Відео

Don’t laugh (or scorn) but I am 74 and just on a sprint to get a game out - and my motivation and needs are different. • I have a pension - $ would be nice but not essential • Doing it to keep my brain alive - to get me out of bed! • Be lucky to live another 5 years, so that’s ok! I have extensive experience with c#, WPF with UI intensive Windows apps, C embedded with microcontrollers - even assembler from back in the 16 bit cpu days… Also, lifelong interest in art, graphics, DAW's, music. I read heavily - all subjects, from psychology to sci-fi (relevant to game design?). Why wouldn’t I try to keep alive & energized by taking on the challenge. And focusing that knowledge base could result in a fairly decent game - though I am aware that most likely will not be financially exciting. So, encouragement may be handy on the road ahead. Nothing to show yet - but will let you know. Cheers. Bob PS - Great video - you are legend (I think that's how you say it 🙃)

Thanks for this video. I'm a 41 year old newbie indie game developer learning programming as I demo prototypes to create my dream game for the past year and imposter syndrome are a real thing. Always good to know 80s babies can also be awesome "senior" game devs. Lol.

Awesome advice glad i stumbled upon this video!

You should try Unigine, the transition is smooth, is pretty similar to Unity but with a smarter editor (like unity 5) graphically is way better, it has more features (but lacks some others) and the performant is better, also they are more interested on developing technology instead of make investors happy...

I saw your video on being too old to be a game developer and I know it’s a little melodramatic but I’m already feeling the stress as a 24 year old. Your video made me feel better about my coding journey and I am looking forward to making my first game. Just got out of the military with no direction on where to go next and I figured I’d go back to my roots and do something i adore, make and play games! You sir are an inspiration. Currently on free code camp, UA-cam university and learning gd script to make my first game on godot as a self taught programmer. Best of luck to you sir!

Hi David🖐The game looks great! and is it an extraterrestrial being comes out from a meteorite? Awesome‼I started to work on a platformer game. I only know JS, so I'll stick with it. It'll take time, but I'll set small goals everyday and work on it. Your video always gives me hope. I appreciate your work and thank you for your time to make this video, David🤓🖐🐨

godot and unreal

It's free unlike unity and unreal

I for sure hope that's about to change as I'm apparently breaking all the "rules".

I'll give this s look see, over the weekend, but first thoughts, i agree with the shooting sfx being a little monotonus, nice background, maybe add a glowing outline to the asteroids especially on the purple background so they stand out a little bit more? Anyway what do i know about game dev? i've never even entered a game jam. Looks good so far, will come back with more thoughts (If any) Sunday. 👍

Great video keep it up

your not special

If your goal is to be a UA-camR ..start a devlog as soon as you have CONTENT. If your goal is to be a GAME DEVELOPER ... well here's my hot take: DO NOT DO A DEVLOG. All the time and effort you spend on it you could have spent on your game. Survivorship bias that 1% (or less) find some success on youtube is not a solid argument that you or I should be doing it.

I'm in the middle of making a devlog for a desktop app I'm making. This is extremely helpful, thank you.

I like the being able to move backwards, it feels like it makes things more nimble over the standard version. This reminds me of when I tried to do asteroids in 3D - I think I made it look pretty cool, but it's pretty difficult to figure out how to give the user enough awareness of things that are behind them ua-cam.com/video/KHjVUwE1abg/v-deo.html

I think software development, youtube, business and game dev (the combination of the first three) has ALWAYS been visual first. Visual first. Customer/player/user experience first. The details are great for other developers, but players don’t care unfortunately… When I made my Devlogs I wish more people cared about How or Why I made things, but in truth most people only care about what I made and what they can do with it. But I think it doesn’t hurt to show a bit of both. Like maybe show the essentials and visuals at the beginning of the Devlog and then talk about details in the middle and end. I’m no expert either just someone trying my best like you

Eh you're right. I have so many prototypes that would've been fun to document a bit better, but they're generally not entertaining enough for showing off. Or they're just too simple. I have a lot of old footage though. Perhaps a montage of dead projects would be a fun video....

Start not at day 0. Ponty had assets done... really like him! Starting my devlog soon (yeah! My 7yr old game) XD 1 video a week from ready content + filler content good practices for everyone, especially fellow devs. Also for non-devs to evangelise how complex these "6 seconds"actually are :D

I got actually no idea. However if doing tutorials instead of dev logs. I would say create a bunch first, then release them slowly. I did it dumb and tried to record and release a video a day last december. That worked good for getting some experience, to get some views. But it also burn mr out totally. Haven’t released anything after that. Regarding devlogs, I would guess you can start at any point. But you are correct you need to have something to show. Not just backend stuff. And you need to find some format, a flow of the video. I had an idea of my keyboard camera showing that I actually wrote the code, not just copy-paste. And well, that worked, but also took way to long time to record. My videos is slow, only interesting for people really trying searching out live coding videos. That market is tiny. Still channel did good, well for the short test run I did. I seen dev logs using humor or nice video editing. But that really takes time to create. Then you almost working more on the videos than your coding. Not sure how to solve that. Im guessing, record almost all of your work. Then cut and paste in the good parts. Going back recording something you thought was funny after the fact just doesn’t work. yeah, a good question how to do a dev log and the answer is I dont know.

Wow what a great video, I can really relate. I was an electrician and decided to follow my passion in my early 30s, I left the company and got myself into university to get a computer science degree learning game design. I moved down to London and managed to get a placement year at EA games and will be graduating in a few weeks! I'm currently 36 and I've been working on my own indie game whilst studying. It's been a huge challenge and it may back fire in the long run but it's a case of if you don't try to follow your dreams then you'll never know if you could have succeeded and to me that's far worse than failing.

Congrats! You did what a lot of us still only talk/dream about. Great starting milestone and a great reflection video. Just subscribed.

I agree, but I developed three games, one of which was "successful" when I started at 33. A second game may end up being successful because I'm releasing it later this year.

And don't forget to mention that the revenue is pre-tax. So you get even less than that.

There's a difference between making a game you want to make money from, and making a game as a hobby because you genuinely want to make something you saw in a dream 2 years ago. Personally, I vastly prefer the weird little games where you can tell that someone just had an idea they wanted to get out there, and made it in their spare time. You can tell that people like Toby Fox and Concerned Ape are those kinds of passionate guys, who just so happened to make something good enough to sell. They'd probably be making small games on the side if they had different jobs. As soon as you make games into whatever the "AAA Industry" is making, it loses so much colour, personality and soul. That sucks the joy out of it. When people aren't passionate about what they're making, and they don't care, you can tell.

Omg, it's literal Magnus Shale Fist of Iron Clan

For the steam page description, try to avoid using vague exaggerated marketing language like "bold and dynamic", "visually stunning", "breathtaking velocity", "dazzling spectacle", "exhilarating experience", etc. Not only does it make the description sound AI generated, but it comes across as overly promotional and can undermine credibility. Understandably this is a small game and not exactly easy to market since it doesnt have many unique selling points, but for future games try to come across as more authentic and genuine by being more specific in the description, providing concrete details and examples that demonstrate the unique features and qualities of the game without using unnecessary adjectives to artificially inflate its appeal

My first game on Steam only made a few thousand dollars and received 39 reviews. My second game made hundreds of thousands and has 761 reviews (88% rating). It's only in early access, but the full release is in July.

Getting something published is definitely a success! I hadn't thought about just doing a clone to get something out there and practice the Steam release process. Right now, I have only released the free game I created with some friends, but I didn't do anything involved in the Steam publishing process. Instead, I focused on releasing the Google Play Store version while someone who already had the Steam account did that version and a third did the iOS AppStore release.

Here's how I motivate myself: If I sell a game for £1 and 100 ppl buy it that's £100. Extrapolate that for the actual selling price of my game (or whatever product, and minus steam's cut ofc)

My current goal in order to become a successful game developer is to successfully develop a game :P Nothing less, and nothing more. Won't even release this first one on Steam or charge money for it.

I'd be happy to make an indi game that made me $500... Since it's a side hustle

amazing! congrats for releasing a game, something 99% of people cant say they did

i still don't understand how wishlists matter. that number alone has no meaning for free to play games or even games that are less than 20$. free to play games just get downloaded after the release. it might matter for the "huge" first day "sucess" launch of the game but that is an unrealistic dream and one we shouldn't actually hope to get as solo devs. sure it is nice to get all that money but you also get a ton of bad reviews if the game has breaking bugs in it that you didn't find or forgot about in the ignore list that you forgot you had. a launch with 20 people and getting feedback from them is better than a launch with 200k people and 30k+ bad reviews. sure the 200k one makes you rich over night but that is a one time thing that is like winning jackpot in the lottery. what you really want to get is a stable community that gives good feedback so that you can fix the game and make it into an actually excelent game. it naturally will then spread around by the players talking about it with their friends and on discord communities. getting a steady player growth per month is more important than getting a one time hit that falls off instantly because the game wasn't actually ready for the mass. it is also the big problem that AAA studios have. they are also all hoping for the day one hit, while fully knowing that the game isn't actually finished yet and still has hundreds of bugs.

This was a very smart move, and thank you for sharing. I may need to do that too eventually, once I learn Unreal Engine 5.4 and finish my project. 😉

Must be cool to see your game on Steam

I think one of the most important parts of game dev is making a game that other people enjoy more than just what we like ourselves, at least that's what I've noticed with the games I've made. What you did so far is really great launching something is already a huge hurdle. I think what successful game developers do incredibly well is serving the needs of a community. Stardew Valley was mainly a success because of ConcernedApe's ability to serve his community. Fortnite makes billions of dollars and wasn't even initially supposed to be a battle royale, once the developers realized young people liked the battle royale more than horror games, they adapted their focus. I think what your doing well is starting a youtube channel as well so you can gather feedback. At the end of the day I think video games, maybe all art, is more about connecting people through ideas rather than entertainment. Keep up the great work!

Well done on the release! I dig the graphics, they have a cool retro-future vibe. Controller support would awesome. But as you said, it's fantastic that you crossed the release finish line. Looking forward to your future projects!

Very cool video, you are awesome! Thanks for the information

Smart move starting small. The work is complete, time for the next one ! Gratz!!! 🎉❤Massive achievement! I am moving away from Steam for my future commercial projects but it’s handy to know the process. Steam != gaming. The artist and customer does.

"it's entirely possible to be a stupid old f"... well... 😭😭

Enjoyed your video - thank you - loved this! Can i ask, did you still have to pay 100 dollars even though you list it as free on steam?

I'm 56, been in software for about 3 decades and launched my first Steam game 4 weeks ago. Utter Disaster! 4 weeks, 5 sales. But I built it, from start to finish, and released it. Boxes ticked... I agree you're never too old, but I'd add a caveat. I can't put the hours in that I used to. 15 - 20 years ago I'd think nothing of pulling 12+ hour stints to just 'bang something out' or hit a deadline, now I just don't have the mental stamina I used to. Another observation from my (admittedly fairly brief) research into why 'PLOT!' crashed and burned: Older devs tend to write safer games, with tried and tested gameplay loops. So we're writing technically (from a software perspective) good games, they're just not what younger gamers want to play.

From my side, I use steam's wishlist sortof like a bookmark for games I find interesting. Whether that is the intended use for it, I'm not sure, obviously it's mainly a "buy later" type of list, I think. I don't want to lead developers on by wishlisting and not buying, but there's no other section for me to save games for reviewing later.

You made and packaged a game and released it huge success. All that experience and lessons from that go into building the next game. Never a failure always a win for sure. Looking forward to future games from you

to be Fer i have done something similar to my first game, have made one game with the knowledge i have in the order to see how people i will react to it and see what happens after the game releases my experience is little bit different though wean i make this game i have seen all those stores need money to upload it and I decided tha my game is not to upload in my own website instead after a wail i foun out that it free to upload i game on itch io and my next game that im working now it's on itch io as well is my first successful ? 1. if we talking for profit it's 0 spend 0 and getting 0 in return seens this game is 100% free and uploaded this game on free store otherwise it's successful because 2. I do not believe people spend a lot of time play this game but many people have fun wean the try even if the play for little while and after that don't touch the game so this that make my game success. 3. the other reason this game succeeded is because with this game i was able to find out what to do after game releases and you helped me see some stuff in other prospective to be fer this game have a lot off flows but the fact ther is people that enjoy this game and this game achieved the goal to form my to figure out what happened afterwards make this game extremely successful in my opinion. for my i game is successful if the people who play enjoy the game and wean the succeed the goal i have in mind, as for my next project that im working now it is also successful and in my opinion more successful because unlike my first project that have to made everything and then to have people to try and see if the likes the game or not the project im working now it had people that wand to experience the game before even becomes playable now that my game is early access for play texting some people try out my game in very early access the are people that enjoy even if haven't add all the necessary mechanics on my game yet. that means both of my game's are successful on the own ways the first project have people that play and enjoyin this and the second game that is only for play testing still have people the enjoyed this game and the second game have more potential as well.

Pro game dev here. Don't waste TOO much time on getting code organized. Just do enough, when it starts to really get in the way, and when you know you're solving specific problems with things that are hard to find. And sometimes the best fix for a problem is none, because it doesn't end up happening that often. Shipping Code > Clean Code. That said, it's a great practice to think about what you could fix if you wanted to, and how to do it. But doing the thought exercise and going through with the actual work itself are two different things.

Well done!

wishlists are important sure, but I'd say don't get too hung up on them, either. launch day isn't actually that big of a deal for an indie game. sure, AAA studios need to have their game explode on launch day because after that, people will gradually move on to the next big thing and it's only going to go down hill from there. however, for an indie game, it's totally possible that it "explodes" (relatively speaking) one month in, six months in, or even several years after release. this can happen at any time by someone with an audience picking up your game and then kicking off a network effect. staking everything on some wishlist number and a single day is also extremely stressful and setting you up soul-crushing disappointment. so I'd say sure, work on your wishlists on the side whenever there's an opportunity, but don't stress too much about it. more importantly, try to engage with the various communities and foster relations with content creators while continuously providing increasing value with your products. that's the game as an indie. :)

100% agree, funny people still complaining about a free game 😂

My game coming to steam next month, I did not know anything about steam game marketing a year ago, took a while I filtered through all the rubbish online but I found some genuine sources. Like Chris Zukowski or Thomas Brush. Now I'm on Steam Next Fest and got a handful of UA-camrs whish to play my game. By the way when I learn a new framework / language I write the breakout game :) As that was my first game I made on Atari 800XL. ;) So was fan to hear you do the Asteroids. :D