously. The creator has to take that frustration on themselves instead of externalizing it, which is more work for them.
Add to that the delight aspect, and games try crazy stuff that would never fly with business software. 'Safe' doesn't get you many accolades so you're essentially obliged to try at least a few things. And the shelf life is lower so even if you fuck up you usually only have to hear about it for three years and then you can try something new. Once in a while, every five years or so, one of those UI gambles ends up being adopted by the industry, so while not the most effective petri dish for general UX research, it still gets some results.
paulryanrogers|3 years ago
Things do appear to be changing, yet with older generations there's still a lot of judgement.
meheleventyone|3 years ago
TLDR; games like movies are a sum of parts that is a lot less creative and original than might appear at first blush.
qzw|3 years ago
ransom1538|3 years ago
Also! Physics, vector math, AI, cameras, shaders, networking, etc
Heyso|3 years ago
On a small project you also usually have to do the game design, it is art too.
And art is harder than technique in my opinion.
I got a lot of respect for artists.
fuzzythinker|3 years ago
amelius|3 years ago
That's because most games are about shooting other people. This is something only children (and perhaps some dictators) love to think about.
aschearer|3 years ago
I've made a number of games by myself as well as with small teams. It requires incredible focus, scope management, and tons of time. It's like boiling the ocean. For me, it's all worth it to create something original from start to finish.
DaveSapien|3 years ago
All this is really spot on with my experience. It just not clear if the author hired an artist or he just recommends it...its quite common for Game dev's to claim they made a game by themselves but actually contracted out the music, art, animation, etc.
Somewhat of a bug bearer with me as there are some genuine solo dev's creating great work that get overshadowed with the whole solo dev marking spin.
Nemrod67|3 years ago
Just released my own game in EA, I'd say our saint patron Gabe Newell kinda failed us with the way discoverability works in Steam.
There is clutter problem that hides a lot of gems, and they have full coffers to solve it...
But eh... maybe it wasn't all about expanding the Human consciousness and Art and all :p
phreack|3 years ago
Right now my newest moonshot is joining a friend who's just started trying to make an educational game for developers, that teaches you in a fun cyberpunkish style how to develop an NES from scratch, step by step. It's an absolutely bonkers idea but it's something we'd have loved to have and that we're having a blast making, just for ourselves. I doubt it's ever going to be successful if we make it to the finish line and ship it, but luckily it's just for fun. I'm thankful of posts like these, it helps getting motivated to make it through.
hutzlibu|3 years ago
(my conclusion was, a bit, playing it is helpful to think about balancing and final polishing, but only playing it and not improving it probably does not help much. In either case, it is probably a good sign, to have fun with your own game ..)
Heyso|3 years ago
About your question, if part of your job is game design or assurance quality, you have to play the game a lot. Like a player would.
thunkle|3 years ago
flykespice|3 years ago
The problem is I don't know what is the right next step to take in front of all the issues aforementioned, and I have been thinking that for years without taking any step ahead or risking
Nzen|3 years ago
[0] https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-game-design
[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5C6QC36h5eA...
naet|3 years ago
Then make a slightly larger scale game, like an infinite runner 2d platformer. Keep the scope small, but try to finish every aspect of it (menu, sound, etc). Once you have a finished version you can decide whether you want to add to it or start another project of slightly larger scope.
Don't jump into it trying to make your dream game. Start with making the game that you can realistically make, and then gradually expand as needed. Once you've fully finished a game you'll have a much better understanding what you can do, what you'll need to learn to do your next project, how much work it was for that scope of project, etc.
Make a game where everything is a solid colored rectangle. Then go back and see what it would take to turn one of those rectangles into a simple animated character. This type of gradual progressing will let you focus on things one at a time, decide your own limits (will I make my own walking animation? or will I use a premade asset? How long will one walk animation take?)
hyperhopper|3 years ago
The theme and restrictions take away a lot of the choice and apprehension. And you're laser focused on the end goal and _will_ release something since you have an end date.
darkteflon|3 years ago
lioeters|3 years ago
hypertele-Xii|3 years ago
prewett|3 years ago
tdeck|3 years ago
Cryptonic|3 years ago
jheriko|3 years ago
the point about actually finishing things is a great takeaway. the first game i finished /myself/ took a week, then got another week of post-launch attention... but that was after some 10 years of personal work to develop the skills, then another 5 years or so in the industry gaining experience.
i probably could have done this earlier, but i was constantly setting my sights higher than what was realistic.... but actually the lessons from doing that were pretty invaluable. today, i'm more than capable of filling any role in any of the specialised areas of programming required for games to an expert level... and a lot of that knowledge came from trying to build AAA quality features in isolation with little support - finishing features or engines rather than whole games.... so as much as i agree with the conclusion, i'm not sure it would have helped me to learn it sooner :)
NayamAmarshe|3 years ago
Stevvo|3 years ago
michaelsalim|3 years ago
It's such a demanding field that if you're passionate about it, you're bound to learn a lot of things. I don't do game dev anymore but the time I did taught me a lot about what I know now.
b800h|3 years ago
bambataa|3 years ago
scanny|3 years ago
Razengan|3 years ago
foobarbecue|3 years ago
vicarrion|3 years ago
stevage|3 years ago
hypertele-Xii|3 years ago
I'm aiming to make about 20 games at once, at the moment.
darepublic|3 years ago
TEP_Kim_Il_Sung|3 years ago
PradeetPatel|3 years ago
Eratosthenes|3 years ago
They gave you the damn formula....
greazy|3 years ago
nottorp|3 years ago
lienhoangduy|3 years ago
bergenty|3 years ago
JKCalhoun|3 years ago
Then again, getting something just up to the point that it is playable, a proof of concept, is when you can really see if a game is fun or not. I have floppy disks full of games that never made it past that point because there was just ... something missing.
nmfisher|3 years ago