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Heck yeah, Allen! Ultralearning is life-changing, I'm estatic to hear you recognize Scott H. Young's methods as his teachings are easily one of the most revolutionary tactics for turbo-charging recognization patterns and long-term retention! Speaking of goated authors, Jesse Schell's Player-Centric design philosphy is absolutely top-tier too since he stresses on how we must serve the player thorugh our game(s) by making the experience as compelling and satisfying as possible. I completely understand your point when saying games are essentially player experiences. I'll preface this by saying we're on the same page and I think we already have the same conclusion (you're spot on with the Do NOT underperform your scope needs) - but - I'm glad you challenged my wording in the video because the lack of clarity did make me want to tack on a few more points to what I originally was trying to say: "Die On Experiences, Not Expectations" - the idea is basically to prioritize creating fun experiences over strictly adhering to expectations, but be mindful of balancing this approach with genre-specific elements. For example, in a roguelite, permadeath is usually expected. If you remove permadeath, you risk missing what players want from the genre. However, if your non-permadeath feature introduces a new level of fun that overshadows the need to follow genre conventions, then it's acceptable to break the rules. While it's important not to underperform in terms of genre expectations (unless you are truly innovating), it’s often safer to respect those conventions and introduce unique mechanics elsewhere. For instance, a feature like parrying isn't typical in roguelites but could still work if it's enjoyable. If parrying in your game is fun, the fact that it's not expected in the genre won't matter. In short - if the feature is fun and enhances the experience, you don't need to worry about defying player expectations (unless it’s a core aspect of the genre or an actual feedback issue.) Otherwise, you'd want to optimize the feature to align with why players are engaging with the genre in the first place. I hope this helped clear any confusion and again - huge thanks for you comment, insights, and opportunity to clarify. You've got a great ultralearning project approach from what I've seen and those qualities are definitely going to push you towards another level higher when speed-running game projects. Goodluck with your development journey!

This is honestly such goated advice, huge thanks for delivering this list on what you do to increase your productivity, Ardonie. The best part about these tips is how you can customize them to best suit your needs and habits. Also adding to point #4: Asset Pooling - once you complete a project and if you've designed your systems to be modular/felxible for porting to others, you've essentially created an asset that can be used for other project. Intrinsically, your reward for speedrunning a game is the ability to make another game faster provided it uses the same type of system(s) you've created. Thanks for dropping those tips - goodluck with your game development journey!

Absolutely - delegation can not only cut the entire development process by double digit percentages, but can easily allow role-specific members ot sharpen their craft without compromising quality. If you are able to gather a cooperative team that is willing to contest with the project at hand, by all means do it. Thank you for taking the time to share this insight - I hope this helped!

Hey man, huge thanks for taking the time to say such kind words. I'm rooting for you and your development and I'm here to answer questions if anything pops up. Whether you use all of these tips or some of them, I really hope it helps you in any way shape or form. Goodluck with your journey!

W comment - I really hope this helped you! Thanks!

Hey, huge thanks for the compliment and I really enjoyed this comment because you bring up an excellent point on if quick games lack market viablity, the experimental approach of risky/novelness, and how everything can't be estimated. I'd like to preface this with how the endpoint you set is what you must commit to. If you want to double-down on risky/novel projects, then you will need to optimize your scope, approach, and decisions based off of what will be needed to achieve the project's completion. There's no need to strap yourself to just 90 days of development if your project truly requires to exploration of unseen features that are market "risky." I would simply advise to optimize your execution on said "risky" feature(s) to be playable, fun, and enjoyable. Once this is established, then you can move onto the next task to continue the progress of your project. If you're taking a look where there are many "unknowns" then yea - there's going to be a unclear endpoint - thus the consequence of that is that more time will be needed. The habit of being firm/definite of what you game looks like is something you'd have ot build overtime to truly pin-point and roadmap all of the necessary decisions your game would require of you to be build. Only then when you're able to establish this with crystal-clear clarity can you execute the speedrunning approach. This entire 90-day approach considers commercial viablity if you look at it in a very long-term viewpoint. These tips and tricks are intended to create a practice to further propel the likelihood of making a successful game in the market overtime. For example, see (49:03) - the more small scope games you make, the more assets you'll have, which will compound into making more games faster with higher quality and quantitiy features. You absolutely can make a hit game in 90-days and integrate a marketing campaign that pushes this forward - while this portion/topic wasn't discussed in this video, that doesn't mean that that its impossible. Market success has many, MANY variables - so being risk-averse or fully risky and novel both have their Pro's and Con's - which one works better is simply determined by what the end result is for the player. Respecting the airtight deadline will force you to finish as soon as possible, which is why you see lots of cut content, simplified mechanics and other aspects that may come off as "drop this and move one." If we're talking about market viability in quick games, consider building features that matter and meet player's expectations per Genre (discussed in 19:16). If we're talking about general benefits of developing quickly for long-term progression of being a better developer, check out Drilling (37:45) which is the skill you build to estimate, navigate, and overcome complex problems. And if we're talking about short-structures to get to the point ASAP, then following the most important key structure is needed for any game. (59:40) - the point of all of this is that overtime, you build experience and foresight of what is necessary and how to handle more complex tasks so that you can build and deliver better games overtime. (Keyword: Game[s] with an 's' ) I firmly believe that the example I'm showcasing, "DodgeKing Deluxe Version" (new, second game) is a HUGE improvement from "DodgeKing" (first game) which is why all of the lessons I've been able to share in this video highlight the concept of quick games can be made with good quality too. However, thing that turly matters is what the player thinks and feels when playing the game. Both statements of being quick and experimenting can be true and live in cohesion. End of the day, we can only gather better decision making skills by continously building skills, improving our foresight as a result, and understanding what needs exist inside of game development as a whole. Once again, thank you for your input and for sharing what you think on this matter. I really hope your game development journey goes smoothly! Cheers!

@@edwardivandeveloper thank you for your time on this answer. I think your approach can be used even for big and risky project if you dissect all tasks into small enough chunks, each of which can be shoved into a non-negotiable deadline and then interleave planning phase and execution phase, which is what i will try to do. I make games for a living for 20 years, so i've made a bunch of cookie-cutter stuff. For my own project i go overly-ambicious, because it's the only type of game that matters to me.

Solid, admirable comment. Thank you - I hope this helped you in any way shape or form!

Blessed commentor

@@PedroBarbosaRoman Both methods are identical in their results. Personally, I import them in the old fashion way - when I start a project the first thing I do is set the folder architecture to what I need (Folders that pertain to “Art, Code, Managers,” etc.) and then in the older project that has said Asset, l would simply go to the file explorer and quite literally copy-paste it into the new project under the respective folder its best suited for. Recently l made a new “Project” that just has all of the Assets l’ve made and it’s made porting easier since it becomes a one-stop-shop to grab and get what you need. I’ve tried the Unity Package System and it too works like a charm, but l’d personally like to avoid any friction so a simple copy-paste does the trick for me. The main advantage of Unity Package System is used to share/sell assets between different users. If you create an asset and wish to distribute it to others, then copy-pasting would not be an option. Thank you for your kind words and l really hope that the video improves your development in any way shape or form. Good luck with your journey!

Thanks for pointing this out and I appreciate your comment! You're absolutely correct on both points - DodgeKing Deluxe Version indeed is not a commerical success at this precise point of time. And while no bug patches have ocurred yet since there hasn't been a game-breaking issue detected, if/when a bug is discovered, suddenly development time increases in order to patch it out. The main focus of this video is scoped to creating and launching your game as soon as possible. There's obviously other valid efforts that need to be considered when aiming for a commerical success - this entails marketing, content creator reach-out/streaming, press-kit readiness, applications for festivals and featurettes, game branding, ads, constant exposure of your game, etc. Now, I mention this because the habit of creating games quickly, challenging yourself to try something unorthadox, and adopting the various disciplines mentioned in this video will grant you a plethora of huge game-changing benefits that allows you to aim for commercial success more effectively later down the road. I cannot speak too much on this just yet, but just imagine the sheer advantages you would have if you have if your next project had access to: - (49:03) The Asset Pooling Advantage - (37:45) Increased Tolerance, Problem-Solving, Confidence and Knowing how to progress in Projects - (1:14:44) Understanding and Executing what it takes to accomplish an airtight deadline - (19:16) The practice of meeting Player Expectations per Genre - (36:19) Integrating feedback in your project to give what the players want - (39:45) Knowing how to pick the right battles to save time - (8:26) Stronger decision making skills + knowing how to commit reaching the established endpoint, and much, much more. These would definitely play a role when aiming for commercial success irregardless of what type of game or project is being made. While no result is ultimately garenteed, it truly comes down to what you can do to make that happen. Without any beef, I'm just pointing out the supplimentary benefits of quick-lauching your game in order to best prepare for the bigger projects that come next. Despite everything I've said here, I really hope you have a wonder game development journey and hope this helped you in any way shape or form!

Commercial success isn't the goal - It's the dream.

You're absolutely right. The reductionistic approach may fit well for really small-scoped games but may not be applicable for other genres, scope, endpoints, etc. Just remember that as long as your endpoint is being respected at all times, it'll be hyper-possible to make the necessary decisions to reach your goal. And we are talking about "the 90 day game development challenge" but if you recongize your game needs more time due to the sheer demand it needs, feel free to scope and readjust the timeframe appropiately. Regardless, thank you for taking the time to point this out and to comment your thoughts. It really helps more than you think! Goodluck on your development journey!

Thank you for the incredible feedback. Retrospectively, I realized the audio was a bit off and I will ensure this doesn't occur again. Keep me accountable for the next one, haha. I'm glad this helped, and I hope you have an amazing development journey!

@@edwardivandeveloper sure I'll do thanks again!

Thank you for your words - set an endpoint, be strict on the deadline, and make choices that align with it all to maximize your development route's efficiency. Goodluck with your game development journey!

@@Ionixification If everything discussed in this video were to be performed/expected of you to do overnight, it would probably be a slap in the face. The reason why l mention this and the advantage of a habit is that in order to make it a habit into the first place, you originally need to ease into it and adapt to the change you want to make. This clearly means you’ll need to take a bit of time getting used to the new norm, but once you have enough time/experience doing said habit(s), suddenly it becomes second nature to you and everything will flow more naturally. I was guilty of doomscrolling and eased off of it by first consciously being aware of my problem, then l took another step by “unfollowing accounts and following anti-doomscrolling acounts” (check luckyculture.media on instagram who posts daily/often content that says “hey, get off your phone”), and then l eventually left my phone on do-not-disturb mode to kinda “forget” about notifications. All of these baby-steps compiled and transformed my way of approaching my phone and eventually made it easier to stop doomscrolling. Notice - these were various steps that took time to ease into at the end of the day. What you really want to do is test a few steps that’ll help you avoid “bad habits/build good habits” and get the ball rolling whether it’s efficient or not. Overtime, the newly made habits will overtake the obstacle for you. Also, huge thank you for your comment. I really appreciate the fact that you took the time to share your thoughts. I hope this helped you in anyway shape or form and l wish you a great development journey!

Hey man, huge thank you for your comment and for taking the time to point this out. It's a very valid point, so let's talk about it. Point 1: Don't give up your social life to make games In the context of a 90-day sprint, balance truly is temporary - we'd need to dismiss it in order to deal with extreme time constraints. Achieving everything that balance asks for is unrealistic during this challenge. If you break it down, the available time you'll averge for this production cycle (factoring work, rest, daily tasks) is about ~540 hours to 600 hours. While that may seem like a lot on paper, game development demands a significant portion of those hours for design, implement, and test your features. And absolutely yes, you can spend an average of 6 hours per week socializing, but that would leave roughly ~468 hour to 528 hours for your game. That’s still a solid amount, minimizing social activities is key to respecting the strict deadline we've established for the 90-day challenge. Also, the added bonus of compressing work in a short perioud is that if you frontload development in three months (instead of a year or more), you’ll save nine months (or more) to enjoy later/do othet things with your newly made time. While we imply other projects, this also means time to chill and relax. The other part of this is how much we as an indivudals value relationships. It's also why I mention that if we approach development with a mission-orientated personality, (8:27) we tend to grow a bit impersonal in our decisions, thus leads us to reach the goal more efficiently. This helps you distance yourself from the emotional/personal weight of rejecting social outings or declining time with loved ones - obviously there are exceptions to this due to special events, emergencies, etc., but not every interaction needs to be prolonged indefinitely. Setting a boundary on when you're avaliable allows you to builds the mental resilience needed to prioritize productivity over socializing. Of course, even if you wanted to, it's impossible to completely delete your social life-it’s human to need connections and we will always find a way to interact with others as communion is part of our nature. Just remember that you _can_ minimize interactions; opt. for quick texts, sending memes, 10 minute phone calls, or short(er) meet-ups, etc. This'll can be done while staying on track with your game's development cycle. Point 2: Game development should be a hobby I want to preface by saying it's not really about whether hobbyists or proffesionals are better - there's a huge overlap between them anyway. Therefore, it's about the bigger picture of how you approach your work. You can absolutely be a successful hobbyst the same way how you can be a successful profesional. The big idea behind this is how you approach your work. From experience, when I applied hobbyist approach, I tended to lean more into dismissing deadlines and the challenge of pressuring yourself into accomplishing boring, complex, mundane tasks. It’s crucial to set concrete deadlines, as this focuses efforts and gives purpose to the work. Setting a clear endpoint is CRITICAL. Without deadlines, the "grindset" mentality is poisonous because it can and will lead to burnout and being aimless in your endeavor. I argue from experience that the professional mindset simply pushes through the high-pressure, boring/mundane, and hard work required to beat heavy obstacles. If you want to launch quickly, disciplined/consistent output is a must. That’s where prioritization and commitment come into play; it’s not about abandoning the hobbyist mindset - it’s about adapting your mindset to match the urgency of your goals. tl;dr - for a 90-day challenge, personal sacrifices are essential. You don’t have to give up your social life or hobbyist mentality completely, but treating your work like a professional job will help you hit tight deadlines. You can absolutely can do this and ultimately, this is what hard looks like. What I offer here are temporary sprint, - I dont reccommend any developer or person to live this way for their entire life/extended periods of time. We need endpoints and we need to work on getting it done. These are just some of the prices we pay to reach the hard goals. Regardless, I'm forever grateful for your comment. Having the opportunity to see your point of view is amazing and please remember that you have the complete authority to completely dismiss what I've said - end of the day the choice is yours on what you do with your projects. I hope you have a wonderful game development journey and hope to see your progress! Cheers!

I just say what's there to give up when I don't have any besides parasocial youtube consumption.

Hey man, thanks for pointing out that exact detail. The game's sequel was just launched and imported over the page of the first game, which is why you see a Oct. 7th, 2022 launch date when in reality everything's been reamped to from scratch. I'll share more details on why I'm experimenting with a "Page Overlay" launch instead of making another steam page from the ground-up. Regardless, I'm glad you're able to speak passionately about the issue with shovelware on Steam as quality is an important part of game development at the end of the day. Regardless, I hope this video's advice helped you in anyway shape or form. Goodluck with your Game Development Journey!

@@edwardivandeveloper Sorry btw but as a game developers along with making games we must also try not to make our market clean so the customers feel that quality=happy while shopping etc.

Thank you for the comment - Hope this helped you!

@@WeisterXDprogrammer Huge thanks for the kind words and comment! I the tips in this video helped propel your game development journey!

Always knew I could rely on you - it's why you're the Gigachad. Hope this helped!

@@edwardivandeveloper today is a special Day the Dodge king himself launch another banger!! Im still watching it, one day im gonna be like you!!

There's never any room for self-disrespect. You absolutely do have a life and whether you believe this is the case or not, you always have the ability to change and improve no matter what. Chin-up, King. I completely understand that this method can be terrible if you do not have an endpoint/termination point. Otherwise, it's just endless sprinting which leads to overworking yourself for no reason. Make sure you run to the goal knowing why and when it ends. Regardless, I really do appreciate you taking the time to speak up about how you see that this isn't suitable for long-term. This feedback is important to analyze.

@@damori3604 Thank you for your kind words, l’m glad to help and can’t wait to share more. Good luck on your development journey!

@@DoctorMario606 lmao such a power move when you put it like that. 😂

@@vandoodev Thank you for your support! Can’t wait to see how your game development journey goes! 🫡

@@edwardivandeveloper hehe Thanks. I'm working on it. 😅

@@NotAlgion Glad to help! I hope you have a wonderful game development journey!

@@cloodheegamedev Thank you for the kind comment! I wish you well in your journey!

@@maheryrazafindralambo9679 More skills = less friction, and yeah -gotta love grid-based systems after you experiment with them hehe. Glad this helped and l hope you excel in your game development journey!

@@kloa4219 Thank you for the summary!

@@edwardivandeveloper thank you! I remember stuff when I take notes on them

@@AndrewS-vu4ji Great assessment; set the deadline! I promise everything fundamentally changes when you chase a deadline. You start to zone-in / tune-out everything that doesn’t help you meet that deadline and suddenly all the habits l’ve mentioned become second-nature. I really really like how you recognize you have time. The allocation of it comes down to how you prioritize it which is why when you set a deadline, you’d force yourself to use it towards that direction. Love this comment, you can do this! Good luck on your development journey!

@@edwardivandeveloper I meant it more like, I'm young and it's summer, and I have nothing to do besides get ready for school, yet I'm infinitely more productive when I'm in the middle of school, club, and work. I do agree that deadlines help, as would the frustration of not revealing your plans to others, it's just those bear a lot more of the weight of continuing work on a project. But idk, it's all useful info either way.

@@wildrosegamedev Thank you for the comment and l understand your point of view. Ultimately it comes down to what you’re willing to/what you prioritize in your life. l personally admire those who value the strength of relationships and do not/cannot judge their situation because of their values. However if you have supportive friends, that’s even better. I understand neglect/abandoning those around you who deeply care for you is generally a wrong choice, but like l’ve stated in this particular video, none of these habits are good for long term practices. Always establish an end-goal to ensure you don’t waste your time doing endless work. I really hope this helped you in one way shape or form. Regardless, l hope you have a wonderful game development journey.

@@harryworner1990 It brings me joy to hear you get revamped on tackling the game development journey, Harry. I’m stoked to hear how this helped and can’t wait to share more of my insights soon - for now, practice some of those habits and you’ll see how development becomes a different game of itself.

@@mwpretorius7913 Absolutely-thank you for the feedback, l hope this helped you!

Godsent comment, Gianni. Thank you for your input and for synthesizing the approach of career versus hobby. There's a whole set of ways we tackle our work/career, why not apply that to the same degree in Game Development? I really hope this video helped you in one way shape or form and there's more advice I'm about to launch.

@@jordanjackson6151 You made my day with this comment. Thank you for writing this and more importantly, l really hoped that any/all of these tips helped you in any way shape or form. I have more videos coming out soon so l promise to get you more of this type of content soon. Good luck with your game dev journey!

@@edwardivandeveloper Thanks. My thing is mostly a hobbyist pastime. I don’t see enough vids on RUclips depicting 90’s style spaceship shooter style games. Though they are apparently more linear in design and less exploratory in the level department. As a result I’m getting busy with Lua using the Love 2D framework.

@@turnkey_hole Huge thanks for the warning! Prolonged sprints aren’t healthy long term, but sometimes we need to throw balance out the window to achieve the goals we set. If you don’t have an end point, you’ll crunch and burden yourself for nothing. Keep your endpoint in mind at all times and take a good break after a sprint to stay sane.

@@edwardivandeveloper I definitely agree that it's reasonable and okay to carve out time to make sacrifices to achieve goals. Most of us would probably be on board with that. The issue, I think is more a question of what a goal should be. It's weirdly fashionable these days to "set goals" instead of "cultivate hobbies." I couldn't tell you why, but I would guess it's because a goal feels like it should have a product, whereas a hobby doesn't *feel* like it has a product. A hobby, like making games, can be a pursuit you do forever if you take ego out of it. But like, "make a game a month" or "do four jams a year" are two very achievable goals that end up creating a sort of self demand that ruins people. I dunno though. I guess that's just the difference between a hobbyist and somebody who wants to pay the bills with their games. I've never put my social life on hold for productivity's sake. Though I can understand how that might be helpful a month or two out from release. Although, if you're crunching that close to deadline, seems like a fuckup in planning.

Hey man, I have no idea what this means, could you elaborate on it?

@@edwardivandeveloper Claude 3.5 is an LLM like chagpt. I've found it really good for helping with Unity coding.

@@shenshaw5345 Oh, this makes so much sense now. Any programming tool that helps you speedrun your efforts definitely is wlecomed. Thank you for taking the time to clarify this!

@@TYNEPUNK Absolutely love your energy bro, thank you for sharing your point of view and you know exactly what works based off of what you’ve explained here. Good luck with your development journey! 🫡

@@artyomslife9488 Thank you for your support, glad l could help!

@@adog3129 Nothing wrong with assets, especially since it’s what makes your game charming/unique. It just happens that if you have a team or someone to delegate that type of work to, you could save a huge chunk of time. Regardless, it is important to have your own “signature” when making your assets too. Thanks for your words!

@@lufuoena Once again, thank you for sharing your story on how notes are critical to prevent time loss and confusion. While l do not know what are the Pros/Cons of long letter words, l’d rather use an extremely long variable that explicitly states what it does than to guess for days on end and performing extra debugging for something that could’ve been delegated to a singular word. And as you also pointed out - it’s easy to fix a bug when the compiler tells you what error occurred. It’s a nightmare when it works fine and you can’t locate what the function does hahaha

@@lufuoena This is EXACTLY what happens when you use the law. You’re going to be way better off reaching your goals with it rather than without out. Huge thanks for sharing this insight!

Thanks for the comment and I appreciate the feedback! It's important to share info based on direct evidence/experience, that way the source is reliable for all developers who want to engage in trying out these habits. It's also why I had to double down on lots of these points, especially the drilling aspect. Its something most of us struggle with and my solution to it is to remain grazing on it. Regardless, I really hope that this video helps you in any way shape or form!

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This is what hard looks like. The strategies I'm sharing are meant for short-term sprints, not a permanent way of life. To achieve something truly remarkable, balance often gets sacrificed - whether it's missing out on social events or setting aside other interests. These are the prices we pay to reach challenging goals. Your comment made me reflect deeply, and I genuinely appreciate your words. You’re right: "GameDevMaxxing" isn’t a sustainable lifestyle. Too much of anything can be harmful, and burnout is real. Moreover, even with intense effort, there's no guarantee of financial success or any tangible results beyond finishing the project. The so-called "powerful habits" I've mentioned are just a fraction of what it takes to speed up development. There’s also marketing, community management, team leadership, ideation, post-launch support, and more - each adding its own layer of complexity. This has made me question whether these habits are truly humanizing. I do want to share the lessons I’ve learned and why I believe it's sometimes okay to commit to these intense bursts of effort: Retrospectivelty reflecting, here’s what this journey has taught me: 1. You can accomplish more in less time than you think, freeing up time for other life pursuits. Every moment counts because it's time you'll never get back. If this project had taken me a year, I might have spent nine months on tasks and systems that may or may not have succeeded. The outcomes from three months of intense effort are often similar to what you'd achieve over a longer period. So, investing three tough months instead of twelve gives me more time for other things in life. I’ve realized that adhering to Parkinson's Law (10:00) - where work expands to fill the time available - can help avoid unnecessarily prolonged challenges. 2. Your priorities, habits, and worldview shape who you are. If you're willing to push yourself, take on challenges, and explore unconventional methods, that’s a reflection of who you are. It’s perfectly fine if that's not for you. But if you build your identity around embracing challenges and prioritizing the unexpected or difficult, you'll set yourself apart. You may even become a source of guidance for others facing similar struggles. This shift in perspective changes how you approach various aspects of life. 3. The bigger the challenge, the deeper the reward. Even if the reward isn’t something tangible like money, reaching milestones is something to be proud of. It builds confidence, helps you assess your capabilities, and encourages you to take on even greater challenges. That’s why I emphasize the importance of completing difficult tasks - not just for the sake of completion, but for the personal growth that comes from pushing through. (26:37) I should've articulated this a better, but that's the point of drilling - doing the hard to build tolerance to do harder tasks. 4. Self-imposed limits are often untested beliefs. I never thought making a full commercial game in three months was possible until I asked, "Why not?" By setting ambitious goals and adjusting my approach, I discovered that even if you don’t hit every target, you achieve far more than you would have without that pressure. Yes, it involves making tough choices, like saying no to social events or optimizing every minute of your day. While this might sound robotic or inhumane, I believe there's always a way to make it more manageable. Each of us has the ability to adapt these methods to make them more human and sustainable. Most importantly, 5. Life doesn’t stop for your projects. No matter how focused you are, life will keep happening. During this intense period, I still had to participate in family celebrations, play in a pickleball tournament, have difficult conversations with coworkers, fulfill church duties, and handle other personal responsibilities. Life teaches you that you can’t become a robot, even if you try. Ultimately, only you can decide what matters most to you. We all have different backgrounds, beliefs, goals, and limits. The most important thing is to choose what aligns best with your values and circumstances. If you’re ready to take on something hard and sacrificial without guaranteed outcomes-go for it! If that’s not for you, that’s okay too. Prioritizing friends and family is incredibly admirable, and pushing them aside for a project without guaranteed success can feel like a questionable move. These are the hard decisions that go beyond the scope of actual game development, but they are essential if you want to achieve difficult goals. Regardless, I genuinely wish you the best to your development journey. Your comment is amazing and addresses real concerns, which again really got me reflecting and I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time for stating your words and for checking out the video! Cheers!

@syncasela It comes from a combinnation of milanote (app.milanote.com/) and Excalidraw (excalidraw.com/) It's a manual graph I made when creating a pitch for one of my games. However, please do not be fooled - I used visual example to illustrate the idea of "hey guys, calenders and deadlines are important" - In reality, I do not use any fancy software tracking tool because all you really need is a simple checklist of what your game needs/what your players want + be strict on the deadline. Part of practicing Parkison's law is using your own integrity to meet the deadline you've established no matter the circumstance (this includes creating the aforementioned habits to accelerate your process and really committing to your promise of "I'm going to finish this no matter what.") I'd also like to point out that these software tools create an extra layer of management/minor nuances that kinda distract you from actual production time. (23:43) It might take a few minutes to set up tasks and later revisit what was completed or remains in progess. If you really need a tracking tool, then for sure you should use it to keep organized. I'm simply arguing that in the long run its more unproductive because: 1. It keeps you away from the core focus of getting tasks done 2. Demands you to scope your project a certain way that may be inflexible to cutting content / meeting deadline expectations 3. You can't plan for player feedback request - you will simply end up adjusting for this, thus more time spent "fixing" the tracker is required, pulling you away from your work. 4. The bigger picture is progress not perfection I will say that tracking tools such as Trello or Jira are very effective when managing team-based efforts and/or for extremely large scope projects (assuming you want to overview everyone's general progress and host meetings to discuss roadblocks) - but these are one of the few standard practices I personally reccommend avoiding. Another layer/reason for this is that once you've sharpened your development skills to the point where you don't need general instructions to know how to execute your entire project cycle, said tools simply become a hassle. In other words - think about Game Jams - small projects don't need these tools to shine, it's about getting things done. Now, if we think about AAA studios, then management tools becomes a necessity. It's really about what type of project you're handling at the end of the day. Regardless, I'm simply advising what works for me personally and patterns that I know can benefit other developers. Like I said, if you're absolutely bent on using tracking tools because you need them to guide you in your project, 100% go for it. Whatever helps you in your journey is the most vauable way to go about the problem. However, if you realize that these tools may not be 100% necessary for small-scope projects too, then there's no harm in attempting to withdraw yourself from creating these habits that drain your time/energy. Lastly, deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. It is a requirement to get anything done. (11:30) Set a deadline, be strict on it, and deploy the most honest version of yourself to meet that standard you've placed. You're a developer - before you picked up any line of code you were a different person than the person you are now. By now, you've learned how to code, prototype, play-test, etc. All of these wonderful skills you've made for yourself is simply another step towards being better. Nothing is stopping you from improving your habits. HUGE thank you for the comment and I appreciate your question!

@@noodle-eater Thank you for your comment - the hack that you need (this is the most necessary requirement all developers need) is to set a deadline. Parkison’s law does WONDERS for finishing projects. Take your experience (and assets) between your past prototypes and your current project, apply a deadline, start play testing early and launch within the next two months. It sounds crazy and impossible until you realize its’s not and you’re more than ready to accomplish this. You got this!

Glad to hear your approach on it - I can see why its frustrating to hack at something with no avail. I should've communicated this better, but the main concept of drilling is to stay in the area of frustration when hacking away because that's what would build your tolerance to deal with those "Impossible" problems until a solution is reached. However, like you stated, taking breaks/letting go of the problem definitely allows you to think about it from other angles and provides clearer solutions. I strongly suggest drilling primarily because of the following three benefits: 1. It tends to give you the benefits of tolerance building 2. Is less expensive on time when you "take a break" and 3. It reliable keeps you engaged on said task. You're not wrong and if you are not shifting into other tasks duirng that break process, then you've absolutely hammered it and are completely right. I'm voicing this for the sake of not losing production time and/or getting distracted by other "smaller" tasks that take away from actually solving the big problem. Great insight and Iovely comment. Thank you for your advice!

​@@edwardivandevelopermany thanks for the reply

i hate to agree with this because i have spent days at a time on a single problem only to realize that the solution was mad simple, and this has happened multiple times, blah blah blah, sunk cost fallacy, blah

Grad School is tough - I'm personally seeing the effects of just how of a time sink getting a Master's/Ph.D - mad respect for your attempt at it and the sheer dedication/commitment needed is a lot. Regardless, I really hope any one of these (or multiple of these) tips truly helps you. Remember your priorities, rest well, and if you're in the intro stage of Game Dev, please consider Game Jams / Micro-games. Small steps at your stage of life are extremely recommended as it'll help you grasp game design concepts more rapidly while integrating positive habits into your journey. No shame in taking your time now, but once you get the hang of it, that's when the accelerated process can truly kick in.