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P.S. The taxes in Germany are 50%, if I remember it correctly. The "Re.Poly" made probably between 2 900 and 14 200 sales (based on SteamDB) with price between 1.33 $ and 14.99 $. This makes between 1 345 $ and 74 500 $ NET (the game was on 80% on sales), my calculations are based on the lowest and the highest possible. For 5 years of development (60 months) = between 22 $ and 1 241 $ per month net income for the dev to live with. Probably the dev made around 300-500 $ monthly net = impossible to live with it in Germany.
Hey Hugo, I’m having trouble choosing a topic for a mini-game project. Do you have any tips on how to pick a genre or topic? The number of options feels overwhelming, and I’ve noticed my classmates are also struggling with this for their student projects. Maybe it could even be a good idea for a video? Cheers!
@@HansPeter-gx9ew Make the game that will be easier to make with your current skills. Don't make overcomplicated game, because you must learn a lot of new skills for it, and it takes a lot of time, especially, when you have a timeframe for your project.
@@HansPeter-gx9ew If the primary goal is learning then I always love picking simple games that already exist. Flappy Bird, Space Invaders, Pac-man, Missile Command, Lunar Lander, etc. Here's an excellent website with lots of game ideas 20_games_challenge.gitlab.io/ I'd love to make a bunch of videos making some of these classic games, they are great for learning. Another way is to look at games that you enjoy playing, and try making a much much smaller version of that. For example do you enjoy playing Spider-Man? Maybe make a freeform combat system. No open world, no cutscenes, no giant quests, just a fun combat system. Maybe you like playing Skyrim? Make a simple character controller and build a basic quest system in a small world. The main thing is keep your scope SMALL. If you think of an idea that you think will take 6 months to make, it will likely take 2 years. So for a small project pick something you think you can make in 1-2 weeks. It will likely take you 1mo+.
A minor correction in regards to Stardew Valley. Eric Barone (the creator) actually struggled quite a bit with that game in development and had long periods of time where he was hating the project, hating himself, and not getting any work done. Just pretending to work when his girlfriend was around then slacking off and playing games throughout the day. He talks about it in the book 'Blood, Sweat, and Pixels' by Jason Schrier.
This is the most valuable thing I've ever read, because I do exactly the same. I'll sit at my desk to work, and game instead. Way too often. Nice to know its not just a "me problem" lol
Absolutely brutal that he was basically living like a baby while his girlfriend worked 2 jobs while studying for her master's and taking care of his every physical need for seven years
@@gameworkerty "We estimate that Stardew Valley made $463,850,080.32in gross revenue since its release. Out of this, the developer had an estimated net revenue of $136,835,773.69. " I'm sure she's ok...
I'm working on my first game, I'm very close to play testing. I'm at about 2 years. I'm content to keep at it, because it's not my job it's just a hobby for me. I make a few hours a day, but the last 2 months have been rough because I've had my father fall into bad health. You have to do what works for you. Respect to the dev, who recognized that they needed to step back for their mental health.
This. Don't let hobby projects rule the rest of your life. Such ambitions for a hobby project are unhealthy I'm sorry to hear your father is/was ill. All the best
Dude is back DEVELOPING! He must have been inspired by the honest and encouraging comments of anyone following his journey. Thanks CM, you make the world a better place! :)
@@Tymon0000 yeah just never really sticking with anything long term. Indecision. Imposter syndrome. Anxiety. Choosing to just continually learn instead of do.
This dev was making a low poly version of Skyrim in my opinion, Bethesda took 6 years and a staff of 100, it was quite big for a solo dev, sadly a trap sometimes most of us ,included myself fall in.
I too am making what could be described as "a low poly version of Skyrim". I don't even remember how long I've been working on it. But the first many years were directionless. Not being able to decide what the game would be like. Having to replace the tech. Even switching engines at one point, and then back. But in early 2023 I rebooted the project. I knew the direction I was taking, and eventually resigned myself to the fact that it just wasn't going to be perfect. So I stopped reworking things and I'm making steady progress towards a game I know I can finish. Oh and I have a shitload of professional game dev experience. Kids, don't do this to yourselves :D
The developer did restart making the game like 2 days after that message, saw a video from Rooslahn covering it. It is still a very important topic to cover.
When I started learning game programming somewhere arounfd 2010 , first advice I got was that DO NOT program games with multiplayer or open worlds , which turns out is actually the best advice for beginners.Some people have to learn it hard way.
I think everyone needs to try to make that super huge dream game as soon as they can , to get that idea out of the way early on. That way they'll understand before its too late. Pretty sure a lot of us have thought "That wont happen to me, I know I can do the next quadruple A game by myself , I'll just work really hard" After you realize the logistics involved it's easier to "settle" for a smaller project, that will probably be more fun and less stressful to make.
I released my first game that took me 5 years to solo dev, just a few months ago. I agree, don't go down this path. I was only able to ship a product I was happy with, BECAUSE I cut down on my original scope (a lot), I wasn't financially tied to my game (but it would have been nice), and I was EXTREMELY stubborn. I am now working on many short projects to test my skills and see which I want to progress with. I highly recommend making a lot of small games first to avoid the stress and pressure that working on 1 thing can bring if it's your sole focus for the same duration as a bachelors degree.
"same duration as a bachelors degree" I think that hits home how long that really is. It's easy to just say something will take 5 years and not think anything more of it, but the comparison gives it some real context and makes people really think about it.
My first game, HammerHelm, took me 3 years to get to early access and another 4 years to fully launch. I also changed the map a few times, updated combat at least 4 times, changed out almost all of the art, etc. A lot of that was based on player feedback or my own goals rather than lack of a plan tho. I really enjoyed developing the game, and other than screwing up my launch, I'm glad I did. But I wouldn't recommend doing it this way to anyone. Start small is great advice.
People underestimate how much work it takes to make a game. There's also the fact it's really difficult to come up with a clever idea for a game that is both fun to play and relatively affordable to make. I've been working on a strategy realm builder for the last year and while I've advanced a lot with it, there's always this struggle between keeping it as simple as possible and wanting to add features. Last week I suddenly came up with a new idea for a game that'd take me way less time to finish and can adapt many of the features I have already developed, so I went straight for it, knowing it's the right thing to do. My point is, if you want to make a game keep it simple, learn from what's already out there and put a twist on it, and be aware of your actual abilities.
Yeah you are right. I am helping people finish games. And that is one of the things I stress. People could probably build 5 quick prototypes to learn and then build the game they want faster with the experience of 5 prototypes. Rather than dragging that first game for years
Sad reality of Game development , some youtubers hype people up by creating a assets flip or a small game in a week to hype up that GD is not hard , but actually it is hard . Also these days game engines also only shows the positive side only in game development . Also Lot of people hiding thing is creating a game become exponentially more harder as project grows. I feel sad because this person lost a valuable 5 years of his life .
@CodyDreams I don't think gamedev YT hides that development is hard. I think that for many ppl this is their first project of any significant size or complexity. Learning how to manage your time, and how to manage a project, are skills you build up. From term projects in school, through progressively more responsibility at work, to personal stuff like planning a move or a wedding. People follow tutorials for code & art, but assume they can just wing their way through time- and project-management. Even small games have a lot of moving parts. Big companies also screw this up sometimes, so it's a common thing to trip up on.
@@mandisaw On that note, new devs get stuck in tutorial hell. So I would recommend doing one small tutorial encompassing the main tools of the engine and then continuing with ur own small projects, while looking up small parts that u need whenever stumped. That's how I managed to progress out of tutorials.
@lHuskyy Maybe I'm just old 😅 But I feel like "tutorial hell" is a product of shifting from reading books & docs, to cobbling together 5min tutorial blogs & videos. All of my books on programming, art, or writing, new or old, all follow a natural progression: introducing a topic, walking you through an example, explaining pros & cons of use, then you're expected to tool around with that subtopic on your own before we go on to the next, more challenging topic. I like tutorial videos! But they exist in a vacuum - you don't know what fundamental skills are needed to understand it, and you aren't required to riff off of it with your own thing before hopping around to whatever strikes your fancy next. CM's courses probably are a better fit, but only if ppl are genuinely using them as a curriculum, and aren't just mirroring what he does, without doing any freestyle exercises of their own. That last bit is where the real learning happens, and is how tutorial hell is avoided.
gotta wonder within those 5 years did the dev ever think "gee this is too big, gotta narrow my scope"? for any new devs out there, here is a reality check: game dev is rough, a long journey, and overnight successes are false illusions sold by youtube influencers who more than likely steal code and designs because logically they dont have much time to allocate to large projects. take development with patience and plan your way to success rather than attempt to jump off a diving board and expect you dont hit concrete because you will.
My takeaway is more, "Early Access is a trap!" If games aren't your livelihood, taking a couple years to learn & work on a project is fine. Just understand what the opportunity costs are, and know that the longer it takes, the less likely it is to be successful. Chris Z just did a piece on Jonas Tyroller, and they did some envelope math to compare the value-for-cost of his games. Taking a long time is a high-stakes gamble, that often doesn't pay off. Even if all you want is fun & experience, sounds like this dev ended up with a bad case of burnout - no bueno
ive gone through this a few times already, but I haven't quit, I learned I needed to think about more simple projects, and I think I got something good this time.
This is a great video, very helpful to have a semi postmortem with suggestions on how this could work. I think it would be awesome to see somewhat of an informal interview with this dev to discuss their road-map and an experienced developer such as yourself giving guidance as to how they may want to move forward. The goal not to change their vision of their dream game, but to guide them toward the best possible game for their skill set.
I have a similar story... I started and worked on an open source project for about 5 years and had a lot of people using it and most of them really appreciated what I was doing. This is a strange feeling because when people are using your project it feels successful on some level. However, after working on something that long and really seeing no way to turn it into a sustainable revenue stream I had to stop. At the time this felt like a really hard decision because I really felt like I was letting people down and throwing away 5 years of hard work (sunk cost fallacy). Due to the burnout I felt completely deflated and didn't do any game dev stuff at all for about a year after. I did end up handing the project over to one of the other contributors though, so that helped. Here are some lessons I learned from that experience... - sometimes quitting a project is the right move because it frees up your time to do other things. - knowing how you're going to keep it sustainable is a must (path to revenue) - even if you fail, you always build up a huge amount of game dev experience working on anything - your time is the most valuable thing you have, don't waste it
i can def relate. been working on a game for about two years. i realize feature creep is taking over, and Im cutting back a lot to just finish something. thanks for sharing this.
YUP, I’ve def made this mistake before. Pretty sure over scope has snuck up on all of us. My most recent game has been in early access for over a year and it is very stressful! It always feels like I’m “not doing enough” for the community, but as a solo dev, there’s only so much I can do. Great insight as always!
It's sad to see someone have to drop a project that they really love. Been working on my game, which is a 3D Anime interactive Visual Novel game (something like Until Dawn for reference) using Unity and the feeling of "I must keep going and not stop" can be very stresseful sometimes, especially when you are working alone and have to deal with every single aspect of your game. What helped me the most was actually writing down everything into a word document (everything, from how each menu must look like to the whole script of the story) and trying to find ways to reach each aspect of the game, one by one.
Start small, as they say. My first commercial project was a one-screen puzzle game and it took around 2 years to publish (I'd be able to do that again in at least half the time, but this is how one improves as a developer!)
i have very strong feelings about the "early access" model that crept into the industry. ive been a dev for long before this practice took place. i always treat early access as what it is, a demo - albeit probably playable. its creates not only expectation for the customer, but also the developer and is what more often kills projects. expectation on the dev usually put onto themselves by imagining they will be the next best thing, or make lots of money - which is 99% of the time further from reality.
I love code monkey videos. Always informative, even years later. I wonder how many people that do game dev want to actually finish? Or want to do game dev, full time?
I definitely relate to this video, and the advice you give at the end I'm going to try and take for my early access game that has been in development hell on and off for 4+ years.
I am creating my third MMO solo, and I can say it's not easy! My first MMO (Eternal Quest) I spent 5 years too, I sold the project last year. My second MMO (Soul Shifters) I spent a whole year and now on my third MMO, I want to spent about 6 to 9 months. Eternal Quest gave my a considerable revenue and sometimes I regret I sold it.
I'm currently working on a game that I honestly really hate, and I've dedicated almost half a year to it. My plan is honestly to do the same thing as that developer, to leave that game and move on to another project that I can scale even better. Thinking about the new project always exhilarates me, as it feels like a chance of redemption and an opportunity to climb the gamedev mountain again. If you are in a position just like that developer or me, remember, please don't be afraid to disappoint your players. And please don't feel bad for losing so much precious time. At least you'll have learned priceless knowledge that can be recycled for future projects, which is one of the reasons why I'm continuing the game I hate.
Solo development is best for when you're just starting and you want complete creative control, but eventually your projects will grow to the point where you cannot handle the workload and need outside assistance. Many hands make light work is a saying for a good reason, and it sounds like the dev of this game could do with at least 1-2 other people so that they're not overwhelmed again.
This video arrives weirdly at a special time for me continuously restarting my civlike game and realizing i'll never have enough time and skills to do something good enough for me. Almost 10years😢
The Beatles did not make their money with a single song, but many many smaller songs. Good video, thanks. Hopefully, the developer gets past their bottle neck and releases an as is version.
@CodeMonkeyUnity you said something like this:...do more small games instead of 1 big game, you learn more. I can say THIS should be an essence of each solo dev that starts journey with gaming. I was following this since I started journey with Unity for 1 year i did 14 games on Android problem I have is not coding or animations problem is to reach audience that will notice my games:) keep it up and never back down! Cheers to You and all other DEVS!
so far i am trying only to make extremedly small things,mostly one concept stuff and i find that hard TT_TT i have still to continue learning from your awesome videos!
its not the game engine, its not the assets, its not the programming, its not the level design, its not the story, its Yourself that will be the biggest challenge when making a complete game. The longer the project the more difficult you will become with yourself. Many solo devs lose their mind because the constant battle that goes on in their mind. then they hate themselves because they cant finish and feel ashamed, depressed, angry. keep project small as possible. size does not equal fun or sales.
Big respect for being able to push a project for 5 years without seeing the fruits of their labor. Maybe everything would have turned out easier if they didn't do it alone. Complimentary skill sets of people in a team can exponentially speed up projects. But its hard to find people... Especially with social anxiety.
Amazing video! I was thinking about making a flappy bird-like game, and remember a video you made a while go. You made a flappy bird-like game with the Synty Icons Pack, do happen to remember the title of that video? Thanks again, and keep making great content!
I am a single developer too. From the past experience in development of the game, I have scraped 2 projects already. 1st one scraped because I don't had enough experience and the game is too big. Second one is because the game had no demand at all plus too many same type of free game out there. My third game is still in the making hopefully this time I don't had to scraped it again. My advice to anyone who want to make game is start small and get ready for the big one. What I mean is try to make small game with one type of game module like car racing and then continue on with the different type of game until you had all the code. When you are ready, move to larger game like RPG and RTS game, and then maybe at the end challenge the AAA game.
Glad you made a video about this. I think the biggest thing is dont just quit working on something. Take breaks, you dont have to set a timer for your break. It could be a month or 6 months. Just take a break before you decide to quit something because the sudden announcement of the game being canceled vs saying your overwhelmed and need a break is taken much differenlty. Luckily in this case it actually brought more people to the game since alot of people made videos on it but thats not normally goint to happen.
@@CapeSkill yes you can. One of the most important things as a developer is maintaining trust. If you say your canceling the game you lost all trust regardless of if you come back or not people will not be sure you won't just leave again. That means new players will be more hesitant buying the game as well if they know about the developers actions. If they only take a break and keep people updated occasionally throughout the break you retain alot of trust since your staying in touch and providing some sort of reassurance that they didn't just waste their money
As someone who started making a very simple mobile game, I already had to redesign my code multiple times to make it work better and I'm happy that I did not go with my other game idea that could take months if not years and if I tried to make that game with mistakes I did before I would be probably burn out.
Been there, done that! Fortunately, I realized that my game was collapsing under its own weight before I went too long. I could do what you say - revisit and trim it down to make it complete.
Glad to see he resumed the project. Completely cancelling the whole thing and delisting it from steam seems like an insane decision to me considering how much of the core systems are done and the response it received. Imo, the guy should focus on the core systems already in place, squash the bugs, and try to implement some basic modding tools to outsource the nice to have features to his community
Yes! I have tested something similar. What I like to do is always have a deliverable. So that if I want to stop, I can. When I come back I can just play the build and continue
Man, I'd def. buy this game to buy this dev. One thing, that I reckon I think like this because Im not a game dev, but I wish devs would open source the game, so more people could help them
One of the hardest truth pills for most game devs to swallow is that it is insanely difficult to nigh impossible to make a great game alone. Form/join a team. The day you accept this truth is the day you'll know a new level of peace.
Unfortunately, it's par for the course for developers. I've abandoned a project that I spent over a year relentlessly working on for the exact same reason. The scope was way too big, and it can take a while before that hits home for a gamedev.
For me the saddest thing has been my ADHD. I've been making games since i was 11 and i'm now 18 and I've only managed to release 3 tiny game jam games during all of that time because I've always just kept starting new projects instead of finishing existing ones. Now I might need to completely give up on my dream of game dev, since I have to actually worry about getting a job
At the moment the market is oversaturated (~ 14 000 new games/year). When I make games, I must choose between having my free time (after my daytime work as Janitor) or making a game that could make around 100 sales (200 $ from sales in 1 year = 16 $ per month).
The game was really fun in the beginning. I put quite a few hours in during the early release. But it seemed with every large update it moved further and further away from that fun innocent game that started out. I hope he does not totally hate games trying to push this out anyway!
I start learning with idea to make some big game with cool mechanic lore and ect. But now i understand that better is create small games, save all mechanic i create during that journey. And after few years with big library with working classes and functions try to make smoethink big and cool.
I spent a long time making a game and I think the prototype that I wasted like 3 months is better than the whole game that I spent 1 year and a half lol, so it's not really worthy speanding too much time in a single game if you are alone, but I guess you can build in parallel your dream game but keep doing small ones as priority.
This is very cliché, but fr the best thing a solodev can do is start with small game jams. Its a good way to limit your creative scope while learning in increment on how to make things that are larger/complex each time.
I've wasted 43 years, been coding non stop since age 4, been serial ripped off by all of BIG TECH who think they're Robin Hoods for stealing the money I make on my video games. I've had successful games played millions of times. I've made less than one cent per hour lifetime due to openly criminal violations of contracts... You guys all experienced one by Unity last year. You know what? I'm not stopping making games. It's who I am. It's in my blood.
It’s like more than a year and i still makes-create nothing concrete yet. Facing difficulties,money-work-family balance, testing some ideas to find out what’s work and what’s not working. Kept switching between game engines to find problems-difficulties scaling in each engine. Some are easier to do this and weirdly complex to do single thing. I mainly stick to visual-scripting cause i have 0 experience in coding and it’s just friendlier approach as an artist. Almost every single day now i keep questioning whether to continue this path or not. If i give up,nobody will be sad for it. Only me wasting time, but not totally wasting my time.. I learned thing or two and i think it will help me building logic or problem solving in real life. If i were to continue, i guess i keep on wasting my time and maybe if i were lucky to finish it and peoples around the world able to enjoy it then it wouldn’t be so bad after all. But yeah, every single day i still keep doing it.. even with connecting single node or just open up the software to remind me what i must do amidst distractions and life.
same story from every one of you, make something simple. I think it should not be the advice, make something you can tackle is the advice, but we all know we ALWAYS bite off more than we can chew. That chewing costs years and you get paid zero.... difficult industry. in many ways indie games should not exist, those who make them are brave warriors, taking on a battlefield on their own. RESPECT TO INDIES.
I think it depends on person to person but i feel multiplayer is easy to implement especially nowadays because we have such amazing apis like netcode and photon fusion❤
I love your channel. I love survival games. I actually have been studying and practicing programming for a year and a half. I use C++, Java and I am currently using C# with Unity. Although I have used Unreal Engine, I have not used blueprints or C++ in UE. This is probably a really silly question, but can't the developer sell what he has created thus far to another dev company or developer? I don't to be insensitive, but it's so crazy that he spent 5 years and can't even profit from the game? I don't know the intricacies. Just thought I would ask. I just started game dev in college this past summer, so I have limited experience. Thanks for all of the content!
easy for you in hindsight to break down not what to do. but this sort of thing changes a huge game into a pitifully shallow game. I guess your idea is its better to come out than die without release. But your ideas lead to deathly reviews.
My current game is 5 years of development but the first 3 years was me learning and failing over and over again until I was able to develop as a pro 😅 so technically it's 3 years of learning and 2 years of development
3:28 i have my first pc game on early access on steam too and people already buy it so yes i feel pressure for it because i feels like i need to finish my game for their sake even if i dont feels like some days i dont wanna work on it. And this is amazing for me because unlike before that keep me going. Before this i had lots of canceled projects. But now i can not do that to myself and the people who already believed my game and buy it. Also i wanna make more games so i can not start my journey with a failure. My game is called Hell Runner. I wanted to start with relatively easy game a parkour game as my first pc game. We start making it two man team but i think like a year now i'm alone. It have downside and upside. Downside is more work for me but upside is now i learn more stuff because i'm the one who has to do everything.
I work on game like 5 years now :P But honestly I do it only in free time, from zero coding knowledges....... My mental health is good even most people just don't care about it or dislike my game :D.......I am going soon settle steam page :D.......
Solo coding a large game is very very hard. It's not hard as coding, the problem is that you have a guide line to follow but then you come up with a cool asteroid that has a casino on it and you suddenly start working on that, after your 80% done there because your stuck on something you continue coding after the timeline and then come up with another cool idea, "Aha, asteroid mine where you can land and jump out of the ship and go into the tunnels to mine and fight mobs", you start working on this and so on and so on :) This is my problem and 1 year later I am still here lol. You need to simple make a guideline, to release and work ONLY on that until done. Once your done with that then you can code add-ons, updates etc. :) I have had to take a small break from my game, mmorpg space game but always turn back to it heh.
Yes. It's important to focus on creating a minimum viable product before adding extra content. It keeps your scope small and helps refine the most core features of your game.
I made my first Steam game "Space Warden" under 1000hours which i spend over 2 years but i was doing it in my free time so if i didn't have to work i could do it for 125 days if i spend on it 8 hours a day, plus of course it was learning journey i spend researching,learning new tools,new methods,new ways of coding,refactoring code etc... that game was top-down,30+ abilities,fully destructible levels, i decided to do 2D game because will be easier but anyway doesn't matter is 2D or 3D if you doing it as hobby you spend years developing it in your free time. Now i just finished demo alien horror first person game which i did under 9 months and hopefully released in Q1/2025
The dev of "Re.Poly" works in Germany, there the taxes are higher - he makes way less money from the game to live with while making it, 5 years with almost no sales.
"Think about a game that you can complete in 6 month" 🤔hmm, I think this game idea should only take 4 month, then I can spent 2 month on polishing. *5 years later* Aw crap!
i am currently working on a isometric RPG game. it has been nearly 2 months now. Unfortunately I do not know how long it will take. Hopefully not 5 years
I saw the story a month ago from another youtuber that presented the case in a very positive light, although sad for the game's cancelation. I really don't like the title of your video... I understand that it is more clickable, but I find it very harsh to say that this solo dev wasted 5 years. I understand the points that you are trying to make, but still the wording seems harsh.
The time they spent on this game has to be considered against what they could've otherwise done & achieved in that time. Maybe that's finishing other games, maybe it's improving their personal life or career, maybe it's just saving whatever money they spent. Every decision carries an opportunity cost. Only the dev can say if it was a waste, since we don't know their situation or their goals for the project. Maybe it was just for fun, til it wasn't 🤷♀️
@@ZombieChicken-X Its 5 years of his life, it is not up to you, me or CodeMonkey to judge if it is wasted or not. What I point in my comment is very simple: CodeMonkey could choose better words when referring to the work of a fellow indie game dev. The video could do without clickbait title. A game dev that made this game solo surely learnt a lot and grew in skill immensely. He published a game (even in Early Access) and sold copies of it. He managed to create a supporting community that loved his game. Characterizing all this a "waste" is just wrong. Lastly, CodeMonkey should have added an edit with the update info of the game resuming development in the first minutes of the video. From a lot of comments is obvious that a lot of people didn't watched until the end, as expected for a youtube video, and left with the impression that the game is still canceled. Generally really disappointed with how CodeMonkey handled this.
@@shinjikun13 Or you can just brush it off because its not that fucking serious. Crybabies like you bring DEI into the industry and make us all walk on glass
I thought this was about Paradox's cancelled game Life by You... I mean if a studio that big can make that kind of miatakes, imagine a solo developer...
Long projects are good, if you already have made some games and have experience of basic things, and you want to learn how to scale up and really master how to optimize things. How to make it work in large setting. Even then one must have a mind setting of having stamina keep doing it, and taking it as learning experience and have good financial situation, which allows you to focus on long term learning. It is like a school you take, to master it. Even then it is not the best option financially, but it might teach you things you never learn in small games. in 1990's I had 3 year project, that I never finished. But I learned a lot of things that you don't find in basic courses. And I realized a lot about priorities and structures. Would I do it again? No... But it was not wasted years. Everything I code nowadays, comes more easily, because of that learning experience.
Perhaps it is better to publish the game in early access when moral strength runs out. And to get a fresh boost of energy from the feedback of real players.
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P.S. The taxes in Germany are 50%, if I remember it correctly.
The "Re.Poly" made probably between 2 900 and 14 200 sales (based on SteamDB) with price between 1.33 $ and 14.99 $. This makes between 1 345 $ and 74 500 $ NET (the game was on 80% on sales), my calculations are based on the lowest and the highest possible. For 5 years of development (60 months) = between 22 $ and 1 241 $ per month net income for the dev to live with. Probably the dev made around 300-500 $ monthly net = impossible to live with it in Germany.
Hey Hugo,
I’m having trouble choosing a topic for a mini-game project. Do you have any tips on how to pick a genre or topic? The number of options feels overwhelming, and I’ve noticed my classmates are also struggling with this for their student projects.
Maybe it could even be a good idea for a video?
Cheers!
@@HansPeter-gx9ew Make the game that will be easier to make with your current skills. Don't make overcomplicated game, because you must learn a lot of new skills for it, and it takes a lot of time, especially, when you have a timeframe for your project.
@@HansPeter-gx9ew If the primary goal is learning then I always love picking simple games that already exist. Flappy Bird, Space Invaders, Pac-man, Missile Command, Lunar Lander, etc. Here's an excellent website with lots of game ideas 20_games_challenge.gitlab.io/
I'd love to make a bunch of videos making some of these classic games, they are great for learning.
Another way is to look at games that you enjoy playing, and try making a much much smaller version of that. For example do you enjoy playing Spider-Man? Maybe make a freeform combat system. No open world, no cutscenes, no giant quests, just a fun combat system.
Maybe you like playing Skyrim? Make a simple character controller and build a basic quest system in a small world.
The main thing is keep your scope SMALL. If you think of an idea that you think will take 6 months to make, it will likely take 2 years. So for a small project pick something you think you can make in 1-2 weeks. It will likely take you 1mo+.
A minor correction in regards to Stardew Valley. Eric Barone (the creator) actually struggled quite a bit with that game in development and had long periods of time where he was hating the project, hating himself, and not getting any work done. Just pretending to work when his girlfriend was around then slacking off and playing games throughout the day. He talks about it in the book 'Blood, Sweat, and Pixels' by Jason Schrier.
This is the most valuable thing I've ever read, because I do exactly the same. I'll sit at my desk to work, and game instead. Way too often. Nice to know its not just a "me problem" lol
so you mean his laziness killed that project?
Absolutely brutal that he was basically living like a baby while his girlfriend worked 2 jobs while studying for her master's and taking care of his every physical need for seven years
@@gameworkerty "We estimate that Stardew Valley made $463,850,080.32in gross revenue since its release. Out of this, the developer had an estimated net revenue of $136,835,773.69. " I'm sure she's ok...
what a name for a book, I would've added "tears" to the title too.
A month later (about a week and a half ago) he walked it back and said he’s going to keep working. It’s still available on Steam.
That is very good to hear. I hope he finishes this even if it takes another 5 years. It could be something great.
Sometimes, people just need to take a vacation, and things will become clearer. Maybe that's what he did
I'm working on my first game, I'm very close to play testing. I'm at about 2 years. I'm content to keep at it, because it's not my job it's just a hobby for me. I make a few hours a day, but the last 2 months have been rough because I've had my father fall into bad health.
You have to do what works for you.
Respect to the dev, who recognized that they needed to step back for their mental health.
This. Don't let hobby projects rule the rest of your life. Such ambitions for a hobby project are unhealthy
I'm sorry to hear your father is/was ill. All the best
Dude is back DEVELOPING! He must have been inspired by the honest and encouraging comments of anyone following his journey. Thanks CM, you make the world a better place! :)
Spending 5 years developing a game is not wasting 5 years. Spending 5 years watching Netflix is wasting 5 years.
you can even not spend 5 years of watching netflix if you become content creator :D Also netflix sux
Nah man 5 years working on a game is a tinkering hobby, but if you want to release games it's wasting time
I have seen that games over 2 years have a greater potential to be great and we all wish to make a great game.
the greatest teacher, failure is
It's wasted if you feel stressed out constantly. If it stops being fun. If it consumes your life.
Too late, already wasted 10. 😅
10 years??
What are you making?
@@Dailyfiver multiple failed projects i presume
I’ve wasted 40. Oh we’re talking about games
@@Tymon0000 yeah just never really sticking with anything long term. Indecision. Imposter syndrome. Anxiety. Choosing to just continually learn instead of do.
This dev was making a low poly version of Skyrim in my opinion, Bethesda took 6 years and a staff of 100, it was quite big for a solo dev, sadly a trap sometimes most of us ,included myself fall in.
I can't even make a Pong clone without an existential crisis.
I too am making what could be described as "a low poly version of Skyrim".
I don't even remember how long I've been working on it. But the first many years were directionless. Not being able to decide what the game would be like. Having to replace the tech. Even switching engines at one point, and then back.
But in early 2023 I rebooted the project. I knew the direction I was taking, and eventually resigned myself to the fact that it just wasn't going to be perfect. So I stopped reworking things and I'm making steady progress towards a game I know I can finish.
Oh and I have a shitload of professional game dev experience. Kids, don't do this to yourselves :D
@@mortadelaok Ironically that's because the original feel of pong is incredibly hard to replicate because the controls were not completely digital.
The developer did restart making the game like 2 days after that message, saw a video from Rooslahn covering it. It is still a very important topic to cover.
As someone trying to scope out my first Steam game, I found this SO informative! Thank you!
When I started learning game programming somewhere arounfd 2010 , first advice I got was that DO NOT program games with multiplayer or open worlds , which turns out is actually the best advice for beginners.Some people have to learn it hard way.
I think everyone needs to try to make that super huge dream game as soon as they can , to get that idea out of the way early on. That way they'll understand before its too late.
Pretty sure a lot of us have thought "That wont happen to me, I know I can do the next quadruple A game by myself , I'll just work really hard"
After you realize the logistics involved it's easier to "settle" for a smaller project, that will probably be more fun and less stressful to make.
Yes, the key is to focus on the core. I agree with what you said. I like getting an idea out fast and test it with players early on.
Thanks for stressing out again to chose the right scope. Very underappreciated trapp.
I released my first game that took me 5 years to solo dev, just a few months ago. I agree, don't go down this path. I was only able to ship a product I was happy with, BECAUSE I cut down on my original scope (a lot), I wasn't financially tied to my game (but it would have been nice), and I was EXTREMELY stubborn.
I am now working on many short projects to test my skills and see which I want to progress with. I highly recommend making a lot of small games first to avoid the stress and pressure that working on 1 thing can bring if it's your sole focus for the same duration as a bachelors degree.
Is it on steam, ill take a look.
Game dev crunch
"same duration as a bachelors degree" I think that hits home how long that really is. It's easy to just say something will take 5 years and not think anything more of it, but the comparison gives it some real context and makes people really think about it.
My first game, HammerHelm, took me 3 years to get to early access and another 4 years to fully launch. I also changed the map a few times, updated combat at least 4 times, changed out almost all of the art, etc. A lot of that was based on player feedback or my own goals rather than lack of a plan tho. I really enjoyed developing the game, and other than screwing up my launch, I'm glad I did. But I wouldn't recommend doing it this way to anyone. Start small is great advice.
People underestimate how much work it takes to make a game. There's also the fact it's really difficult to come up with a clever idea for a game that is both fun to play and relatively affordable to make. I've been working on a strategy realm builder for the last year and while I've advanced a lot with it, there's always this struggle between keeping it as simple as possible and wanting to add features. Last week I suddenly came up with a new idea for a game that'd take me way less time to finish and can adapt many of the features I have already developed, so I went straight for it, knowing it's the right thing to do. My point is, if you want to make a game keep it simple, learn from what's already out there and put a twist on it, and be aware of your actual abilities.
Yeah you are right. I am helping people finish games. And that is one of the things I stress. People could probably build 5 quick prototypes to learn and then build the game they want faster with the experience of 5 prototypes. Rather than dragging that first game for years
Sad reality of Game development , some youtubers hype people up by creating a assets flip or a small game in a week to hype up that GD is not hard , but actually it is hard . Also these days game engines also only shows the positive side only in game development . Also Lot of people hiding thing is creating a game become exponentially more harder as project grows. I feel sad because this person lost a valuable 5 years of his life .
The first 80% of a project takes 80% of the time & effort. The last 20% of a project also takes 80% of the effort. 😅
@CodyDreams I don't think gamedev YT hides that development is hard. I think that for many ppl this is their first project of any significant size or complexity. Learning how to manage your time, and how to manage a project, are skills you build up. From term projects in school, through progressively more responsibility at work, to personal stuff like planning a move or a wedding.
People follow tutorials for code & art, but assume they can just wing their way through time- and project-management. Even small games have a lot of moving parts. Big companies also screw this up sometimes, so it's a common thing to trip up on.
@@mandisaw On that note, new devs get stuck in tutorial hell. So I would recommend doing one small tutorial encompassing the main tools of the engine and then continuing with ur own small projects, while looking up small parts that u need whenever stumped. That's how I managed to progress out of tutorials.
@lHuskyy Maybe I'm just old 😅 But I feel like "tutorial hell" is a product of shifting from reading books & docs, to cobbling together 5min tutorial blogs & videos.
All of my books on programming, art, or writing, new or old, all follow a natural progression: introducing a topic, walking you through an example, explaining pros & cons of use, then you're expected to tool around with that subtopic on your own before we go on to the next, more challenging topic.
I like tutorial videos! But they exist in a vacuum - you don't know what fundamental skills are needed to understand it, and you aren't required to riff off of it with your own thing before hopping around to whatever strikes your fancy next.
CM's courses probably are a better fit, but only if ppl are genuinely using them as a curriculum, and aren't just mirroring what he does, without doing any freestyle exercises of their own. That last bit is where the real learning happens, and is how tutorial hell is avoided.
gotta wonder within those 5 years did the dev ever think "gee this is too big, gotta narrow my scope"?
for any new devs out there, here is a reality check: game dev is rough, a long journey, and overnight successes are false illusions sold by youtube influencers who more than likely steal code and designs because logically they dont have much time to allocate to large projects.
take development with patience and plan your way to success rather than attempt to jump off a diving board and expect you dont hit concrete because you will.
He is still developing the game, he only stopped due to stress. Community encouragement made him continue.
My takeaway is more, "Early Access is a trap!" If games aren't your livelihood, taking a couple years to learn & work on a project is fine. Just understand what the opportunity costs are, and know that the longer it takes, the less likely it is to be successful.
Chris Z just did a piece on Jonas Tyroller, and they did some envelope math to compare the value-for-cost of his games. Taking a long time is a high-stakes gamble, that often doesn't pay off. Even if all you want is fun & experience, sounds like this dev ended up with a bad case of burnout - no bueno
ive gone through this a few times already, but I haven't quit, I learned I needed to think about more simple projects, and I think I got something good this time.
This is a great video, very helpful to have a semi postmortem with suggestions on how this could work. I think it would be awesome to see somewhat of an informal interview with this dev to discuss their road-map and an experienced developer such as yourself giving guidance as to how they may want to move forward. The goal not to change their vision of their dream game, but to guide them toward the best possible game for their skill set.
I have a similar story... I started and worked on an open source project for about 5 years and had a lot of people using it and most of them really appreciated what I was doing. This is a strange feeling because when people are using your project it feels successful on some level. However, after working on something that long and really seeing no way to turn it into a sustainable revenue stream I had to stop. At the time this felt like a really hard decision because I really felt like I was letting people down and throwing away 5 years of hard work (sunk cost fallacy). Due to the burnout I felt completely deflated and didn't do any game dev stuff at all for about a year after. I did end up handing the project over to one of the other contributors though, so that helped.
Here are some lessons I learned from that experience...
- sometimes quitting a project is the right move because it frees up your time to do other things.
- knowing how you're going to keep it sustainable is a must (path to revenue)
- even if you fail, you always build up a huge amount of game dev experience working on anything
- your time is the most valuable thing you have, don't waste it
i can def relate. been working on a game for about two years. i realize feature creep is taking over, and Im cutting back a lot to just finish something. thanks for sharing this.
YUP, I’ve def made this mistake before. Pretty sure over scope has snuck up on all of us.
My most recent game has been in early access for over a year and it is very stressful! It always feels like I’m “not doing enough” for the community, but as a solo dev, there’s only so much I can do. Great insight as always!
It's sad to see someone have to drop a project that they really love.
Been working on my game, which is a 3D Anime interactive Visual Novel game (something like Until Dawn for reference) using Unity and the feeling of "I must keep going and not stop" can be very stresseful sometimes, especially when you are working alone and have to deal with every single aspect of your game.
What helped me the most was actually writing down everything into a word document (everything, from how each menu must look like to the whole script of the story) and trying to find ways to reach each aspect of the game, one by one.
Start small, as they say. My first commercial project was a one-screen puzzle game and it took around 2 years to publish (I'd be able to do that again in at least half the time, but this is how one improves as a developer!)
The Re.poly developer posted a followup on September 28th about continuing development btw.
i have very strong feelings about the "early access" model that crept into the industry. ive been a dev for long before this practice took place. i always treat early access as what it is, a demo - albeit probably playable. its creates not only expectation for the customer, but also the developer and is what more often kills projects. expectation on the dev usually put onto themselves by imagining they will be the next best thing, or make lots of money - which is 99% of the time further from reality.
I love code monkey videos. Always informative, even years later. I wonder how many people that do game dev want to actually finish? Or want to do game dev, full time?
I definitely relate to this video, and the advice you give at the end I'm going to try and take for my early access game that has been in development hell on and off for 4+ years.
I am creating my third MMO solo, and I can say it's not easy! My first MMO (Eternal Quest) I spent 5 years too, I sold the project last year. My second MMO (Soul Shifters) I spent a whole year and now on my third MMO, I want to spent about 6 to 9 months. Eternal Quest gave my a considerable revenue and sometimes I regret I sold it.
heh does Mana Valley have anything close to a release date yet?
I'm currently working on a game that I honestly really hate, and I've dedicated almost half a year to it. My plan is honestly to do the same thing as that developer, to leave that game and move on to another project that I can scale even better. Thinking about the new project always exhilarates me, as it feels like a chance of redemption and an opportunity to climb the gamedev mountain again. If you are in a position just like that developer or me, remember, please don't be afraid to disappoint your players. And please don't feel bad for losing so much precious time. At least you'll have learned priceless knowledge that can be recycled for future projects, which is one of the reasons why I'm continuing the game I hate.
Project was reactivated. It is back on steam and you can purchase it.
Creating a product from scratch takes a Helluva lot of energy put into it.
wisdom pouring all over. I need to (continuously) tell myself what a "shirt project" is... the rose colored glasses makes it a bit difficult sometimes
Solo development is best for when you're just starting and you want complete creative control, but eventually your projects will grow to the point where you cannot handle the workload and need outside assistance. Many hands make light work is a saying for a good reason, and it sounds like the dev of this game could do with at least 1-2 other people so that they're not overwhelmed again.
This video arrives weirdly at a special time for me continuously restarting my civlike game and realizing i'll never have enough time and skills to do something good enough for me. Almost 10years😢
Dev's back at it again btw.
The Beatles did not make their money with a single song, but many many smaller songs. Good video, thanks. Hopefully, the developer gets past their bottle neck and releases an as is version.
@CodeMonkeyUnity you said something like this:...do more small games instead of 1 big game, you learn more. I can say THIS should be an essence of each solo dev that starts journey with gaming. I was following this since I started journey with Unity for 1 year i did 14 games on Android problem I have is not coding or animations problem is to reach audience that will notice my games:) keep it up and never back down! Cheers to You and all other DEVS!
so far i am trying only to make extremedly small things,mostly one concept stuff and i find that hard TT_TT i have still to continue learning from your awesome videos!
its not the game engine,
its not the assets,
its not the programming,
its not the level design,
its not the story,
its Yourself that will be the biggest challenge when making a complete game.
The longer the project the more difficult you will become with yourself.
Many solo devs lose their mind because the constant battle that goes on in their mind. then they hate themselves because they cant finish and feel ashamed, depressed, angry.
keep project small as possible. size does not equal fun or sales.
Big respect for being able to push a project for 5 years without seeing the fruits of their labor.
Maybe everything would have turned out easier if they didn't do it alone. Complimentary skill sets of people in a team can exponentially speed up projects.
But its hard to find people... Especially with social anxiety.
Amazing video! I was thinking about making a flappy bird-like game, and remember a video you made a while go. You made a flappy bird-like game with the Synty Icons Pack, do happen to remember the title of that video? Thanks again, and keep making great content!
I am a single developer too. From the past experience in development of the game, I have scraped 2 projects already. 1st one scraped because I don't had enough experience and the game is too big. Second one is because the game had no demand at all plus too many same type of free game out there. My third game is still in the making hopefully this time I don't had to scraped it again. My advice to anyone who want to make game is start small and get ready for the big one. What I mean is try to make small game with one type of game module like car racing and then continue on with the different type of game until you had all the code. When you are ready, move to larger game like RPG and RTS game, and then maybe at the end challenge the AAA game.
Glad you made a video about this. I think the biggest thing is dont just quit working on something. Take breaks, you dont have to set a timer for your break. It could be a month or 6 months. Just take a break before you decide to quit something because the sudden announcement of the game being canceled vs saying your overwhelmed and need a break is taken much differenlty. Luckily in this case it actually brought more people to the game since alot of people made videos on it but thats not normally goint to happen.
you can't take a break from something like this, because players are asking for updates.
@@CapeSkill yes you can. One of the most important things as a developer is maintaining trust. If you say your canceling the game you lost all trust regardless of if you come back or not people will not be sure you won't just leave again. That means new players will be more hesitant buying the game as well if they know about the developers actions. If they only take a break and keep people updated occasionally throughout the break you retain alot of trust since your staying in touch and providing some sort of reassurance that they didn't just waste their money
@@JadenAllen only thing I was thinking is that this dude has some mental issues and cannot be trusted making a product I would buy
Have an early endpoint. If the game appears popular, you can do No Man's Sky-strategy with less stress.
As someone who started making a very simple mobile game, I already had to redesign my code multiple times to make it work better and I'm happy that I did not go with my other game idea that could take months if not years and if I tried to make that game with mistakes I did before I would be probably burn out.
the sad reality of taking on too much than can handle
Been there, done that!
Fortunately, I realized that my game was collapsing under its own weight before I went too long.
I could do what you say - revisit and trim it down to make it complete.
By the way, I believe Re.Poly is BACK in development.
search vid: Re.Poly Continues Its Development 2 Days After ShutDown | 2024
Glad to see he resumed the project. Completely cancelling the whole thing and delisting it from steam seems like an insane decision to me considering how much of the core systems are done and the response it received. Imo, the guy should focus on the core systems already in place, squash the bugs, and try to implement some basic modding tools to outsource the nice to have features to his community
The way i would go about it is take a break, start something new and very small if i want to, then come back to it later.
Yes! I have tested something similar. What I like to do is always have a deliverable. So that if I want to stop, I can. When I come back I can just play the build and continue
I don't like the feeling of working on something for that long and abandon it, so I'm gonna finish what I started.
At least he must've learned a lot, so no time wasted...
This is never a problem for me. I used to quit before finishing a game. I already quit 20+ projects and finished 30+
Man, I'd def. buy this game to buy this dev.
One thing, that I reckon I think like this because Im not a game dev, but I wish devs would open source the game, so more people could help them
One of the hardest truth pills for most game devs to swallow is that it is insanely difficult to nigh impossible to make a great game alone. Form/join a team. The day you accept this truth is the day you'll know a new level of peace.
Unfortunately, it's par for the course for developers. I've abandoned a project that I spent over a year relentlessly working on for the exact same reason. The scope was way too big, and it can take a while before that hits home for a gamedev.
For me the saddest thing has been my ADHD.
I've been making games since i was 11 and i'm now 18 and I've only managed to release 3 tiny game jam games during all of that time because I've always just kept starting new projects instead of finishing existing ones. Now I might need to completely give up on my dream of game dev, since I have to actually worry about getting a job
At the moment the market is oversaturated (~ 14 000 new games/year). When I make games, I must choose between having my free time (after my daytime work as Janitor) or making a game that could make around 100 sales (200 $ from sales in 1 year = 16 $ per month).
The game was really fun in the beginning.
I put quite a few hours in during the early release.
But it seemed with every large update it moved further and further away from that fun innocent game that started out.
I hope he does not totally hate games trying to push this out anyway!
I start learning with idea to make some big game with cool mechanic lore and ect.
But now i understand that better is create small games, save all mechanic i create during that journey. And after few years with big library with working classes and functions try to make smoethink big and cool.
I spent a long time making a game and I think the prototype that I wasted like 3 months is better than the whole game that I spent 1 year and a half lol, so it's not really worthy speanding too much time in a single game if you are alone, but I guess you can build in parallel your dream game but keep doing small ones as priority.
This is very cliché, but fr the best thing a solodev can do is start with small game jams.
Its a good way to limit your creative scope while learning in increment on how to make things that are larger/complex each time.
I've wasted 43 years, been coding non stop since age 4, been serial ripped off by all of BIG TECH who think they're Robin Hoods for stealing the money I make on my video games. I've had successful games played millions of times.
I've made less than one cent per hour lifetime due to openly criminal violations of contracts... You guys all experienced one by Unity last year.
You know what? I'm not stopping making games. It's who I am. It's in my blood.
It’s like more than a year and i still makes-create nothing concrete yet.
Facing difficulties,money-work-family balance, testing some ideas to find out what’s work and what’s not working.
Kept switching between game engines to find problems-difficulties scaling in each engine. Some are easier to do this and weirdly complex to do single thing. I mainly stick to visual-scripting cause i have 0 experience in coding and it’s just friendlier approach as an artist.
Almost every single day now i keep questioning whether to continue this path or not.
If i give up,nobody will be sad for it. Only me wasting time, but not totally wasting my time.. I learned thing or two and i think it will help me building logic or problem solving in real life.
If i were to continue, i guess i keep on wasting my time and maybe if i were lucky to finish it and peoples around the world able to enjoy it then it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
But yeah, every single day i still keep doing it.. even with connecting single node or just open up the software to remind me what i must do amidst distractions and life.
same story from every one of you, make something simple. I think it should not be the advice, make something you can tackle is the advice, but we all know we ALWAYS bite off more than we can chew. That chewing costs years and you get paid zero.... difficult industry. in many ways indie games should not exist, those who make them are brave warriors, taking on a battlefield on their own. RESPECT TO INDIES.
4 years here but, almost there, i think 🤔
It does look like a real game and the dev game an effort. Not everyting makes it. But still, gotta love the effort if it's a good one.
I think it depends on person to person but i feel multiplayer is easy to implement especially nowadays because we have such amazing apis like netcode and photon fusion❤
the dev micah has reinstated and decided to continue with development
I love your channel. I love survival games. I actually have been studying and practicing programming for a year and a half. I use C++, Java and I am currently using C# with Unity. Although I have used Unreal Engine, I have not used blueprints or C++ in UE.
This is probably a really silly question, but can't the developer sell what he has created thus far to another dev company or developer? I don't to be insensitive, but it's so crazy that he spent 5 years and can't even profit from the game? I don't know the intricacies. Just thought I would ask. I just started game dev in college this past summer, so I have limited experience. Thanks for all of the content!
easy for you in hindsight to break down not what to do. but this sort of thing changes a huge game into a pitifully shallow game. I guess your idea is its better to come out than die without release. But your ideas lead to deathly reviews.
man, that's rough
My current game is 5 years of development but the first 3 years was me learning and failing over and over again until I was able to develop as a pro 😅 so technically it's 3 years of learning and 2 years of development
Some things you can learn only from big projects.
""Finishing a game is not the game being done. It's YOU being done with the game."
what a great insight on what is happening when making games,
control the stress level
3:28 i have my first pc game on early access on steam too and people already buy it so yes i feel pressure for it because i feels like i need to finish my game for their sake even if i dont feels like some days i dont wanna work on it. And this is amazing for me because unlike before that keep me going. Before this i had lots of canceled projects. But now i can not do that to myself and the people who already believed my game and buy it. Also i wanna make more games so i can not start my journey with a failure. My game is called Hell Runner. I wanted to start with relatively easy game a parkour game as my first pc game. We start making it two man team but i think like a year now i'm alone. It have downside and upside. Downside is more work for me but upside is now i learn more stuff because i'm the one who has to do everything.
I work on game like 5 years now :P But honestly I do it only in free time, from zero coding knowledges....... My mental health is good even most people just don't care about it or dislike my game :D.......I am going soon settle steam page :D.......
Solo coding a large game is very very hard. It's not hard as coding, the problem is that you have a guide line to follow but then you come up with a cool asteroid that has a casino on it and you suddenly start working on that, after your 80% done there because your stuck on something you continue coding after the timeline and then come up with another cool idea, "Aha, asteroid mine where you can land and jump out of the ship and go into the tunnels to mine and fight mobs", you start working on this and so on and so on :) This is my problem and 1 year later I am still here lol. You need to simple make a guideline, to release and work ONLY on that until done. Once your done with that then you can code add-ons, updates etc. :) I have had to take a small break from my game, mmorpg space game but always turn back to it heh.
Yes. It's important to focus on creating a minimum viable product before adding extra content. It keeps your scope small and helps refine the most core features of your game.
I made my first Steam game "Space Warden" under 1000hours which i spend over 2 years but i was doing it in my free time so if i didn't have to work i could do it for 125 days if i spend on it 8 hours a day, plus of course it was learning journey i spend researching,learning new tools,new methods,new ways of coding,refactoring code etc... that game was top-down,30+ abilities,fully destructible levels, i decided to do 2D game because will be easier but anyway doesn't matter is 2D or 3D if you doing it as hobby you spend years developing it in your free time. Now i just finished demo alien horror first person game which i did under 9 months and hopefully released in Q1/2025
The dev of "Re.Poly" works in Germany, there the taxes are higher - he makes way less money from the game to live with while making it, 5 years with almost no sales.
I can feel it 😢😢😢 i feel bad for him 😞
For sure un unrealistic scope is the biggest failure of developers, especially for newbies
"Think about a game that you can complete in 6 month"
🤔hmm, I think this game idea should only take 4 month, then I can spent 2 month on polishing.
*5 years later*
Aw crap!
If the game is any good , shop it around and see if someone will take it off your hands.
i am currently working on a isometric RPG game. it has been nearly 2 months now. Unfortunately I do not know how long it will take. Hopefully not 5 years
I saw the story a month ago from another youtuber that presented the case in a very positive light, although sad for the game's cancelation. I really don't like the title of your video... I understand that it is more clickable, but I find it very harsh to say that this solo dev wasted 5 years. I understand the points that you are trying to make, but still the wording seems harsh.
The time they spent on this game has to be considered against what they could've otherwise done & achieved in that time. Maybe that's finishing other games, maybe it's improving their personal life or career, maybe it's just saving whatever money they spent. Every decision carries an opportunity cost.
Only the dev can say if it was a waste, since we don't know their situation or their goals for the project. Maybe it was just for fun, til it wasn't 🤷♀️
hugs are not going to change the fact this guy jumped in, and found out he couldnt make the distance - purely by moving the finish line further away.
Its 5 years bro, if you're even in your 20's this is an insane amount of time
@@ZombieChicken-X Its 5 years of his life, it is not up to you, me or CodeMonkey to judge if it is wasted or not. What I point in my comment is very simple: CodeMonkey could choose better words when referring to the work of a fellow indie game dev. The video could do without clickbait title.
A game dev that made this game solo surely learnt a lot and grew in skill immensely. He published a game (even in Early Access) and sold copies of it. He managed to create a supporting community that loved his game. Characterizing all this a "waste" is just wrong.
Lastly, CodeMonkey should have added an edit with the update info of the game resuming development in the first minutes of the video. From a lot of comments is obvious that a lot of people didn't watched until the end, as expected for a youtube video, and left with the impression that the game is still canceled. Generally really disappointed with how CodeMonkey handled this.
@@shinjikun13 Or you can just brush it off because its not that fucking serious. Crybabies like you bring DEI into the industry and make us all walk on glass
I thought this was about Paradox's cancelled game Life by You... I mean if a studio that big can make that kind of miatakes, imagine a solo developer...
Wonder how people would feel knowing I spent 4 years on a free public game with maybe 1600-2400 hours into it.
Apparently its back in dev - I'm sure all the press helped
Long projects are good, if you already have made some games and have experience of basic things, and you want to learn how to scale up and really master how to optimize things. How to make it work in large setting. Even then one must have a mind setting of having stamina keep doing it, and taking it as learning experience and have good financial situation, which allows you to focus on long term learning. It is like a school you take, to master it. Even then it is not the best option financially, but it might teach you things you never learn in small games. in 1990's I had 3 year project, that I never finished. But I learned a lot of things that you don't find in basic courses. And I realized a lot about priorities and structures. Would I do it again? No... But it was not wasted years. Everything I code nowadays, comes more easily, because of that learning experience.
I need to put more points in mental health
Perhaps it is better to publish the game in early access when moral strength runs out. And to get a fresh boost of energy from the feedback of real players.
Oh don't worry, I didn't need unreasonable scope to waste 5 years. I can do that just fine on my own.
spent a decade doing exactly this and had to stop. it is on my mind daily. but one day u simply cannot continue. if u had funding sure.
Large scope games like Grand Theft Auto, open worlds, MMO's or huge RPG's are very unwise. I'm being kind with my choice of words.
The game is still for sale on Steam and still being worked on.
😮💨😭He abandoned his project he loved.😭😢 Come back.... come back....
Huh, I`m Ok! It`s just 4 years!