My Indie Game is a Complete Disaster | Devlog
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
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► Description
Chapters :
00:00 - intro
00:23 - everything I did wrong when starting my indie game dev journey
04:10 - some things I did right when starting my indie game dev journey
07:18 - conclusion
Indie game devlogs on UA-cam usually cover the positive or cool aspects of game development process. I decided, I wanted to highlight some of the less glamorious side of the whole game dev and devlog world.
Now game development is very hard. And if you are starting to learn game development, that probably does not sound super suprising. In this video, I go through all of the mistakes I made when trying to make very first indie game. I fell into a lot of common pitfalls that indie game devs do, so I try to highlight those problems so you don't have to!
I also feel like I did some things right when it came to my indie game dev journey. Learning indie game development is filled with ups and downs so its important to not only recognize the game dev mistakes I made, but also some of the game dev successes!
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d i s c l a i m e r
I do not claim to own any or all of the pictures/footage that may be shown in this video.
All of my opinions are entirely my own and do not represent any company I work for or am affiliated with.
Any financial topics discussed are not financial advice.
Channel produced by Rainy Sunday LLC.
Gonna do a 30k subscriber QnA, comment any questions you have below!
Have you made some game development goals? if so then can you list some of your short and long term goals? As part of this question I am curious if you are also planning a business around this?
Is doing Gamedev and UA-cam at the same a good idea to get viewers? You mentioned it takes a lot of time, but that time gets a few more people to notice your project, right?
Are there any lessons you've learned in your career as a software developer (or as a computer science student) that have carried over into your game dev projects?
Enjoyed this video, related to the part at the end of not quitting your day job to do game dev full time. I actually worked hard to find a day job with a lot of down time for me to be able to program while on the clock and kill two birds with one stone.
Good luck with your game!
What kind of job lets you do that?
Thanks and good luck!
Have any tips on finding a job like this?
Have you experimented with paper prototyping? I finally gave it a chance and it really saved me a lot of time in my video game work. If you're making a deck builder, you can learn a lot by making paper cards and playing it as a board game (as much as is possible).
I haven’t tried that yet, but that’s a great suggestion!
@@ByteOfMichael would make for a great video, I think!
I have an opinion of the 'no 0 days' thing. I used to work on my first proper game project way too much. 10+ hours a day and at most I would take saturday off, but I just couldn't keep away from the project for two days in a row. This led to me getting less effective little by little and eventually having to take a whole week off to recharge. Rinse and repeat. I've found a much better rule to be '2 days off each week, but not one after the other' usually for me it's saturday and wednesday. That way I don't get too overworked (or at least get less so), don't need to stop myself from working when I actually want to and 1 day isn't long enough to lose momentum (at least for me). I still sometimes skip an off day if I feel like I haven't worked enough lately, but it's always a bad idea and leads to a cycle of ineffectiveness and skipping rest days.
I agree with this. As soon as I heard "no 0 days" I got huge red flags. You need to take a day or two off. It's not always about x lines of code written and tasks completed, it is also about thinking and planning and taking your game to the right direction. You can work hundreds of hours and still fail or go nowhere purely because of wrong direction, which of course tends to happen when you are overworked and do not allow yourself some chill time to reflect.
This is a fairly old comment but I just wanted to throw in that it is way different to spend 10+ hours a day every day working on a project then it is sitting down and putting an hour into it so that you've accomplished something. The bigger point is not that you should endlessly work on the project to the point of burn out but to instead make small efforts towards the project on days where you don't necessarily feel like doing much. Either way, consistency is the most important aspect here and it sounds like you've found a groove that suits yourself, so kudos on that.
@zambrial facts I used to spend 8 hours everyday on my project on top of working two jobs and that fucking killed me lol. I ended up having burnout and put my project down for 4 months, 4 months I could have been learning or something productive even like hour or two here and there, but I was too burnt out on it. After those 4 months tho I came back even stronger and have been working on it everyday but at a more reasonable pace. 4 hours here 1 hour there kinda thing and I'm even further then I was when working 8 hours everyday lol
Not a gamedev, but when I was still doing level design I had pretty much the same conclusions why I failed. It is always the same it feels, no matter the medium.
Not starting small enough. Not having a clear goal with clear boundaries. Falling into the optimization and details trap. Making updates to people taking away actual time from the project. Technology decay.
That's very strange, Unity is a 3D rasterizer, so it shouldn't mess your pixels up at different screen resolutions, it should look exactly the same in all resolutions without any extra work, unless you are using some kind of pixel filter, which you should not be doing in a pixel art game
Your channel (and this video) give me such great motivation. Both for game dev but also for pursuing a computer science degree! Keep doing what you're doing man. I look forward to playing your game whenever you're ready to set it free!
I love the pace, the joy and the passion, so humble yet so inspiring ! Just discovered but very happy x) I hit that subscribe button so hard xD
Nice work not just repeating the same material as everyone else making videos on this topic. So yay! Give yourself a pat on the back.
Personally, I'm very must _just_ starting out.
Thanks and good luck out there!
I did many of the same mistakes and fixed them with my new game. For my first game I didn't do any design or planning and it clearly showed as the game had no plan. My current game has a plan and it is clearly progressing much better. For my new game I decided to use Monogame instead of Unity so I have much more skills in case Unity decides to burn the company to the ground. Game dev is a learning journey and hopefully in the end we all learn from our mistakes.
I'm actually in the tutorial hell for about 3 years, I made small prototypes and I want to commit to actually finish a fully brushed game even if it was small, Having a full time job as a 3D graphic designer is helping me to produce art to my games, and having a family with two kids is also fun but this is shorten the time I can spend on learning or working on a game, I'm eager to make game development as my life and career but I get frustrated easily and I feel like it's a thin thread that I'm holding in order to continue and to feel motivated, I wish you all the best and I look up to game devs like you all the time.
You can't rely on motivation. It's fickle. You need to commit to yourself to work on it even when you don't want to. It's hard as fuck but possible. If you really know you want to do it, discipline is the name of the game. But nobody's perfect. If you fall off the horse just get back on. Good luck!
Thank you man 🙏@@jumpkut
Anyone else feel that part when he said, "I go through waves of massive progress and waves of massive, err, procrastination"
Don't feel too bad about the struggle process brother. I got my degree in exercise science and pre -physical therapy - not exactly helpful for game development. The saving graces are the Photoshop and web design courses i took my freshman year - which led to me learning a few creative workflows over the past ten years including FL studio 😁
I appreciate it man!
What microphone are you using?
I've been programming since I was about 8-9 .. around 1989 - 1990. Started on the ol' Spectrum ZX :D It was tough back then learning coding, no internet but the odd book on how to program games in the Library. When I look back the whole experience was AMAZING! I remember being 12-13 and realizing that what I had been doing is basically Pure Math - Algebra especially! So I took Math quite serious without knowing it :D
Now I'm 42 and am working on a stupid large project on my own (RPG/Crafter/Survival) Just added a sick pathfinding system and am polishing my procedurally generated maps/terrain - For me it's been the Journey more than the destination - F^CKING LOVE PROGRAMMING! Keep up the excellent work!
Nice vid. I think your British accent sounds more like an Australian. You should try going Australian in your next vid
That has potential...
The thing about pixel art spazzing out in Unity... because Unity wasn't designed for it, it's trying its best to just scale things according to window resolution, camera size, etc. You have to basically help Unity along, by making sure you work with proper camera settings/ratios, and most importantly, proper zoom and resolution.
A major reason for pixel art looking stretched and funky in Unity is because you're trying to view your game at some weird zoom level. If your game is designed to fit something like a 960 pixel span, and then in Unity your zoom/camera settings are displaying 1000 pixels across the screen, all Unity is doing is awkwardly stretching your 960 pixels across 1000 pixels. This means each "pixel" on screen is taking up 1.04% of the screen, so it's "stretched". The alternative is to anti-alias... which obviously is going to look bad for pixel art as it makes everything fuzzy looking.
Getting a computer science degree is actually a really big move. Not only for the reasons you gave, but also it gives you a solid fallback if you need it. Worse case, you can always do contract work on the side while working on your game!
Ya it forsure adds a sense of stability which is reassuring haha
@@ByteOfMichael Have you done any videos on how you balance this? I'm kind of in a similar boat.
7-8 months? Damn my first indie title is about to release and I've been working on it for 7 to 8 years lmao. Good luck though man hope you find success in this field!
I am starting out myself right now. All i did was years of Minecraft Server torture. And 1.5 years of Java coding in Minecraft.
It's pretty interesting to watch your journey. Not sure where it takes me, but i am learning Unreal & C++ atm. My plan ist to make an 3D RPG in the style of WoW/Flyff lol. But only in SP, since MP would cost me easily 15 years or more xd
Good luck on the game!
Thank you. You too :)
5:55 the way you mention playing games was not sarcastic at all because after spending so much time in tutorial hell I could actually start seeing the games I'm playing as how they were possibly built which then led me to more ideas for my own game. Playing games to help make your game is actually not a terrible idea.
Your British is closer to Australian. Great video.
i suggest the art of game design by jesse schell. this book helps with understanding what makes games fun and hopefully it helps you understand the nuances of making the core gameplay fun. i am currently reading it and loving the journey
Thanks for the tip 🙏
Im in proper tutorial hell but im trying to take notes as I go and make it an education I hope ill retain for future needs. Also treating it as a chance to learn some c# which will be handy for my day job. Those who quit their real job are nuts
One thing to help you get out is to try to extend past the scope of the tutorial or to make some consequential but intentional changes while doing the tutorial. That tends to help with your becoming more independent while at the same time you can still fall back on it when you run into trouble.
@kota2223 Yeah I think my issue is I feel stunned where I dont fully understand what lingo or keywords id need to use to make X happen even if I could describe it to you with words so I end up googling another thing and im back in another tutorial. Otherwise id agree if I could make it more my own then it feels less like your just riding in the backseat.
Your channel and content is underrated! with the amount of views and entertainment i would have imagined you have at least 100k subs. Keep it up man, you're doing great!
What happen to muster ? Did you stop the project ?
I mean like... so many devs call themselves lazy or others lazy or even just feel lazy, and it's often not true at all. Most of the time it's fighting burn-out. There are a lot of issues with a toxic culture of really overworking because A) this is a product of passion, love, and dedication (even if it's more of a "for the money" project) that makes us undervalue our efforts as well as be enthusiastic about our efforts like many other Artistic careers, and B) it's still in the tech industry. I don't know if it's just me, but sometimes just being transparent about taking breaks and needing to take breaks, helps me a lot better from wanting to take a major break, or loosing passion and getting distracted. (Especially if the project is indie and you don't have anyone really looming over your head)
You made a lot of people have fun time and thats also something!
Aww thanks!
I definitely agree with your point about UA-cam, having to stop all development momentum to spend a couple days putting together a video is disorienting
Ya it kinda forces you into a state of just being half-in to both game dev and video creation
The sheer volume of videos you put out is pretty staggering. So kudos to you for that, but it definitely saves a lot of time putting out one every 4 months (although not recommended)
Thanks! And even though it’s every 4 months, you make some great videos!
Do you think I can be a real estate agent n a game developer
I've made 4 major unreal projects in the last 7 years, all over 500 hours of development and abandoned them all. I have slowly amalgamated the best parts, features, assets, and ideas from each one and I know the engine well enough at this point that I said "enough" and am making my dream game now, nothing downscaled or held back, and I will either finish it or die, no other options!
Great insights into your game dev journey.. and a top notch English accent at the end. What more can one ask for? 😂
i totally agree, making a game is easy but making a GOOD game is very difficult.
big facts
Not quitting your job to work on something you have little or no experience in seems like a pretty obvious point.
Especially when said field is highly volatile and doesn't always reward your efforts. Even with a comfortable amount of savings, it's a dumb choice.
I'll never understand why people decide to do it.
I'm not so sure on the design doc. I don't know the specifics of why you change directions with the game, but I think it's more likely that you'd have just a more complete picture of the old idea and you'd still end up spending the same amount of time before pivoting. Plans almost never play out exactly as written. Prototypes are the way forward.
The point of a design doc is to guide a project. And help weed out unnecessary changes. You don't want to spend months on a project, only to change something major. All because you didn't want to spend all little time planning.
It's okay for things to change. But ideally you want to focus on adding the core elements of the game before drifting into finer details like optimization and polish.
If anything, if what's constantly changing are core elements to your game. Then maybe you should stop and figure out why. It's one thing to go from having a hand equal 7 cards down to 5; as an example. And something else entirely when you just completely change genres.
@@tiacool7978 It depends why the change was made.
If it turns out the game just isn't fun a design doc won't help you realise that.
I'm not saying don't design anything or don't plan anything. I'm just saying rapid prototyping is probably a better approach for most things. Instead of spending weeks working out all the details of your idea on paper you should spend that time making a prototype or two of the core mechanics.
Watching as a fellow dev. Keep going!
you dont know me but i find your a cool guy .. your like a real life peter parker
Haha I appreciate that!
imo, the things you "did wrong" aren't necessarily wrong. there are other people who do everything they're "supposed" to do and actually get stuck in PREPARING and never actually doing the thing.
"ignorance" and "ignorant optimism" can be a GOOD THING... especially with youth. it might be NECESSARY in fact. as you get older, you start to realize every little fucking thing that needs to happen for every fucking little stage of fucking everything.... and with that knowledge comes IMMOBILIZATION. when you're looking at mount everest, how are you ever going to even fucking START?
it is a curse but also a double edged one that youth don't know any better. and in not knowing any better, they can end up doing things that are WAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaay fucking harder than they thought it would be.
you're doing good. keep going. your way is as good as any. just refine and hone what works for you.
100k for going to college!? Is that normal in the us? That seems kinda fucked up. (I mean I heard the salaries in the US are overall higher, but still, how long until you repaid that kind of debt?)
Depends on where you go. I think the average student pays around 40 - 60k. But yeah, you're right. It's fucked up.
I got the same degree and came away with $2k in loans, and (counting the loans and scholarships) my total cost was somewhere in the range of $15,000. I did 2 years at community college where we literally didn’t pay a dime due to having a ton of small scholarships that covered everything, then two years at a smaller university where I had about $1,500 in scholarships each semester, a few thousand in out of pocket, then my last semester wasn’t a full load so I had to take loans to cover the last little bit since that made me lose my scholarship.
But for most people, they feel like going to a big, fancy university for all four years is required when it’s not. Community colleges are great and cheap. And you can literally get your degree from anywhere nowadays. Unless you’re going into something like law and can go to Harvard, no jobs care where your degree is from because they test you on your skills anyway
It can be common depending on where you go and what you study. Fortunately, I went into big tech directly after college so I was able to pay back all of my loans within 3 years of graduating!
You're a good video editor! Nice vid! Reminded me of Casey Neistat vids that I watched back in the day.
Subscribed. 👍, hopefully your game is a success!
Kk your wizard looks pretty much mine (the prototype), I'm building a wizard game too, but a lil bit based on souls like
I'd like to hear your thoughts on Godot v4.2/4.3 🙂
I haven't tried Godot super deeply, but I've been wanting to make a video about it for awhile!
Tutorials are nice... experimenting and adding unnecessary unrelated features... now thats the real cheese
yeah procrastination is what you face everyday when building indie game.. that's my number 1 problem. I want to have the idea that people want to play my game in the future.. i want to share with you my incoming idea.. maybe you should study first the blue ocean vs red ocean strategy.. maybe it can help..
I appreciate you admitting your laziness. US work/hustle/productivity culture is super toxic and I hate it.
💚
Making your very first game too big? Relatable😮💨
you are a gme dev try getting a game designer a partner that has a reliable job to help you as a hobby.
as a game designer he'll know full stuff what should or how should be designed and you focus on programming only.
it's hard to do both at the same time as when you develop something you're in totally different world than game designer.
Rule number One: make a small game...Read and write it 1000 times....Do it again....The best what you learned mate
4:15, huge mistake. You could had learn that via web.
Maybe the problem with most game dev advocacy is focused on production, as in, how to turn what you make into a marketable product that gets to market asap. That will not help in making a game. i wish people would focus less on getting their game to steam and focus more on making it lol. I hate it when devs ask to wishlist an idea. Its not stunning.
That's because they want to make money off of it. They want to turn making games into a profitable job that they also enjoy. That or they're hoping to hit it big and be the next Stardew Valley/PUBG/Palworld.
I believe in you!
POV Your Comment Section: "For every like I'll do 1 push-up"
do the youtube vids make any $$$?
ugh
Why you trying to sound like an anime guy
easy, if you are using unity...stop..think about yourself and throw at trash
You don't need a solid game design document - it is a rookie mistake to start making gdd before prototyping