Game Over: How We Flopped Hard Trying to Make a Game in Just 90 Days | 3 Key Takeaways
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
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We attempted to create a full commercial game in just 90 days. But here's the twist - we failed, and we're not afraid to admit it!
Learn from our failures as we share the three crucial lessons we learned from the challenges we faced.
Failure is just another stepping stone toward success.
We are more determined than ever to deliver a game that we're proud of, despite this set back, so come check out what went wrong and how we plan to move forward with our upcoming Steam release -- Samurado.
If you're new to our channel, we're Brandon & Nikki from Sasquatch B Studios. We sold our house to start our game studio, and work full time on building our business and making our games, Veil of Maia & Samurado.
Wishlist our Games:
Wishlist Samurado on Steam! - store.steampowered.com/app/23...
Wishlist Veil of Maia! - store.steampowered.com/app/19...
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#motivation #indiegame #gamedevelopment - Ігри
On the one hand, I fully understand everything you said here, 90 days is a short amount of time and trying to make a game while keeping a channel going is really difficult. I know, I'm going through the exact same thing right now.
However on the other hand I would say launching a complete game is much more beneficial than trying to make a great game, especially when it's your first game. Going through the entire process will teach you much more than trying to make a great game on the first try.
Like you said you could cut down the feature set to be able to achieve something you could produce in 90 days, personally I believe that would be the better approach rather than taking more and more time on this side project, especially since the next Steam Festival is several months away. Are you going to take this project from 90 days to 180 days? That's a pretty huge difference, suddenly it's no longer a quick side project but rather a full blown regular project.
Could you really not polish what you have right now into a playable state in 14 days? Also remember the Festival is not the release, it's extremely important yes but the full release with all the content only comes later. Personally I'm planning to launch my game demo in this next festival (just a demo, will not have all the full game content) and I'm working super hard to get a working build by the 19th but the final polished release will only happen at the very end of July.
I 100% agree that crunching and sacrificing sleep is a terrible thing, I would say you should never ever ever sacrifice sleep, sleep is absolutely crucial for recovery. Sometimes at the end of projects I do end up having to crunch for a bit and work 14 hour days but no matter what happens I never ever sacrifice sleep, if I do then I know I will be completely unable to work the next day so it's simply not worth it.
Sidenote: Heh I also have the exact same problem with my to-do list, I also make a daily to-do every single day as soon as I wake up and I also regularly only manage to do about 50% of my tasks, it's frustrating but I've learned to accept that pretty much everything will always take longer than you expect.
Best of luck with the project!
Oh god. Glad I'm not the only one with the to-do list issue.
I used to feel so bad about not finishing what I set up to. I even stopped doing them from time to time.
But I do always come back to making daily to-dos since they are useful. I think I'm on the right track already, but just gotta somehow accept that it's impossible to meet my expectations, especially when I tend to be perfectionistic.
I second this.
@sasquatchbgames I'm a Sr. full-stack dev and tech lead with 15+ years of experience. I'm rooting for you, but I advice you to treat your side project as a *side* project. Don't be too hung up on brand. As it is you are showing your inability to set realistic goals and letting your ego get to you. You can't keep blaming it on inexperience if you are too much of a perfectionist to to finish a *side* projects. It's your ego that's in charge. You'll forever be inexperienced with that attitude. You need serious paradigm shift or you'll just burn through your savings and get into debt. Believe me, I been there. Take what @CodeMonkeyUnity had to say seriously. Release a demo at least. You may not be realising this, but now you created a new problem for yourself with your ego, you no longer have one but two fleshed-out games to work on. Get a ego check and set realistic goals. *You are an indie dev, not a AAA studio.* You already had your plate full with one game. You don't need more than 60 days for a side project. So, 90 days was generous. *The problem is, you didn't treat it as a side project.*
@@babelette I also completely agree with both of you but if they expect any income from this game and they are still benefiting a lot from this small journey. than sure why not extend it to make it into their real first game. ( I.e. this is not a side project anymore )
For example if they still feel excited they can extend the development with 1 more month. But they will wrap up the project with what they have if they feel they are wasting their time and ready to move back to the real main project or another profitable side project.
To be honest, In all cases they will finish this game. So they are doing it right. Not too much not too little. Realistic scope and goal.
@@lDeath489 I agree with everyone here so far. I'm writing this 8 months (over 240 days) after the above video came out and their 90 day max side project is still not done, nor is the main project. Something isn't working and it seems like it's the perfectionist approach to development.
I think it was Thomas Brush video (and probably a couple others) that said your first main focus should be a demo. A very small, 15 minute gameplay or single level that you create at a very polished level. Which means you forget about the rest of your game, just make a demo. Once you've got a very small/tiny part of your game polished to release quality, only THEN do you think about adding in the rest of the game. You don't even need to have all the gameplay features available in the demo.
I really think that's the issue here, seems like Sasquatch is trying to build the entire 100% of the game and fully polished before considering showing it off or releasing it. Also, for the side project, that doesn't need nearly as much polish..it's a side project. And your studio has ZERO releases, so it's not like you have a reputation to protect here. Make a small game with bad graphics that has a fun game loop...then release it. It doesn't need to be super detailed. You're not making a $60 AAA game. Heck, you probably aren't even making a $10 game for the side project. You just need to release something that's done, adding a larger amount of gameplay and features can come with later games.
In fact I'd say put the main game on hold and make 2 or 3 MUCH MUCH smaller (in scope and scale) games that release on steam first. This'll give you an idea of what people like about your games and what they don't, then you can make your bigger game and adjust to what the gamers find fun about your games. Plus those 2 or 3 games might bring in a bit of income.
@@slandshark Your points are 100% Valid.
But maybe they found a way to make games without worrying financially for a certain length of time. For example, i'm not married and now jobless but i'm willing to sacrifice a year without any funds or salary and a gap in my CV. i'm doing a certificate course that is not even related to my cv. Sometimes unique situations happen. But in general what you said is the healthy decisions in such situations. I'm glad that you have this logic, eventually you can be a great leader since you capable of learning what decision to make in sensitive situations. I Always have to look for my own mistakes and weakness.
I'm a Sr. full-stack dev and tech lead with 15+ years of experience. I'm rooting for you, but I advice you to treat your side project as a *side* project. Don't be too hung up on brand. As it is you are showing your inability to set realistic goals and letting your ego get to you. You can't keep blaming it on inexperience if you are too much of a perfectionist to to finish a *side* projects. It's your ego that's in charge. You'll forever be inexperienced with that attitude. You need serious paradigm shift or you'll just burn through your savings and get into debt. Believe me, I been there. Take what @CodeMonkeyUnity had to say seriously. Release a demo at least. You may not be realising this, but now you created a new problem for yourself with your ego, you no longer have one but two fleshed-out games to work on. Get a ego check and set realistic goals. *You are an indie dev, not a AAA studio.* You already had your plate full with one game. You don't need more than 60 days for a side project. So, 90 days was generous. *The problem is, you didn't treat it as a side project.*
That's golden advice! Thank's a lot.
Yo this reply helped me out and I didn't even know I needed help at the time.
I need to balance what I am doing so I can do one thing at a time until it is finished.
Sleep: How many times have I woken up, after finally getting a really good sleep, and then blazed through a bunch of barriers that were holding me back for days or even weeks? "Omigosh, I can't believe I was stuck on that stupid problem for so long!" Sleep is sacred.
As other experienced devs have already mentioned, sacrifice whatever features you can in order to release your mini project as soon as possible. Then get back to your main project. Best of luck!
I just want to say "Thank you" for being so open about your progress. We all aspire to "be something". We all have a dream and a goal in mind. While it is truely essential to "work hard", it is undoubtedly necessary to be open and self-critical about your own failures on the road to achieve your goal.
It is kinda "easy" to add features. But it is "difficult" to decide whether this feature is absolutely necessary or whether I have to delete an exisiting feature to make a game playable in the given time. I think the last decision whether you have to delete a feature is the most brutal thing. Programming games doesn't only sacrifice social life and time, but also features and cool ideas that will never be part of the game due to time restrictions.
Most respectfully and in my humble opinion, solo developers should just focus on their main project. A Metroidvania (like the one you're working on) is already complex and great in scope. And so it requires every bit of energy, resources and time the developer can afford to spend. There's simply so much to do!
Granted, starting a side project feels fun and refreshing, but for a solo developer, it is a drain on his already limited energy/resources/time. It would also be a distraction that reduces the momentum of the main project.
A failed side project is a disaster. Sure, it's easy for a solo developer to claim that they "learned" this or that from it, but that's an after the fact assessment. If all the effort and time that went into a side project had been directed towards the main project, it would have advanced a few steps closer to completion and as a bonus, the developer would have learned stuff along the way.
My point is that learning is cool, but is not as important as finishing and delivering what one originally intended to create. A tangible final product that is ready to be sold (the game) will always outweigh abstractions like "learning lessons" and "gaining experiences".
Finishing a project will lead to lessons learned and experiences gained. But learning lessons and gaining experiences will not lead to a finished project.
Sorry to hear that about Samurado but at the same time it is amazing to see that you keep that positive!
Thank you for sharing this experience with us...I especially have to learn that thing with "don't push yourself so hard"
Sasquatch B Your channel is very inspiring. I almost gave up on my game after working on it for 2 years. Now I am about to finally release it on steam !
I remember when we were planning projects and tasks in my old company, we said you should multiply the time estimate by Pi, even if you had already taken into account that you should multiply the estimate by Pi. That ended up being in the general vicinity of reality.
Haha I completely agree! When I set my deadlines, I take into account that it's going to take about 3x as long to do the task then what I think it will actually take and it still always takes way longer!
Doesn't it depend on the experience? Doesn't experience and know-how shorten the time? Or is this approach 'multiply any estimated time by pi' an universal approach?
@@TheSoprah In theory, yes. But the complexity of the tasks you are given and take on increases with your experience... :)
@@TheArghnono I see. Thanks for the explanation!
Lol, this seems solid
Knowing your limitations allows you to put your efforts where they make the most impact.
If you can only have one Steam Next Fest per game, and you want Samurado to be in a better state so that it can actually be a good commercial release, then you're making a difficult but good call.
As always, you're showing a realistic perspective of what indie game dev is like, without trying to make yourself seem "above" normal developers' struggles, so I think you deserve respect for this decision!
Don't get discouraged by this, and keep up all the good work you both do!
At least your youtube grows really nice, the time and energy spent is paying off big time!
I'm 35 years old myself, just started learning how to code and work in Unity as well as became the father of twins a few months back. So yeah, I can relate. Subscribed!
you make an interesting point about failure, I'm learning to code, i was just now making some scripts for unity and i didn't see some code errors as small failures, just that i haven`t finished it yet. maybe because they were small, maybe because i didn`t want to accept that i was making mistakes.
I`m going to try to change my view to that the daily grind is to make mistakes until i get it right.
I'm 39 soon and yea the sleep is a big thing, definitely helpful to get into a routine with it.
Hi,
I use a "Next Action List" up front this takes some time to put together. But it works like this. Forget the high level, write down everything relevant to your goal. Yes, literally everything, not doing so defeats the point. Why? Two reasons. First, time doesn't exist, because we made it up. As such the human brain is horrible at tracking & estimating time.
Reason two, By writing everything down, you can group your tasks. So lets say you got a bunch of two minute tasks. Well because you actually wrote them down. Whenever you got a few spare minutes, check the list and tick off a two minute task. More to the point you also know what your other tasks are. You can then figure out what takes a few hrs or days vs tasks you know will take weeks or more.
The method is used by loads of people. It comes from the book Getting things Done. In an case..
Take care & have a good one
I also took the step to quit my job to work full-time on my dream project. I learn more and more that it most probably will be nowhere the success I hoped for (I can tell more details why I believe that if anyone's interested). I still won't consider the two+ years it will have taken me in the end as wasted, but I probably could have used them better. Making games can be exciting, but it's very time consuming and there are so many rich experiences out there that do not take place in front of a screen. So depending on how good/bad the game actually does in the end, maybe a little bit of regret. Life time is valueable. HOWEVER, I am risking nowhere near as much as you do. There is no danger of losing my house and I have no family to support. So there is faaar less pressure and I am thankful for that.
2:59
:O I just realised I wasn't subscribed :O
no wonder I missed the memo about this project :( ... got some catching up to watch XD
Sometimes I think it's good for me to give myself lofty long-term goals even if I don't manage to meet them. It pushes me to try and meet them but knowing full well if I don't then I tried my best to do that best that I can. That being said...I am way way behind with my current game lol. Best of luck to you and your wife going forward with the project!
Talking about upgrades, I actually don't really implement upgrades in my game, I gave buffs from the start of the game, and it will be active until you lose the game. I took the inspiration from the game called Otherworld Legends, the bar system is just so amazing!
keep up the good work
"i'm 35 i'm an old man".
Haha. I'm 38 and i still work during the night on my game after i work on my animation industry stuff.
I wish i was 35 to get mor HP points. You never stop. Hell I hope i will be able to do crazy stuff when i will be 70s (and i know artists that can do!).
Hey, I often watch your videos and appreciate your hard work for your channel and community. That kind of vlog about game dev is cool but my suggestion is showing the game you work on is better for building a bigger audience and wriggling out from others. As much as I saw, people who are already success on this industry get better results from this kind of video. Maybe you can think about showing your game with a good presentation so it can give you better results in marketing and selling your game when you guys release it. Still, good work!
A certain recently released AAA game ( and 1 a few months ago that got a studio shut down! ) shows that the current game standards for release are pretty low. If you have a playable build, kick it out the door as a Steam playtest. Patch it as you polish it. My current game is not good, but it's good enough to kick out the door for the next Steam Next Fest.
Have you tried to use trello, jira or any other project management solutions? As in either kanban or agile things?
You could even task manage in Excel but personally I prefer to just use trello and kanban for game stuff.
Actually usually game projects take 3 times the expectation, that's the data i've gathered arround
May I ask why exactly you think you failed? From the few seconds of gameplay you showed you seemed to have the basic necessary for a fun demo of your genre, enemies, abilities, and upgrades. If you can push this week for just making more content I think it will fit nicely on next fest.
I say this because I recently played Disfigure: Prologue on steam, which is a nice demo of a bullet heaven too and I think they will be on next fest as well, and they pretty much have 6 very similar weapons + about 10-15 upgrades, and a single level with the same enemies, its not much content but its fun and they got 250 followers on steamDB just because of that, which I think is quite good.
The 1.5x thing isn't a novel idea that somebody mentioned, that's a well established industry practice, even in fortune 100 companies, and doesn't just apply to games, it applies to all SW. Was taught almost 20 years ago when I was in college. And in my industry experience, when planning on a long time table, it's a good starting point, but features will likely get cut because of needs changes & timeline will also slip. Shit very rarely goes FASTER than planned. And you mix that with people going on vacation and what-not, it's kind of minimum. Shit slips all on its own. Scope creep isn't as much of a problem as people often claim. It's easy to avoid if you have decent PM's. Any reasonable VP will allow for an extension planned around new additions and is reasonable. You can usually push back enough against scope creep that it's not a major issue.
Unfortunately sometimes the VP level and just below hates the 1.5x planning practice, especially if your time table is a year, but that schedule struggle is always there. You can never have too much time, unfortunately.
And yea, pulling all nighters and stuff works if you have a demo or showcase the next day, it doesn't work for just getting items off the to-do list. The written list is a good idea, if you want to kick that up a notch assign each item to a time block, it'll keep you from being in the position where out of 5 items, 4 get ignored because you focused on 1 all day.
When covid hit, a hardcore introvert like me started to feel bored, so I picked up game development to keep myself busy. But I failed to continue because I couldn't accept the fact that I suck. It took 3 years of on and off game making to realize that it is okay to suck, and currently making tiny games regularly to teach myself to finish projects.
Every failure makes us stronger. I am not mad that I didn't make any progress in these 3 years, rather I am grateful that I learned the truth.
It takes ten years to learn to make games, not three unless you're a prodigy. You don't suck at making games, you're just not willing to put more time and effort.
@@gijane2cantwaittoseeyou203 I agree, that's one way to put it.
Could you have used playmaker to speed up the development process?
It was probably a bad idea to make a rogue-like game for this 90 day challenge, since those take a long time to make and properly balance.
I chose a roguelike as my first attempt at making a game bc it's the only kind of game I play 🤣. It is very difficult to balance, yes.
I'm currently working on my first game as well and thought it was a good idea to make a roguelike...I very quickly changed and simplified the idea 😂
Here's an opinion from the bleachers, for whatever it may or may not be worth, about those niggling details that will inevitably trip you up: You can't avoid them, you can't predict them, you can't go around, over or under them, you have to go through them. This is why some choose to use a "systems driven approach" to content development. Envision the game from start to finish. Then add a system, test it it out, polish it, then do not immediately begin using it to produce content. Instead, rinse and repeat until you have every system you will need to make the game you've envisioned. Then use those systems to make your content.
This is obviously not a new idea, but it's a notion that has been pinging around in the collective consciousness lately. Your early artwork should be placeholders. That'll let Nikki do more parenting and you do more coding until those systems are all ready for prime time.
Don't believe me? Consider this: The Cherno worked on his systems for between 1 and two years. Then he used them to make a little game in about an hour.
Here's is what your systems are saying: "Right now, you're suffering under an enormous weight. We provide.. leverage."
Ur great 💯💯🔥
You should try timeboxing instead of todo lists.
Do don't say fail say we will learn something here.
this is like the next stage of youtube game dev backpacking. no longer do you have to vicariously watch successful game devs and pretend you are part of it now you can vicariously experience a failing game dev!
last thing we need is more bad games take the time to make good games....
Fun fact of game dev when you plan to make a game in a range of time, you would used 2 times of the time.
"If you watch this channel for long enough you will build up quite the cringe resistance" 🤣
You're a well loved guy, Brandon. You're ratios may not be great at the moment, but take heart - it isn't for no reason that your wife believes. We all also do (as my East Indian compatriots might say).
What happened? 4 months later, just very raw screenshots, not even a trailer on Steam. Are you okay, man?
I liked this video, but I want you to understand, this is not in the sense that I am happy for your failure, but simply to support the video and start the UA-cam algorithm to promote the video
Rule number 1: sleep.
Thanks for the transperancy in the video. Better to have a good complete game than a rushed mess at the risk of your own health
Please take no offense in what I have to say.
Didn't you start this side project in a somewhat desperate attempt to generate some income? Now it's delayed that much? I hope you don't plan to start a side-side project now?
Maybe you could ditch all your other projects (UA-cam mainly) for a few weeks to get this damn thing out :)
You can finish a game in 90 days but you need to scope your project for that, I think you added too much given the time you have. I usually start the plan ahead and trim a lot, I release one game a month and I know it is very hard to finish every month one. Get to know how much you can do and try to re-use what you used and improve it for the next one, that way you improve your systems every month. Re-use and recycle code as much as you can.
Go canadian game devs!!!!
That sucks, but at least you're honest, unlike some fakers out there
I told you not to make this game. I told you that you were violating your own advice and principles.
Unfortunately, my cringe resistance isn't sufficient yet to handle that amount of pointless stock videos. I'm really interested in the topic and you seem to have interesting things to tell, but I usually have to stop watching your videos at less then 50%.
You'll get there one day... in the meantime, more video for me!
Your wife is thinking about a divorce.
First
35 old lol stay thirsty my friend.
You picked the wrong genre.
First