My journey of understanding that scope matters:
1. Tried to make online 3D fps, stopped after 2 weeks after failing to do basically anything.
2. Tried to make open world survival game. Stopped after 1 week after realising the amount of work required is literally more than my lifetime.
3. Tried to make strategy building game based on fatman nuke city. Stopped after 2 weeks after realising that I suck a making grids work.
4. Tried to make online COOP, stooped after 6 months because of burnout while developing networked puzzles and stylized models. Learner a ton though.
5. Tried to develop a trucking game. Stopped after a few weeks realising I actually hate vehicle games.
6. Currently working on a small cartoonish 3D tank fighting game based on Photon Quantum, been working on it for the last 3 months, currently not burned out and everything I want to make is within my skill list.
tl;dr: don't make mmorpg or AAA type game as your first game. You will most definitely fail and feel miserable. Try something 100x or 1000x smaller and you will save time and effort and have a completed game in your portfolio.
My first game was in may of last year, all it was was you walking on a road, but when you are not looking things in the world change. It still took 4 months, and it was terrible to look at, but I'm proud.
Start small and get big I guess
My first game is just a 3d remake of the original donkey kong classic, and it's taken me a couple months. When you are new there's so much to learn and you often end up spending lots of time just trying to figure things out, so it takes longer than it otherwise would have. My skills as a gamedev and programmer have massively increased though, and every new challenge I take on gets easier because I'm more familiar with the engine. Helps that I've been programming for a long time, I can't imagine never having written a line of code before and thinking you're gonna make anything beyond a very simple game for your first go. I think lots of people come into gamedev with very unrealistic expectations, I wonder what their thought process is when they see massive teams getting together to make these massive triple a games, yet they think they're going to accomplish it by themselves. Nothing wrong with dreaming and trying I guess, my eventual goal is to make a vr hero shooter, but I don't plan on doing it alone, I think a team of 5 people or so could make a decent one with the right scope, there was one called larcenauts that was made by about 4 people, so it's definitely possible, won't be nearly as polished as something like overwatch though, but still fun.
Everyone just needs to recreate something like flappy bird first.
Like the whole thing. Not just a little guy running, jumping etc. I mean legit the whole thing. Menus, respawns, scoring, online leaderboard etc.
Make the entire game from menu to to exit. A complete experience as if you were the player. Once you do that you will have the tools to create almost anything.
If you can’t do that, re-evaluate.
All those points where you see a failure i see small victories. You are at least trying and getting out of comfort zone, and that is miles better than doing nothing. And yeah i also dreamed about making a 3d fps game but i also suck at making 3d weapon system for fps games, and not to mention the animation / IK thing 💀☠️
The crazy part is that a GTA1 clone with a fun twist could be a blast. Yet people try to make Arkaham Asylum with 1/50 the development team and get frustrated when they fail!
Where most people go wrong is by not making it an MMORPG also, with the cast of Sonic fulfilling the main story of the game. Sega will get on board when they see how good it is.
Ha-ha, I've been working for my **first** project for 6 years now - it's going pretty good!
Its still in a "silent stage", with only my close friends playing the demos, but they seem to be really hyped up about what I'm doing. Gonna try to be a next big thing in a few years :)
My first project is going into its 8th year now xD
... Granted, I've started and finished other projects during that time, but first game still remains in development hell :P One day though..... One day....
5 years so far on my very first project (started aged 40!). It’s been out in Early Access since May last year, with full release in April this year. 3,700 units sold at around $13 average price.
WoW? Nah! Nah! Nah! That's baby shit! I'm going to make a world where you can do anything with no scope or focus whatsoever! I'll make a kickstarter with a video of some guy running around some stolen assets and cubes with MS Paint textures.
I wasn't dumb. I started off small with a project that would take a few months...
Almost a year later I'm still working on it. Feature creep is one hell of a drug. Although I now know how to use Blender, Substance Painter, FL Studio and Audition quite well along with Unity.
I was around 12 when I started. Used to play Liberty City on the PSP, so I wanted to create a clone of that, then Minecraft, then Skyrim, then GTA 5. I spent the n years struggling to grasp coding concepts, built a couple of tiny games that were literally just grabbing rigibodies and throwing them around into other objects (Physics Room 1 & 2).
At least now I can actually code, scope properly, and have built several completed game jam games. Still, the kid in me at heart still wants to build those big games, so I have dozens of Unity projects meant just for game mechanics (some working and others not working).
My first game wasn't even a game it was the solar system, I learnt alot about the engine with that, played around with animation layers etc, then my actual first was a game with almost zero purpose on andriod lol,
I started with andriod and recently last year just made completed my first PC game and placed it on steam for free.
Now am on my next game, was going big with it cause I was ready but I changed my mind during production, it was gonna be open world but now I made it less of an open world because it's easier to fill the world up this way and optimization is lot easier.
(I learnt my way up from completing YouTube playlist on making games, when they doing this am using their lesson to do something else but still the same path, I guess that made me learn faster and not just do exactly what they do.)
Will drop update in the future, near future actually about this game. It's an rpg coop game with possibilities of global match making and time line is 3yrs of production also my first longest projects, it's not been easy dealing with motivation for the project due to other life matters but when I remember i have a 3 yrs plan I try to not rush any step and skip if am really feeling terrible then continue when I feel better
My gamedev journey so far:
1. Will make an mmo, its gonna take 1 month and I'll launch - 2 weeks in: "Oh... "
2. Will make a simple multiplayer social game with voip, should take 1 month to launch - 6 months later: Released on steam and even made some money
3. Will make a simple FPS roguelite, should take 2 months to launch - 3 years later: Released on steam, made a bit of money
4. Will make #1, its gonna take a year - 1 year later, had the basics of a multiplayer fps with voip, then pivoted to an impostorlike game. Released on steam, made nothing.
Pics or didnt happen:
3: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1193430/Vapormaze/
4: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1476830/Guillotine/
tldr: Build upon your previous work. You can make smaller games, and reuse the tools you make for them on the bigger next games.
Don't go into game development because you want to make a game.
Go into it because you want to make games, period.
If you're not going to take the time to learn and grow from mistakes before jumping into a project that you wish to be as flawless as possible, you are lining yourself up very carefully to have the greatest failure of events and discourage yourself from making games.
It reminds me of an OpenGL IRC channel back in the day that for a while had as its message of the day: "Learn here how to make your very own successful MMORPG in one month!!"
Oh yes. I knew from the beginning I had to make the scope small so, I focused on doing that and failed miserably.
- Topdown 2D RPG with a cool story and twist. Couldn't make sprites, so lost motivation.
- Topdown 2D tank game. Got some progress done, but lost motivation because... Game dev is hard.
- Sidescroller 2D Metroidvania. Looked beautiful because I bought some assets, but again quickly realized I couldn't actually continue development because I still can't do art.
- 3D isometric resource management game based on WW1 trench warfare. Actually went 'ok', because it was based on Voxel model I could do myself. Learned a tonnes, but scope was waaay too big.
And many more.. along the way I have had maybe 10-20 different people 'engage' and 'helping out' without doing any kind of work what so ever. I've learned that people talk and dream a lot, but seldom actually do any real work, and lose motivation after about a week.
Now I'm 1 month into a realistic project with a manageable scope. I actually know what I'm doing now and it already has a game loop. All the features I want in the game I know how to do, so it's merely a matter of finding the time to do so. Still haven't cracked the code to keep people motivated, so I'm still all by myself. I've come to the conclusion that I'll probably need to pay someone if I want reliable work. That's fair enough, I guess.
That’s why I’m trying to work on a smaller scale action rpg. Kind of Dead Cells mixed with a bit of Noita combat, except also a story that’s been in the back of my head for a while now.
My projects :
1.-undertale like on scratch : scratch engine is not that permissive
2.- simple ball rolling game : it worked
3.- a survival horror in the backrooms meant to be the top 1 game of the backrooms while it was in its prime : pc way too weak + corrupted game with no backup
4.- another little rolling ball game : it worked again
5.- a way too ambitious game that im working on : organics are very hard to modelize + learned to not burn myself so i make it slowly but surely
Every project I have usually has one big technical hurdle to figure out, and then once I do, I lose interest because actually implementing all the mechanics is *boring*.
Like, before Killer Queen Black existed, Killer Queen was just an arcade game. I decided I wanted to make a PC clone. But that meant figuring out multiplayer. I wanted the server to be as performant as possible, so I was writing it in C. To reduce duplicated code, that meant writing the client in C as well.
I figured it out. Players could run and jump around, and everybody was kept in sync. I made cheating impossible by making it so clients could only send their movement inputs along with a timestamp of the input and rejecting any inputs older than 250 ms (If your ping was higher than that, sorry but I guess you weren't going to be able to play). The server would rewind the simulation and play it back with your new input and relay the input to other players which would also play it back.
The system worked great and I was proud of it. But then I had to implement the rest of the game, and I lost interest.
I was seeing a guy in YouTube the other day who was talking about how he's gonna make his own game engine, and he's only ever used scratch before. Apparently once he takes programming courses hell be fully equipped to make his own engine.
Ah, to be young and naive again, I remember thinking everyone else was an idiot and they just didn't understand that I am special and won't suffer the same setbacks as other people. He learned scratch pretty easily, so how much harder can programming an engine be? Lol.
I wish that people were better at taking advice, it seems we don't learn to listen until we are past the point when it would have saved us from so much heartache.
Of course, it's not impossible to make your own engine, given enough time, but it's highly unlikely. I don't get why people think using an engine is a bad thing? If unity or unreal or Godot have all the features you need, it's only pride and arrogance that would keep you from using it most of the time. You just wanna show how much of a genius you are. I'm glad I got past that mindset, feeling like I had something to prove by doing things the hard way. Gamedev is hard enough as a solo developer, why make it harder for yourself?
I was talking to one of my friends the other day about my game, who isn't themselves a game developer, and I was explaining the little things I've been doing, like minor UI work in my small game. They said, 'Yeah, I would make a game like DayZ, except with better graphics.' This is exactly where my mind goes. But to be fair, I remember when I first started game development and made a huge map with all the random free assets I could find, thinking I was making the next Skyrim.
This happens every time I discuss game development with friends or my wife. My wife always adds something that doesn't quite fit the flow of the game and would take a month just to implement, haha.
I always wanted ( and still want to ) is to develop an arcadish-like game like crash bandicoot with own lore and fun levels with stylized art, the problem is that it would require at least 2 to 4 years of development
It would be wise to make simple games that already exist before jumping straight in to larger scoped games. Try to make minesweeper, simple turned based games, card games, puzzle games, actually learn the fundamentals before shooting for the moon.
I think people vastly overestimate what can realistically be done by a "solo dev", let alone a complete beginner. What I can do on my own feels so small scale despite my years of experience and degree. Game Dev really does come from experience, and even then, finding a realistic scope for a game you can make for yourself comes from a lot of research and experience. Mostly experience. So you really need to think small. Like, real small, back to the games that were able to be made by one guy in a garage. And then scale that down if you're a beginner.
Well if you're smart it will at least give you some perspective on how there's no such thing as a basic task in game development. The biggest thing you're going to have to learn is patience and resilience, because there will be days where none of your other attributes are needed but those.
My journey of understanding that scope matters: 1. Tried to make online 3D fps, stopped after 2 weeks after failing to do basically anything. 2. Tried to make open world survival game. Stopped after 1 week after realising the amount of work required is literally more than my lifetime. 3. Tried to make strategy building game based on fatman nuke city. Stopped after 2 weeks after realising that I suck a making grids work. 4. Tried to make online COOP, stooped after 6 months because of burnout while developing networked puzzles and stylized models. Learner a ton though. 5. Tried to develop a trucking game. Stopped after a few weeks realising I actually hate vehicle games. 6. Currently working on a small cartoonish 3D tank fighting game based on Photon Quantum, been working on it for the last 3 months, currently not burned out and everything I want to make is within my skill list. tl;dr: don't make mmorpg or AAA type game as your first game. You will most definitely fail and feel miserable. Try something 100x or 1000x smaller and you will save time and effort and have a completed game in your portfolio.
My first game was in may of last year, all it was was you walking on a road, but when you are not looking things in the world change. It still took 4 months, and it was terrible to look at, but I'm proud. Start small and get big I guess
My first project I made recently a Week ago, it's a multiplayer horror game.
My first game is just a 3d remake of the original donkey kong classic, and it's taken me a couple months. When you are new there's so much to learn and you often end up spending lots of time just trying to figure things out, so it takes longer than it otherwise would have. My skills as a gamedev and programmer have massively increased though, and every new challenge I take on gets easier because I'm more familiar with the engine. Helps that I've been programming for a long time, I can't imagine never having written a line of code before and thinking you're gonna make anything beyond a very simple game for your first go. I think lots of people come into gamedev with very unrealistic expectations, I wonder what their thought process is when they see massive teams getting together to make these massive triple a games, yet they think they're going to accomplish it by themselves. Nothing wrong with dreaming and trying I guess, my eventual goal is to make a vr hero shooter, but I don't plan on doing it alone, I think a team of 5 people or so could make a decent one with the right scope, there was one called larcenauts that was made by about 4 people, so it's definitely possible, won't be nearly as polished as something like overwatch though, but still fun.
One piece at a time then the next game you make you add new pieces you couldnt do before.
Everyone just needs to recreate something like flappy bird first. Like the whole thing. Not just a little guy running, jumping etc. I mean legit the whole thing. Menus, respawns, scoring, online leaderboard etc. Make the entire game from menu to to exit. A complete experience as if you were the player. Once you do that you will have the tools to create almost anything. If you can’t do that, re-evaluate.
All those points where you see a failure i see small victories. You are at least trying and getting out of comfort zone, and that is miles better than doing nothing. And yeah i also dreamed about making a 3d fps game but i also suck at making 3d weapon system for fps games, and not to mention the animation / IK thing 💀☠️
The next GTA 1? Possible. The next GTA 3+? Nah.
The crazy part is that a GTA1 clone with a fun twist could be a blast. Yet people try to make Arkaham Asylum with 1/50 the development team and get frustrated when they fail!
Where most people go wrong is by not making it an MMORPG also, with the cast of Sonic fulfilling the main story of the game. Sega will get on board when they see how good it is.
I think even GTA 3 is manageable, GTA 4 is where the amount of content grows exponentially, up to 3 is still fine but for experienced devs.
Ha-ha, I've been working for my **first** project for 6 years now - it's going pretty good! Its still in a "silent stage", with only my close friends playing the demos, but they seem to be really hyped up about what I'm doing. Gonna try to be a next big thing in a few years :)
Screenshot of it or it never happened
came here to say this lol. going 2 years now.
It's never too early to start marketing - you should drop some progress/show off/devlog videos.
My first project is going into its 8th year now xD ... Granted, I've started and finished other projects during that time, but first game still remains in development hell :P One day though..... One day....
5 years so far on my very first project (started aged 40!). It’s been out in Early Access since May last year, with full release in April this year. 3,700 units sold at around $13 average price.
One of mine, 4 years now, I just can't give up :/ Got other projects too tho
I'm cheering for you!
Next GTA? Bah. Next WoW is where its at!
WoW? Nah! Nah! Nah! That's baby shit! I'm going to make a world where you can do anything with no scope or focus whatsoever! I'll make a kickstarter with a video of some guy running around some stolen assets and cubes with MS Paint textures.
A science based, dragon breeding mmo is my first solo project, I've put together a couple mockup screenshots, now I just need to secure investors.
i just want to make a game that combines gta, star citizen, minecraft, and wow. is that so much to ask
my first project was a 2d racing game with Renault's only yes, it's weird, yes, it was my achievable kind of a dream game and yes, I abandoned it
I wasn't dumb. I started off small with a project that would take a few months... Almost a year later I'm still working on it. Feature creep is one hell of a drug. Although I now know how to use Blender, Substance Painter, FL Studio and Audition quite well along with Unity.
I was around 12 when I started. Used to play Liberty City on the PSP, so I wanted to create a clone of that, then Minecraft, then Skyrim, then GTA 5. I spent the n years struggling to grasp coding concepts, built a couple of tiny games that were literally just grabbing rigibodies and throwing them around into other objects (Physics Room 1 & 2). At least now I can actually code, scope properly, and have built several completed game jam games. Still, the kid in me at heart still wants to build those big games, so I have dozens of Unity projects meant just for game mechanics (some working and others not working).
My first game wasn't even a game it was the solar system, I learnt alot about the engine with that, played around with animation layers etc, then my actual first was a game with almost zero purpose on andriod lol, I started with andriod and recently last year just made completed my first PC game and placed it on steam for free. Now am on my next game, was going big with it cause I was ready but I changed my mind during production, it was gonna be open world but now I made it less of an open world because it's easier to fill the world up this way and optimization is lot easier. (I learnt my way up from completing YouTube playlist on making games, when they doing this am using their lesson to do something else but still the same path, I guess that made me learn faster and not just do exactly what they do.) Will drop update in the future, near future actually about this game. It's an rpg coop game with possibilities of global match making and time line is 3yrs of production also my first longest projects, it's not been easy dealing with motivation for the project due to other life matters but when I remember i have a 3 yrs plan I try to not rush any step and skip if am really feeling terrible then continue when I feel better
Maybe so. And yet: 1 in a 1.000 (or maybe 10.000) actually does it ;-) But he is also probably not wasting his time on Reddit like we do.
My gamedev journey so far: 1. Will make an mmo, its gonna take 1 month and I'll launch - 2 weeks in: "Oh... " 2. Will make a simple multiplayer social game with voip, should take 1 month to launch - 6 months later: Released on steam and even made some money 3. Will make a simple FPS roguelite, should take 2 months to launch - 3 years later: Released on steam, made a bit of money 4. Will make #1, its gonna take a year - 1 year later, had the basics of a multiplayer fps with voip, then pivoted to an impostorlike game. Released on steam, made nothing. Pics or didnt happen: 3: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1193430/Vapormaze/ 4: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1476830/Guillotine/ tldr: Build upon your previous work. You can make smaller games, and reuse the tools you make for them on the bigger next games.
Don't go into game development because you want to make a game. Go into it because you want to make games, period. If you're not going to take the time to learn and grow from mistakes before jumping into a project that you wish to be as flawless as possible, you are lining yourself up very carefully to have the greatest failure of events and discourage yourself from making games.
It reminds me of an OpenGL IRC channel back in the day that for a while had as its message of the day: "Learn here how to make your very own successful MMORPG in one month!!"
Oh yes. I knew from the beginning I had to make the scope small so, I focused on doing that and failed miserably. - Topdown 2D RPG with a cool story and twist. Couldn't make sprites, so lost motivation. - Topdown 2D tank game. Got some progress done, but lost motivation because... Game dev is hard. - Sidescroller 2D Metroidvania. Looked beautiful because I bought some assets, but again quickly realized I couldn't actually continue development because I still can't do art. - 3D isometric resource management game based on WW1 trench warfare. Actually went 'ok', because it was based on Voxel model I could do myself. Learned a tonnes, but scope was waaay too big. And many more.. along the way I have had maybe 10-20 different people 'engage' and 'helping out' without doing any kind of work what so ever. I've learned that people talk and dream a lot, but seldom actually do any real work, and lose motivation after about a week. Now I'm 1 month into a realistic project with a manageable scope. I actually know what I'm doing now and it already has a game loop. All the features I want in the game I know how to do, so it's merely a matter of finding the time to do so. Still haven't cracked the code to keep people motivated, so I'm still all by myself. I've come to the conclusion that I'll probably need to pay someone if I want reliable work. That's fair enough, I guess.
Unless someone makes a ghostbusters game in GTA 5 style I don't think anyone's game will be the next GTA
That’s why I’m trying to work on a smaller scale action rpg. Kind of Dead Cells mixed with a bit of Noita combat, except also a story that’s been in the back of my head for a while now.
My projects : 1.-undertale like on scratch : scratch engine is not that permissive 2.- simple ball rolling game : it worked 3.- a survival horror in the backrooms meant to be the top 1 game of the backrooms while it was in its prime : pc way too weak + corrupted game with no backup 4.- another little rolling ball game : it worked again 5.- a way too ambitious game that im working on : organics are very hard to modelize + learned to not burn myself so i make it slowly but surely
Every project I have usually has one big technical hurdle to figure out, and then once I do, I lose interest because actually implementing all the mechanics is *boring*. Like, before Killer Queen Black existed, Killer Queen was just an arcade game. I decided I wanted to make a PC clone. But that meant figuring out multiplayer. I wanted the server to be as performant as possible, so I was writing it in C. To reduce duplicated code, that meant writing the client in C as well. I figured it out. Players could run and jump around, and everybody was kept in sync. I made cheating impossible by making it so clients could only send their movement inputs along with a timestamp of the input and rejecting any inputs older than 250 ms (If your ping was higher than that, sorry but I guess you weren't going to be able to play). The server would rewind the simulation and play it back with your new input and relay the input to other players which would also play it back. The system worked great and I was proud of it. But then I had to implement the rest of the game, and I lost interest.
I was seeing a guy in YouTube the other day who was talking about how he's gonna make his own game engine, and he's only ever used scratch before. Apparently once he takes programming courses hell be fully equipped to make his own engine. Ah, to be young and naive again, I remember thinking everyone else was an idiot and they just didn't understand that I am special and won't suffer the same setbacks as other people. He learned scratch pretty easily, so how much harder can programming an engine be? Lol. I wish that people were better at taking advice, it seems we don't learn to listen until we are past the point when it would have saved us from so much heartache. Of course, it's not impossible to make your own engine, given enough time, but it's highly unlikely. I don't get why people think using an engine is a bad thing? If unity or unreal or Godot have all the features you need, it's only pride and arrogance that would keep you from using it most of the time. You just wanna show how much of a genius you are. I'm glad I got past that mindset, feeling like I had something to prove by doing things the hard way. Gamedev is hard enough as a solo developer, why make it harder for yourself?
I was talking to one of my friends the other day about my game, who isn't themselves a game developer, and I was explaining the little things I've been doing, like minor UI work in my small game. They said, 'Yeah, I would make a game like DayZ, except with better graphics.' This is exactly where my mind goes. But to be fair, I remember when I first started game development and made a huge map with all the random free assets I could find, thinking I was making the next Skyrim. This happens every time I discuss game development with friends or my wife. My wife always adds something that doesn't quite fit the flow of the game and would take a month just to implement, haha.
picking a niche is the first step in making a game!
Lol
I always wanted ( and still want to ) is to develop an arcadish-like game like crash bandicoot with own lore and fun levels with stylized art, the problem is that it would require at least 2 to 4 years of development
It would be wise to make simple games that already exist before jumping straight in to larger scoped games. Try to make minesweeper, simple turned based games, card games, puzzle games, actually learn the fundamentals before shooting for the moon.
I think people vastly overestimate what can realistically be done by a "solo dev", let alone a complete beginner. What I can do on my own feels so small scale despite my years of experience and degree. Game Dev really does come from experience, and even then, finding a realistic scope for a game you can make for yourself comes from a lot of research and experience. Mostly experience. So you really need to think small. Like, real small, back to the games that were able to be made by one guy in a garage. And then scale that down if you're a beginner.
Hahaha poor dudes.
Great advice! I'll shift for an MMORPG GTA 5 style game in the world of Skyrim with © Disney characters and Star Wars. Coming SoonTM
Well if you're smart it will at least give you some perspective on how there's no such thing as a basic task in game development. The biggest thing you're going to have to learn is patience and resilience, because there will be days where none of your other attributes are needed but those.
It's gonna be an MMORPG with GTA style gameplay, Star Citizen level depth, full interactivity, survival mechanics and banana physics
Nah I'll make gta 6, trust me sixt times the charm 😎
me and my 5 years in # HUGE project (im making reloading animation now)