Watch this if you're a solo gamedev
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- Опубліковано 13 тра 2024
- Until recently, I wasn't aware how many of you were solo developers. It turns out it's a lot of people, so in this video, I give my most common pieces of advice for solo indie devs.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:36 Pro's of solo dev
02:27 Preface
03:00 Do less
04:24 Unlearn perfectionism
05:56 Don't forget marketing
07:50 Accountability Partner
09:46 Find a community
10:42 Long term consistency
12:12 Validate multiple devices
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Accountability Partner? I believe you mean, "Accountabilibuddy".
Nailed it
I had one and we both succeded with our games.
Someone that keeps you accountabilibuddiable
Accountabilly
Linguistic perfection 👌🏽
As a more art focused indie developer, my advice to all the programmer focused solo devs out there is to learn some basics about visual design. It doesn't have to take a huge amount of time, and you don't need to increase the amount of effort you put into executing your game art, but improving your understanding of what makes visuals look good is going to have a *huge* impact whether you use programmer art, free or purchased assets or commission an artist.
Thank you for your advice. Do you have some resources (books/videos) that you believe are high quality for learning basics about visual design? I can just open up some videos and look myself, but it'd be nice to hear about a starting point direction from someone with background expertise.
@@MThingz Good start is just art fundamentals, really. Basic color theory, shape language, composition.
And specific for games - readability (what should grab player's focus, and what should not distract).
That way you'll easier spot what is bringing your game's look down, and will have better understanding on how to fix it and enhance - even if it's geometric primitives fighting on a flat background :)
To all (solo) devs out there: it's the little things that count like
watching people play your game,
wishlisting it,
asking about it because they are interested
It's those short moments that keep you going, that remind you why you set out to crafting this unique experience so chin up, you can do it, and best of luck to all of you!
I can 100% vouch for not worrying about making music for your own game (unless you are already a musician)
There are SO many great composers out there that are eager to work on their first game. Go reach out to them!
niceeeee!!!
who? where? how? LOL
The amount of time you'll waste trying to make your own music, even just teaching yourself HOW to use the audio programs like Ableton, Cubase, etc... yeah, just hire someone who's already done that work. Trust me, I wasted a year of my life in school for audio...
Where u guys find ppl like that? SoundCloud?
@@lukdev any music making/VGmusic subreddit or facebook group is a good place to start looking and will have plenty of composers to choose from
I’ve been a musician since I was 6, and I can churn out 1 or 2 songs everyday without a ton of effort, so I’m lucky in that sense. I have made more music than I know what to do with.
I’ve seen tons of solo devs spend hours upon hours to learn how to make music just to have something mediocre.
So… I agree, spend your time on the things that you’re good at, it’s okay to outsource the rest
When you’re a musician who is learning gamedev. “Don’t bother with music, it will be to difficult”… 😎
That's how I feel about the coding aspect, but I have no skill in the art or music domain.
@@OldManShoutsAtClouds ya it’s such a bummer because it would be really nice to have full creative control, but to become skilled at so many things, programming, art, animation, music, is so time consuming. And honestly I’ve noticed that if you’re good at one of those things you’ll often struggle to learn some or all of the others.
@locrianmusic2733 to me, it seems it's best to focus on the things that inform the soul of your game. The story, atmosphere, and artistic identity.
@@OldHeadTriviato me its the other way around - when I make progress in one area, something clicks in other areas too.
Learning a very difficult song on a guitar suddenly made leg anatomy and "overlaps" click in my brain somehow 😅
Musician or Composer?
Two VERY different things.
I've always been told to wait to publish the steam page until you have a good chunk of eye candy and stuff since the steam algorithm pushes it more it's first couple weeks and if it has place holder stuff it's not going to get as many wishlists.
i’ve heard a few ppl saying in their first devlog that they started it for accountability, so it could be useful in that regard, plus as a form of early marketing. but yea it is extra work
I thought it was strange to say not to do this. It's a great way to get some attention on your game/early marketing and even better if you have a charming personality. I think the advice should be to LIMIT devlogs, ie one every three months or so, which most devlogs I watch follow that schedule anyway and typically they release the first one after about a year of development anyways.
@@devinkipp4344 oh yeah don’t do them weekly, better to do like once a month, or around that frequency whenever you finish something
Starting the Steam page early is so important. Glad you've emphasised that here
i am a solo dev myself and I can't tell you how valuable this video is for me.!
Thank you guys very much for making this video!
LOVE your videos, always very honest and personal - thank you!!
I currently have my steam page up and have been approved for the February next fest. This is my first commercial project and I am adding to my vertical slice every day (just finished my main menu today and am super happy with it)
My biggest piece of advise is first to start. Every UA-camr on the planet will tell you about this perfect set of circumstances and extensive skill set you need. Well those circumstances aren’t coming and either are those skills. The perfect situation will not just present itself magically, just get started.
But other than that I would say to get a good understanding of what you want to make. The games you like to play might not be the games you like making the most. Break your game idea down to the most minuscule pieces you can imagine. Things that seem simple from a player perspective can be incredibly complicated from a development standpoint ( my first game being a 2d rpg was really an eye opener).
What's your game?
Having project management software has helped me out a lot. I use Trello, so I know exactly what i’m doing each day and not having to fumble around trying to figure out what part to work on.
I've started using ChatGPT for management in a way. I will write down my progress and issues to ChatGPT, and then each morning I say "Okay, it's the next morning, can you give me a run down of everything I did yesterday, and where I left off?
Task boards are already built into project management software
I love the shoutout to the different hardware. As a Mac user myself, it's something always on my mind. I'm well aware most games are coded/optimized to run on Intel based Windows systems and I need to follow suit.
Clicked for the title, got rewarded quickly with a cute doggo. Instant like!
As a creative person with experience in a lot of creative areas already, I'm trying to get started in solo gamedev as a hobby but coding is something that I've never been able to get my head around in the past, despite a lot of trying. It's been pretty deflating over the months to see so many tutorials and hear from a lot of devs who start from a coding background, so I'm hoping to defeat that final roadblock and finally move on with some projects at last this year.
Thanks for your videos! Another solo game dev from Spain here!
Great tips! Thanks!
You may be solo dev BUT you can purchase certain defined services as you do with assets - just get someone to compose something or draw some pixel art or whatever, as a paid task.
Definitely! Yet a lot of developers go into gamedev with the "I want to spend at most $0 on my game (time not included)", and the thought of having to pay someone else, or even just for an asset packs, is unacceptable. -M
@@bitemegames this is something I'd like to see highlighted more in indie dev advise videos. To make money, you'll need to spend money.
Marketing is something people fail to see as an investment that pays itself back - instead of spending money on marketing, they'll try to do it themself, e.g. by making devlogs and spending a huge amount of crucial development time on that, or making their own tweets/tiktoks/marketing videos on youtube with really minimal visibility and then wondering why nobody saw it.
Spending $0 on your game might be a safe, low-risk option, but the expected value of the profits is also low on average.
I def wouldn't be against paying for stuff I can use and that is to my need. Besides, such cooperation can open all kinds of interesting avenues.
First, thank you for making a video like this. It was an enjoyable watch and I appreciate you sharing your perspective and the reminders on avoiding perfection thinking and not doing too much.
I actually thinking learning how to make music isn't necessarily something you'd take forever on. For example, I never composed anything but I took a class on Udemy when they had a huge sale and watched some youtube videos about things like modes and scales and went for it. It's not great by any means but it gets the job done (following the guidelines of not even thinking of "perfect" and having long term goals, I have the music done and still keeping progress on coding and art).
Same for learning a DAW. I know it enough to, a) make music and b) keep it from destroying speakers (and ears) with the volume. Do I know enough to produce an pro album? Pffft. But "do less". Same for art - like you said, don't make it "perfect", just "get the job done".
I guess I just was like "making a game myself" means art and music too, since games have and need those things, and some are even known BY those things, so I never thought of someone else doing music and art.
Awesome advice thank you.
I had to rewind the part where you said "Here in Belgium", it was so unlikely to ear that you are also game developers from Belgium. It is great to see other people trying the path of gamedev in our small country. Thank you for the good advice !
Luckily for me i can do music and art, and even voice acting myself now with the help of AI voice changing. I've already done the full AI with a russian female voice for lolz in the intro of my game! Thanks to speechify i think the site was called? Also i've captured the voices to make it even more expressive so i can re-do stuff that i don't like with my own "acting". Captured some friends voices and myself in various cartoony voices i could come up with.
Such a good time to be either a indie-dev or music/art creator, so many possibilities. AI isn't the end of the world, but it can definately help if you are on a tight budget like most of us indie-devs are!
Man this videos are just spot on
Solo dev for me is a path of choice and necessity. Learning my pipeline now and figuring out where I fit.
Great advice!
I'm a 3d artist, and even though I love making pretty stuff and I'm trying to make the visuals a "selling point" for the games I work on, I still use marketplace assets a lot of the time on the more generic assets. Like vegetation which is very tedious to create and takes a lot of time.
Do you do modular asset creation for larger models (ie kit bash assembly for buildings)
@@Seancstudiogames Yeah most of the time, usually when I want something that repeats a lot and get reusability out of it I go the modular route :)
A solo dev is just someone that owns and decides the game all by themself, but can still pay someone to create or just purchase any asset they need. So in reality it's a win win, as long as you're not stubborn and willing to just pay for what you can't do yourself.
They say 'You go faster by yourself, but go farther in a team'.
Maybe true, but for most indie games scope, I think it's better to work fast than go 'far' in scope and details and publish more.
But I do jam with other devs, and that fills my 'social' requirements just as well, and I can do my solo work exactly the way I want without the downsides of being in a team (time spent on communication, design compromises, code style and workflow, etc.)
The doggo did cheer me up, thanks :)
I really love this advice because it's advice I would give based on my own experience that slowed my progress in game dev. And it's not "make small crappy games" which is advice I hear ad nauseum. And when I've tried to adhere to that, I can't motivate myself to learn because I'm working on games I don't care about.
So all of this. Great advice, but what I'd add to it is: learn what motivates you to learn. If it's making a bigger game, do it, but understand that it will be broken. It will take longer. You will have to redo systems as you learn more. And so learning how not to be a perfectionist is even more important because you have to understand where your knowledge limits lie and come back when you understand what is wrong.
It should also be of note that the only real valuable thing about releasing small games first that you can't get from starting bigger is the risiduals. Even if it doesn't sell well, the money you get out of a smaller game helps fund bigger games. That's the only real reason I've found releasing smaller games to be smarter.
Great advice for me.🍻
Thank you 👍🎉
I used to make beats before game dev so I'll be creating my own music.
What I have always wondered was when was the right time to create a Steam page. After watching this video I feel like now is the right time.
Hey me too! I love creating stuff, doesn’t matter the medium. I’m kind of happy about that because if I do good with it in the future I won’t have to hire a composer
i consider myself hobbyist atm, the section on accountability is important for me (even if its just family) cuz they wanna see what i work on. I'll get to makin games for others at some point, right now its about learning process of everything for me ;)
My accountability partner is straight up fear.
Not a fear of failing. A fear of how I'll feel if I don't try to reach my full potential.
Well, I'm a solo game dev and I watched the video. Don't really know what to say because I don't really know how to say it.
Almost done with a very simple game I'm making to learn Godot, though I'm stuck since the last thing I need to add is some sort of music so the game isn't just hit sounds.
Also need to figure out how to process the game for use beyond the build tool.
I'm working on a surrealist puzzle/horror RPG Maker game. Nothing mold-breaking, but it's something I'm passionate about and at least I know that there's already a dedicated fanbase for this style game
I'm a solodev, I'm more on art environment and not a programmer so I can't just download some codes and make my game so I still need to study basic programming, which seems to me to do more.
What is helping me, is breaking down each goal into smaller bits. Then lead with my strengths. I am a 3D artist and animator. So I can make assests very quickly, I understand movement, and typology. So I lead with goals that are more visual based, then seek help and support with things I am not so good at; you will be surprise at what people can teach or do for you.
Making the UA-cam channel IS part of the marketing. It's not a waste of time/energy if you keep the videos lean.
The Steam page is NOT "marketing." It's a landing page for distribution.
Yeah this was horrible advice. This guy has 1 game with only 15 reviews 4 months after launch, and is telling newbies to spend 100$ to set up placeholder steam pages as a form of marketing, while shooting down the idea of having a social media presence. Like wtf this advice is gonna damage indies lol
Totally. Your game is a product, and game development is a business. Beyond the steam page 'landing page', you need an actual landing page that you can drive traffic to as well. Then from that page you drive customers to steam or epic or wherever. Google ads, facebook/instagram ads, twitter ads, social posts, blog posts, video/youtube posts, reaching out to streamers and game play video creators, and any other tasks that can increase your reach consistently.
There needs to be massive daily action to drive traffic to your website and then the purchase (steam/epic/etc) pages.
That said, optimizing your steam/epic pages is important too, but nothing compared to marketing and advertising.
I found out its important to work within your limits... Im a solo dev with a Core i3 5500 intel Graphics
Can i make PC games... Yes
Will they be visually stunning as I intend... No
So i settled for mobile platform developing. My games look appealing
I want one day a tip on how to get 3D models, man. that's hard, "things" aren't difficult for me, but Organic like Humans and Animals, man, as a Programmer, that's harsh.
Yeah having the same thing 😢
Yeah, I would like to actually hire someone to make twitter posts about my game, so that I would not had to see that site.
Working on a steam page now after seeing this
i like the idea of accountability buddy
i am working on a voxel rpg for ... along time 😅😂
4:40 dwarf fortress is probably ironically the worst example for unlearning perfectionism because it's like the one only time when the insane development time actually works towards its benefit
A steam page costs a hundred dollars. Unless you know, on pain of death, that you are going to finish your game having a steam page makes zero sense.
I don't make a Steam page until I have at least a Minimum Viable Product. I hire out animations and character modeling and music, to friends or Fiverr. I try to create at least 50% to 75% of the content myself, I am a decent 3D modeler, audio, and texture guy. I always have at least five computers of varying hardware including the Steam Hardware Survey's most common hardware. The part that I always have the worst time with is localization.
I was solo up until a few days before that poll lol
I fall into this trap every time. I start developing a game, then I try to make everything perfect with great graphics and great optimization and it takes so much time I lose interest, then I drop project and start working on the new idea.
Where is your shirt from / which brand is it? It looks suprisingly nice for a normal white shirt.
I bought them at H&M Japan, they are their 100% cotton, white tshirts. (I guess they also sell them in other countries, size small) I just have 7 of them so I can cycle them out like a psychopath, and I can wear an ironed one each day.
Not a questions I ever expected but glad you like it I guess 😂 -M
Learning that it's okay to focus primarily on gamedev and you don't have to go super hard on marketing and social interaction: Great, that's a weight off my shoulders and I've been following a good practice already
Learning that I have to unlearn my perfectionism: ;_;
I'd like a video on how to find other devs to join you. (writing this at the start of the video so if you explain this later in the video forgive me lol)
It's not a fair assessment that solo devs are just working solo because "they can't find somebody to collaborate with". I am a software engineer and a game developer and I choose to build saas products and games by myself because I prefer working alone.
I know many other devs like myself that could work with others, but they choose not to.
There are many reasons to want to work as a solo entrepreneur, but for me it's having complete control over what projects I'm going to work on, control over the details of those projects, and not sharing profits with people who don't work nearly as hard as I do.
Plus, with generative AI as powerful as it is, there is no reason to expand your team beyond yourself. Coding, graphic design, image generation, project planning, idea generation, marketing materials, social media and blog content, etc. It's a team at your fingertips and you have total control.
I knew that last one was a problem. I review a bunch of games, and I've been pointing this out lately when people say their game is well tested. I'm like, you can't test on the machine you made the game on and say it's been tested.
is it better to have a steam page up quicker with no trailer, or wait until there's a trailer?
Get it up with just 5 screenshots, add the trailer later on. Steam will keep pushing the game to players if they think it's a match, so if they don't wishlist straight away, they most likely will later if you keep updating the page throughout developement! -M
Thanks for the reply! I think i'll do that@@bitemegames
do you recommend making custom game engine? After seeing the unity drama, it make me feel like having a personal game engine is much more better
Do you want to spend most of your time making an engine or making a game?
You don't make a game engine in a weekend
It could be worth it if you have time. The best part about an engine is that you can change anything. Just be warned that for a while it will be worse than another engine. If your afraid of price changes switch to Godot. With Godot you can always just not update if they make anything paid which I highly doubt will happen. Gadot is also costumizable because it's open source.
Using software/components/libraries/technology is not a "should i"-question.
The question is where do you draw the line.
For example:
You can make your own engine, but still use a graphics/audio/physics library. Or you can write that one as well.
Maybe you don't want to be dependent on frameworks like a java runtime or .Net, so you can (re)write those as well.
Or you do want to write as little of you own components as possible and use as many tools from the asset store to purposefully avoid reinventing the wheel. There's always a tradeoff between dependency and the amount of work you need to do.
Also, writing stuff yourself does not mean it's better. By using proven software, you also inherit it's maturity. It's not much of a thing any more, but "Not invented here (NIH)" was a known syndrome in software dev meaning that companies rather used their own (often bad) versions of stuff instead of a standard.
You could also fork an open source project like Godot and many others.
Assuming you're smart enough, you could build quite a lot yourself. What's not gonna happen is that you build an engine on par with Unity AND a great game on it in the same time you would if you just used Unity.
So back to the question: Where do you want to draw the line? What do you want to do?
Do you want to learn internals and engine dev? Build one.
Do you want to build a game? Use one.
Do you want to design levels to work as a level designer? Maybe don't even use an engine but built the portfolio by modding or mapping in an already complete game.
Use a FOSS engine like Godot if you don't trust proprietary engines. Don't bother making an engine until you've made enough games that you KNOW it won't be a waste of time to learn.
I actually did build my own engine for my game. Its not the time sync everyone thinks it is mainly because you don't build the engine before you make the game. You build it while you are making your game. For instance, my level editor didn't support moving platforms at the start because I didn't plan on having them at the time. When I needed it, I added it then.
I couldn't catch the name of the person who gave the advise. Chris Kovski? Could someone pls help me out here?
Chris Zukowski, howtomarketagame.com/ -M
First! Hahaha always wanted to be the first haha yayay!
I think most of us simply don't have the resources to work with others. We don't know others also working, we don't work in the industry, and we aren't rich. We work regular 9-5 careers, and only have time after that and family time to work on games.
Hi. What are the books behind you? :)
3:34 tryna take out the competition not happening lil bro
2:55 Why Linus face?
I draw mini comics for fun and I tend to not draw for ME I I draw for the person I was when I first started it makes me illustrator instead of a fine artist.
I am late to the party, but I am an artist and musician dev with technical skills, fully committed and looking for a team to make great art in 2024 - lets do this! 🙌
That's a one man powerhouse! Let's get it! -M
I'd be interested, what's the project?
Accountability partner has a big downside, especially you’re working in the same field, in this case game development. If your game becomes successful, a whole can of worms is opened on copyrights, and such.
Great tips but as mainly 3D artist this "Most of you are programmers" makes me always sad 😢😢😢 I'd like to hear tips for someone not good at programming 😮
Also Im super perfectionist and it really hurts my projects
Currently learning to make basic AI in Unreal 5 blueprints, it works quite well but im still super bad
I'm the only one in the house with an Azerty keyboard (cause I was raised that way) and I hate typing on their Quarty keyboard when needed, it suddenly feels I can't type at all. 😡 Merde!
> Quarty
Confirmed azerty user
"Don't do youtube" - Whoooppssiiieeesssss
an azerty friend !
Sorry, I have been converted already. Got new qwerty keycaps from William for Christmas...
-T
@@bitemegames *sad french noises*
@@TheGobou77 😂
Only 131 Solo dev, hmm
...1 hour day... hahaha.. *laughs in tried but excited all day dev mode*
Music skills = check
Game dev skills = not check
Instructions unclear started making indie mmo with self made code and assets
99% of games hardcode the WASD controls and it’s so annoying as a AZERTY user 😭Even AAA games can’t get it right
Good point, will add keybinds for WASD for my personal project! :D
So don’t do YT but do try to get wish lists… BOI!
And if you look at his game on steam, it has very few reviews, and of those few, multiple say they came from youtube, completely undermining his own advice. Clearly youtube makes a difference lol, not sure why he's pretending it's not part of the marketing.
This is the wrong advice! I can see how your game flopped with no marketing other than a Steam Page. Good luck on your next game with this advice!
Yup, tells us not to do youtube, and then goes on to say don't forget to do marketing. Stopped watching after that, not sure I wanna hear this guy out.
Fifth like, second comment yeah!
SIMPLE FULL GUIDE FOR SOLO GAME DEV
Theres 2 types of it
1. Focus making only 1 high quality AAA game (but mostly you gonna spend atleast 5/10 years and doesnt necessary your game will hit its huge risk but high reward).
2. If you dont want to take that risk follow guide below >
- JUST SHOW UP AND FINISH YOUR GAME ASAP - A PLAYABLE PROTOTYPE IS ENOUGH TO SHOW YOUR IDEA TO PUBLISHER IF ALL PUBLISHER REJECTED THE IDEA.. GO MAKING ANOTHER MULTIPLE ONE UNTILL SUCCEED.., its not efficient to waste your whole life finishing a game to beat AAA game studio that have high marketing/production budget and alots of manpower. Your biggest disadvantage is time and money. But if you just show up and find publisher you will get that advantage too to hire someone else for helping the game done faster and better.
- Unless you are already rich, have huge fans and have high skills ...most likely you wouldn't... you dont need to care about publisher and just focus on the types 1 section..what are you doing here on types 2 section.
To Simplify
- MAKE MULTIPLE SIMPLE PLAYABLE 1 LEVEL GAME WITHIN FEW MONTHS AND FIND THE PUBLISHER...YOU CANT SUCCEED ALONE! GET THE RESOURCES FIRST AND MAKING THE HIGH QUALITY GAME THAT YOU WANT. Done
Acountabilabuddy!