It should be a story-based, economy-driven open-world sandbox MMORPG with procedurally-generated environments and roguelike dungeons, voiced NPCs, RTS elements, FPS skillshot-based combat and an intricate crafting system. And its own physics engine.
And it HAS to be played with other people. No offline single player mode. Players will have to beg their friends to buy the game just so they can play it. This will increase your player base exponentially. This is especially important for small indie devs with 0 followers.
To make sure I never start/finish my games, I make sure I loose all my time watching all the tutorials or courses of features I may not even need, constantly feeling I need more knowledge before even starting.
Here's a tip. It's very painful at first to learn programming so don't try to make a game at all...I know it sounds insane but stay with me a moment...As you learn each concept, write the code and try to edit it some in a small way. Once you fairly understand what you are doing in that small step, try adding something to it. Say you are learning movement, well then also make the object grow/change color if you touch it. Combine very simple concepts. After a few weeks THEN try making a very simple gameplay loop. Otherwise you will get stuck and stuck and stuck over and over because you didn't gain a foundation first. 👍
Ooohhh, oh, oh, I see someone wants to starts a fight huh? Crying in a corner.... One positive though, it did feel good seeing how you've improved when you go back to tidy up
As long as gamedev is not your main job it's actually a great idea. Much code transfers from project to project, so cleaning up is an investment in your future!
The old saying, and I hate this saying but you cannot deny it, "Published is better than perfect." Take it from me, it will NEVER be perfect. So don't listen to this video and make your F'ing game. The world needs to know that it exists.
@@FinalMyle Another saying: there are only two types of code, and it's not good code vs. bad code. The only types that actually matter are: code that works and code that doesn't.
This video just got recommended to me. I learned game dev from this guy from his Udemy course, probably like 6 years ago. Good to see you again mate! Great video.
2 more things that I always include in my game un-making vision: - Make sure to always refine and improve your code, because you can be 110% sure that it sucks and if anybody gets their hand on it to check your game or try to mod it, you'll be a laughing stock all over the internet! - Embrace the scope creep. Any idea, no matter how small or big, that comes to mind is definitely cool and must make it into the game one way or another (make sure to have a list to never forget any of them). Even better, ideas that spawn even more ideas! Gotta love those creeper mommies.
Don't listen to this crap. This video is one giant naysayer. almost like someone who wanted to make something, whether or not it was a game and someone else made something better and they are bitter about it. I might be wrong but...red flags.
It's just sarcasm. But I will say the one tricky step is the feedback one for me. It has a bit of truth to it. I get told I should add this or I should add that,. They are probably right but how much can I do by myself? I thin line between joke and truth = Jokingly serious
Some rules from me as well, I always follow these rules for my unfinished projects; -Always second guess yourself, your idea might've felt cool at the start; but is it really the best idea you could be working on? Probably not, better just stop right there and turn to step 1, which is thinking of ideas. In fact think about other industries as well, I hear there is a lot of money in AI right now. -In your game, everything must be perfect, games aren't about fun; they are about the perfection of the developers skill in every single discipline. Never put something in the game that is "good enough". -No need for planning and timeboxing tasks; it will be done when it's done. (Hopefully never) -Only work on it if you're inspired/motivated. Discipline is overrated. -Whenever you're really stuck, take a month long break from your project. You'll solve it when you're ready. -Only work on games, forget social life, your family and friends, forget working out and striving for anything else. You're a game developer and you are only that. This will help you get burnt out really well and it will ensure your game doesn't get finished and make you hate your project to eventually let you quit it.
27 years since I had my idea and no one's made it, so I'm doing it myself before I snuff it. In fact, I posted ONCE about a very general idea and within 6 months someone had made a quick game about it. Some ideas are actually worth keeping to yourself. It's the other 4 points I unsarcastically agree with!
Yup, sounds like my strategy. That, or the other one where I jump in, get it mostly done, then get bored with it, go do something else for a month or more, then realize I neglected it, but it is poorly written but working code, so not wanting to break it, I abandon it completely!
Published is better than perfect. I hate it but it's true. How many published games vs non-published games because they wanted them to be perfect, exist? Make yo shizzz, then make the next one better.
Tip 6: Make it bigger. Always. Don't get bogged down on getting your basic mechanics right. Add new features, more details, bigger areas, richer animations.
6. If your game is not fun to play and does not look good, make sure to add at least 20 filters like bloom, camera shake, chromatic aberration and lens flares to make it really pop💥
Props to the video editor - really good. I disagree a bit on the "make your own engine" one - sometimes it is definitely better to not have all the extras from a game engine and just use a library or framework to give you more flexibility - but this depends on how much you like writing code.
Celeste, dead cells, hades, the witness and many other indies are custom tech. The development time of these titles isn't even longer than those in an engine most of the time... And porting isnt as much an issue as it was 15years ago with libraries such as vulkan
I have news for you; when you use an established game engine only use what you're gonna use, and leave the rest; when you cook the game ready for release the bloat from the software does not come with it. Better: use the game engine that suits what you need. Don't need some features? Don't use them. Rewriting an engine from scratch is a much more frustrating experience and will introduce a lot of the bugs that the other devs of game engines already went through over the multiple versions throughout the years.
@@arjenmiedema8991 Sometimes we must be careful about what they say regarding their "own proprietary" engines. Many times it's a heavily modified version of an existing engine. Lumberyard? As a totally independent engine? It's cry engine modified to the core, but it kept all the basic stuff you need to have an engine. Also not all engines are made with a GUI. The actual engine is the code that runs the game loop.
I lol'd at the idea theft one. I have a recruiting and consulting business for entrepreneurs, and I can't count the number of times I've been asked about whether their developer is going to steal their app idea.
I see it a lot when people are trying to put a team together. Fear of idea theft is the single biggest red flag that the person is clueless and you don't want to be on that team. Even the smallest amount of practical experience will knock that fear out of you. Game designers have way more ideas for games than they have time to develop them all, nobody who is actually capable of stealing your idea will steal it. The exception of course is places like King (Candy Crush) and Rovio (Angry Birds) but they will only clone your game idea after it has been published and proven successful.
Woah, I genuinely didn't know that other people actually copy other's peoples games from just a few devlogs... And then there's me posting almost daily showing off every single feature and showing my dream game's story in full detail... I might reconsider and turn all of my stuff private so it doesn't happen to me (and once I finish the game I'll toggle back the devlogs). Very helpful video! Thanks a lot!
I thought it took at least a decade to come up with the right idea and start thinking about how to plan a game and determine tools for at least another two or three years before... oh man! My world just exploded! Thanks Rick! Now I've got to start over from the beginning.
@@FinalMyle Yah definitely. Although all the things Rick brings up are really common issues people, including myself have with finishing projects. This video is a list of what not to do's.
If you narrowed down the genre you want to specialize in, it may have been time well spend. What's a few years if you are going to have a 40 year career in that game genre?
Fwiw I think you CAN make it work, but you're making the conscious choice to put something down and walk away. You could always say the game could have future updates, and so it's not "done" but you're choosing to work on other things, and I think that's a fair compromise.
Having multiple games to work on isn't the problem, as most gamedev's have a list of game ideas they would like to work on. Having multiple prototypes is also quite normal, as long as you find out what is most interesting, be it commercially or from a hobby satisfaction point of view. The one thing to finish the game is dedication to a project, preferably with a planning consisting of estimated and prioritized tasks and enough documentation to pick up where you left off.
Some more tips: * Make your game mechanics as complicated as possible; * Remember if there is no perfect system made at the very beginning of your project without any testing whatsoever, its bad. Don`t test, don`t try just write a f*****g 5000 lines of code to make the game fighting/other system that will at the end of the day not be fitting your needs and you will need to make another one from scratch… * Look if it is your first game, it MUST be an AAA. Trust me you don`t need to have hundreds people in your team to make an AAA game, you can do it all by yourself. Just ensure that your map size is at least the size of the Skyrim, you have an animation quality level of Sekiro or higher and you are good to go!
Bro had me going at first lol I was literally doing the opposite of everything. Then he said "Game Development should never be difficult or challenging." lol
The most important advice on this topic I can give, at least for the well-heeled game devs, is, to buy anything on the respective Market Store that can even remotely be connected with your project. So even if you plan on making a classic FPS, people will always fancy some variation in graphical style, won't they? So those sharp looking top-down 2d sprites are really looking good, maybe for the game world's map? Because you spend quite a lot of money before the project even started it will immediately increase the pressure you feel to get the project done, it works like a charm!
Motivation is the key. Always keep in mind that probably no one is ever going to play your game, which is a good thing since whatever you're making has already been made, much better, by someone else.
Amazing! I can't wait for part 2. where you mention learning all aspects of game development yourself such as music, sound, art, animation, story, and more. Then don't forget the important aspect of becoming a marketing genius and 10X everything in your daily life so you can sell it to every person you meet. Most of all being able to easily debug any issues due to having completed cs50 for Harvard in a week and now you secretly are a computer genius. Looking forward to this, thanks. 👍🏆
I find writing the game in a new still in development programming language with no history of successful use in game development, iffy library availability and which frequently makes breaking changes to the compiler and syntax really helps boost my productivity to the next level.
Two extra things from my own experience: - Polish your code all the time, trying to make everything so scalable and flexible that you could sell it as a game engine asset one day or the other. Spend hours looking for best practices, and try to optimize your code even before having a fun prototype to play! - Watch videos daily about marketing video games, so you realize it is hopeless and that you'll never make it. Excellent motivation breaker!
Never finishing a game well enough to publish it on steam and not having to end up with the cesspits of steam reviews and steam forums to deal with sounds like a good enough reason for this mindset to me. And this is speaking as someone who loves doing gamejams and working on smaller projects etc and has taken part in tons of those sort of events.
I think gamejams are the modern version of the Commodore 64 and Amiga demo scene. You wont make a dime, but you will learn a lot and hopefully have fun. Many from that scene ended up in gamedev, but many didn't. When the thing you do becomes work, it stopes being a hobby.
@@dancingdoormanable Funnily enough if I valued everything at same as buying it, I've probably made more value from gamejam prizes (including cash, gift cards, software licenses, subscription coupons (like free year of X etc) and merch etc) than a certain percentile of steam launches even make gross revenue. But not a livable income at all lol.
Yes, I do too. Lots of ideas coming for 2 games, devices, systems, and website design. Organizing my time has been difficult. Career change, online friends, fictional project with blender and krita, a writing project for storytelling, and family stuff.
Tip 5 is the easiest for me to follow because my interests keep changing. One week I want to make a zombie game, the next I want to make a stealth action game, the next I want to make a flying game.
Finally! No one is talking about this in the game industry, but this man has blessed us with a solid roadmap to help ensure we never finish our games! Thanks, mate! 😂
Also, your perfect game should definitely be ported to every single platform. First, click the "build for mobile, console, PC, VR, and Alexa" button in your preferred modern engine, then spend a year or two optimizing and testing your mechanics with every possible kind of input. No need to design for these kinds of things ahead of time.
I found it helps to spend at least a week putting off the one thing you don't wanna do. Don't do anything else during this period, especially anything that may progress your skills or push forward that aforementioned procrastinated task. Just think about the fact that you could get it done, and will get it done, but it'd take too much time, so just do it later.
I have only just learnt to get out of my own way! I've been doing your courses with Grant Abbitt and it's so well done the only issue would be me and I am not gonna stop me!
I was laughing along until the last one... I've been simultaneously working on a First-Person Horror and a 2D action side scroller and I keep telling people it's because I'm learning more about the program between each project...🤦♂ that one felt personal. So.... thanks 😂😂
another important tip is to compare yourself to others, focus on how much fame and money your perfect game will make, and focus on that more than what you're actually making. This will both demotivate you and make you lose interest on what you're currently making, and increase your anxiety to even try.
I think the problem is that there have been attempts to steal games in the past... Like Mobile specifically... Preferably I make my sh*t myself because I learned to do it myself, but at the same time if I get an asset pack to work with its like a literal chef's kiss... Idk... Tho I do recommend to stay indie, my team with bigger companies was riddled with marketing decissions and alike... F*ck off Tencent I hate you... Managments are likely the biggest threats to new games nowadays, which is why staying a compact studio with realistic and focused ideals, such as Larian for example, is absolutely worth it... Oh yea never work for Blizzard... They don't pay enough to put up with their sh*t...
My experience with game plot is that it could have used a rewrite and that includes Renpy visual novels who are mostly plot. Having even mentioned a rewrite makes you a HERO in my book. Bonus points if you know about a screenplay writing channel like FilmCourage where Hollywood pro's talk about script writing. Games are a visual medium so lots applies and pacing as one of the hardest part of a script, is left to the player. Super combo if you heard Brandon Sanderson talk about world building and magic systems.
I like to add a dash of imposter syndrome and a little bit of unrealistic perfectionism to allow myself to convince myself that finishing the project isn't worth the effort anyway, because it's never going to be good enough. But before I get that far, I plan out way more features than I can realistically add to my game, so I can take a step back and realize how long the road is, and give up right there, because of course the game will never be complete, unless I add every one of my ideas.
This is the best non-tutorial content I've seen from you guys, love it. Hope you don't take my feedback seriously though, it might make your content "unpure"
Hey, I've been working on my own game using your courses. Thankfully, I'm only doing the first thing you mentioned. But I've been taking notes in Obsidian while my game idea is stewing around and I'm working through your courses and finding asset packs. I'm hoping that by focusing on the GDD and figuring out the tech stack, that very soon I will be able to start making the game, and it will be easy to document over time. That should make me more productive in the long run. Does that make sense?
A missing step, agreeing to work with other people that have some skills you don't, and they eventually let you down and quit working!! I would tell my past self to NOT collab, but learn a working foundation of all the things FIRST. I have been left high and dry dozens of times by team members that couldn't actually do what they thought they could do and gave up, wasting everyone's time!!
You bring up a great point. Not being able to asses the work that needs to be done implies that you need to trust the one who does the work completely. This often happens if you need a plumber or some other profession, but would you trust an inexperienced plumber who does it on the side, completely? Would it be any different for gamedev? Being able to judge prior work helps. Checking references might help too. Having a plan with milestones makes for an early warning system when things go wrong.
Make sure to watch all trade conferences and "game awards" shows. Compare the pre-rendered footage of billion-dollar AAAAAA titles with your own zero-budget endeavours and rejoice over the fact that you can't even handle the math to describe the gap between you and them. Bonus : Make sure to switch game engines at the very second that a new experimental feature drops because it will ensure your game's commercial success.
how I don't finish my game is to work on things other than the game itself to earn money to live and make the game Thank you for the video~ xD It made my day!
The best games are still the ones you feel satisfied with when you finish it. As a gamer. If it's designed to spin project length, then it quickly turns into a slog. But I suppose there's plenty customers out there to dredge through.
I seem to have fail -- I finished a couple Java arcade style games in a weekend each, and then went on to release my roguelite FPS (albeit in terrible condition at launch) after only a year or so of screaming and cussing at Unity. Interestingly, most of this helps me finish games faster.
I am using the unity game engine ONLY so it would be a great idea to learn C++ and other programming language to be better at programming in general before writing anything in unity. Better... do an AEC in general programming to be sure you are good enough and then find a job in programming to make money to repay your school tuition. That way, you won't have enough time to work on any projects that could fail because of poor programming skill... oh yeah, do that for arts too since you don't like people in general and collaborating with people you have to pay with no money would make no sens. Better to do all yourself even if it takes 30 years!
You missed the most important step: you're first game should be a MMORPG because your ideas are so much better then what is on the market, and all you need to make a better one is better ideas!
Месяц назад+1
"I'll just learn a few new skills before continuing my game" take on a new course on something you don't really need and end up getting stuck in a loop of prototypes to explore that new skill you didn't need in the first place (for that project at least).
Some counterpoints:- a} One of the main things holding me back as a game developer, is the belief of modern gamers, that if they give you as a developer more than $5 at the absolute most, they automatically own your eternal soul. I can't remember how many videos I've seen from entitled vermin whining about the lack of "developer feedback." Maybe live service gaming is to blame, but it still sucks, and I really don't want to deal with it. b} Unity's parent company ARE corporate psychopaths of the kind that Patrick Bateman would consider inspirational. I'd honestly love to use that engine, but I do NOT want to be treated like a medieval serf. c} Pretty much every single one of the greatest games in history, have been developed with original engines. All of id's games, Minecraft, the GTA games...most 80s games were handwritten in assembly. It is false that no one should ever write a new engine from scratch. Your point about asset packs is legitimate, as is the stereotype about gamers generally working on half a dozen different games at once.
You can also constantly improve features every few months after you've learned how to do things better. 80% perfect is not good enough. Always aim for 100% perfect and hopefully you'll never ever finish a game!
I agree to most of the things you say except the 1 thing. You said we have to program our own game engine and there is the problem. First ; if this were such easy, everybody would have done so but that's not the case. Most of the companies (some big included) are using either, Unity, Unreal, Cryengine or even Godot. Second; if we are to make our own game engine, your Godot, Unreal and Unity courses are obsolete then? Why do we buy them? you see the paradox here? So what's gonna be? I would love to learn to program a game engine if you give me that as an exchange for all the Unreal courses I bought up until now hence using Unreal is not good ;) :)
A very cool video, i never tried to finish a game all the time i keept making systems LOL, i get bored at some point when i start making a full game ;--;
Or, the reason for incomplete projects is cancer. I have had cancer since 2015, and had to stop. Thankfully I am retired Navy and can use the VA for my chemo.
You forgot the most important thing, your first game should be an open world MMO RPG.
Stuffed with microtransactions?
It should be a story-based, economy-driven open-world sandbox MMORPG with procedurally-generated environments and roguelike dungeons, voiced NPCs, RTS elements, FPS skillshot-based combat and an intricate crafting system.
And its own physics engine.
✨ I believe it can be done
@@Gdevtv more like a 20 hour ad with some some gameplay and a sprinkling of story, and your cash is how you fight bosses.
And it HAS to be played with other people. No offline single player mode. Players will have to beg their friends to buy the game just so they can play it. This will increase your player base exponentially. This is especially important for small indie devs with 0 followers.
To make sure I never start/finish my games, I make sure I loose all my time watching all the tutorials or courses of features I may not even need, constantly feeling I need more knowledge before even starting.
Same here man
Knowledge = Power!
You can't have enough of it...
Here's a tip. It's very painful at first to learn programming so don't try to make a game at all...I know it sounds insane but stay with me a moment...As you learn each concept, write the code and try to edit it some in a small way. Once you fairly understand what you are doing in that small step, try adding something to it. Say you are learning movement, well then also make the object grow/change color if you touch it. Combine very simple concepts. After a few weeks THEN try making a very simple gameplay loop. Otherwise you will get stuck and stuck and stuck over and over because you didn't gain a foundation first. 👍
Yessssss
We've deleted your account to help you along with that 🙂
Step 6 rewrite every system as you gain more knowledge so that its cleaner code !
Stop these personal attacks :(
Ooohhh, oh, oh, I see someone wants to starts a fight huh?
Crying in a corner....
One positive though, it did feel good seeing how you've improved when you go back to tidy up
Great inclusion!
As long as gamedev is not your main job it's actually a great idea. Much code transfers from project to project, so cleaning up is an investment in your future!
Better to struggle as long as possible to find the best code architecture in your head before opening your IDE! Point 1 for pro’s 😅
I'm really glad I watched this. I was dangerously close to starting something. Good thing I can now wait safely until it's perfect....
The old saying, and I hate this saying but you cannot deny it, "Published is better than perfect." Take it from me, it will NEVER be perfect. So don't listen to this video and make your F'ing game. The world needs to know that it exists.
Phew, we can't have that now, can we?
Awesome I can't not wait to see the results
@@FinalMyle Another saying: there are only two types of code, and it's not good code vs. bad code. The only types that actually matter are: code that works and code that doesn't.
I don't think I've ever been more painfully called out.
Dude, don't listen to this video. You got this.
👀
I was thinking the same thing. Every single step.
This video just got recommended to me. I learned game dev from this guy from his Udemy course, probably like 6 years ago. Good to see you again mate! Great video.
Same! Great Udemy courses.
Good to see you again 🙂
I bought the course last year. Started it a few months ago and finished Delivery Driver. Now working on Tilevania
2 more things that I always include in my game un-making vision:
- Make sure to always refine and improve your code, because you can be 110% sure that it sucks and if anybody gets their hand on it to check your game or try to mod it, you'll be a laughing stock all over the internet!
- Embrace the scope creep. Any idea, no matter how small or big, that comes to mind is definitely cool and must make it into the game one way or another (make sure to have a list to never forget any of them). Even better, ideas that spawn even more ideas! Gotta love those creeper mommies.
Murphy's Law called and said some AI is going to scrape the script from this and use it to answer people's game dev questions
Without context (like comments and discussions) AI has no idea what code is about.
That's WonAIful 😜
I believe Rick to be an AI powered robot in this video. The look alike is so uncanny though.
@@Gdevtv hmm that's something an AI would say, trying to be cocky
I simultaneously feel called out but at the same time swear that this is one MASSIVE bit of sarcasm.
Don't listen to this crap. This video is one giant naysayer. almost like someone who wanted to make something, whether or not it was a game and someone else made something better and they are bitter about it. I might be wrong but...red flags.
It's all tongue in cheek 😜
We were feeling playful 😁
It's just sarcasm. But I will say the one tricky step is the feedback one for me. It has a bit of truth to it. I get told I should add this or I should add that,. They are probably right but how much can I do by myself? I thin line between joke and truth = Jokingly serious
you know that these things that were said is what we all are telling ourselves, as a lie. The cake is a lie. Now back to perfecting my idea.
Some rules from me as well, I always follow these rules for my unfinished projects;
-Always second guess yourself, your idea might've felt cool at the start; but is it really the best idea you could be working on? Probably not, better just stop right there and turn to step 1, which is thinking of ideas. In fact think about other industries as well, I hear there is a lot of money in AI right now.
-In your game, everything must be perfect, games aren't about fun; they are about the perfection of the developers skill in every single discipline. Never put something in the game that is "good enough".
-No need for planning and timeboxing tasks; it will be done when it's done. (Hopefully never)
-Only work on it if you're inspired/motivated. Discipline is overrated.
-Whenever you're really stuck, take a month long break from your project. You'll solve it when you're ready.
-Only work on games, forget social life, your family and friends, forget working out and striving for anything else. You're a game developer and you are only that. This will help you get burnt out really well and it will ensure your game doesn't get finished and make you hate your project to eventually let you quit it.
Great rules, we feel like we should rerecord the video so that we can add these. (with credit to you of course 😁)
27 years since I had my idea and no one's made it, so I'm doing it myself before I snuff it. In fact, I posted ONCE about a very general idea and within 6 months someone had made a quick game about it. Some ideas are actually worth keeping to yourself.
It's the other 4 points I unsarcastically agree with!
get it out there. Don't tease us. I want to play it. WE NEED YOUR GAME!
27 years in the making, your game will still be better than the quick game version. #bestgameever
@@Gdevtv with the right team, it could be a really fun game.
I posted ONCE about a very general idea and within 6 months someone had made a quick game about it - which game?
@@TheVicRulz Postman Vic? Stardew Valley style community building sim.
So after two years having done nothing but exactly this I am doing it right! Right? 😃
Then you're doing it correct! 😁
Rookie! I've spent 7 years without a single finished game.
Here's your certificate sir!
I am on year 12! I'm a pro!
Yup, sounds like my strategy. That, or the other one where I jump in, get it mostly done, then get bored with it, go do something else for a month or more, then realize I neglected it, but it is poorly written but working code, so not wanting to break it, I abandon it completely!
Don't forget to revisit the code, be completely confused... attempt to rewrite it and come back a month later
Constantly moving your project to the latest version of the game engine and 3D software.
Without a doubt!
My current plan is get it playable and completed, and then have fun with scope creep if i want. But fighting perfectionism is my biggest hurdle lol.
Published is better than perfect. I hate it but it's true. How many published games vs non-published games because they wanted them to be perfect, exist? Make yo shizzz, then make the next one better.
We all strive for perfection but sometimes it can become the enemy.
@@Gdevtv perfection is the enemy of creativity.
Don't forget to watch countless movies and TV shows so that you can come up with something that has never been done for your game's story
sarcasm? if not, all stories have been told. Now tell them in a different way.
and if you're not doing that read some 5000 page books...
I've been doing this for a game idea.
I actually did that for my game idea... probably why it's still just an idea...
Tip 6: Make it bigger. Always. Don't get bogged down on getting your basic mechanics right. Add new features, more details, bigger areas, richer animations.
6. If your game is not fun to play and does not look good, make sure to add at least 20 filters like bloom, camera shake, chromatic aberration and lens flares to make it really pop💥
Filter overload is always a W
we found J.J. Abrams working on a video game then....
Funny video! Well done!
My first game is ready after 3-4 weeks :D
Let´s go!
😄😄 Haha thanks!
how about changing engines and starting from scratch when you make it halfway through?
I'm switching to GODOT!
Thank you! Now I know these 20 Game of the Year games I am working on simultaneously are best kept quiet so I can be a major success!
Hold your cards close to your chest and just to be on the safe side, never release the games just in case someone copies you... 😄
5 can be tricky~ make sure the 2nd project is twice the scope size
Absolutely!
the heisenburg edit caught me off guard. I will never look at Rick the same ever again.
Rick is the one that knocks!
Props to the video editor - really good. I disagree a bit on the "make your own engine" one - sometimes it is definitely better to not have all the extras from a game engine and just use a library or framework to give you more flexibility - but this depends on how much you like writing code.
Celeste, dead cells, hades, the witness and many other indies are custom tech. The development time of these titles isn't even longer than those in an engine most of the time... And porting isnt as much an issue as it was 15years ago with libraries such as vulkan
Appreciate the props, thanks!
@@arjenmiedema8991 Exactly - one can use stuff like Haxe, Love2D, SDL and render to OpenGL/Vulkan - definitely easier for 2D games though
I have news for you; when you use an established game engine only use what you're gonna use, and leave the rest; when you cook the game ready for release the bloat from the software does not come with it. Better: use the game engine that suits what you need. Don't need some features? Don't use them.
Rewriting an engine from scratch is a much more frustrating experience and will introduce a lot of the bugs that the other devs of game engines already went through over the multiple versions throughout the years.
@@arjenmiedema8991 Sometimes we must be careful about what they say regarding their "own proprietary" engines. Many times it's a heavily modified version of an existing engine. Lumberyard? As a totally independent engine? It's cry engine modified to the core, but it kept all the basic stuff you need to have an engine. Also not all engines are made with a GUI. The actual engine is the code that runs the game loop.
Top tier sarcasm there! If it weren't for the accent I'd assume that you were British. A++
I lol'd at the idea theft one. I have a recruiting and consulting business for entrepreneurs, and I can't count the number of times I've been asked about whether their developer is going to steal their app idea.
😁
I see it a lot when people are trying to put a team together. Fear of idea theft is the single biggest red flag that the person is clueless and you don't want to be on that team. Even the smallest amount of practical experience will knock that fear out of you. Game designers have way more ideas for games than they have time to develop them all, nobody who is actually capable of stealing your idea will steal it. The exception of course is places like King (Candy Crush) and Rovio (Angry Birds) but they will only clone your game idea after it has been published and proven successful.
Woah, I genuinely didn't know that other people actually copy other's peoples games from just a few devlogs... And then there's me posting almost daily showing off every single feature and showing my dream game's story in full detail... I might reconsider and turn all of my stuff private so it doesn't happen to me (and once I finish the game I'll toggle back the devlogs). Very helpful video! Thanks a lot!
I thought it took at least a decade to come up with the right idea and start thinking about how to plan a game and determine tools for at least another two or three years before... oh man! My world just exploded! Thanks Rick! Now I've got to start over from the beginning.
I hope this is sarcasm....
Rick with the pearls of wisdom yet again.
@@FinalMyle Yah definitely. Although all the things Rick brings up are really common issues people, including myself have with finishing projects. This video is a list of what not to do's.
If you narrowed down the genre you want to specialize in, it may have been time well spend. What's a few years if you are going to have a 40 year career in that game genre?
Yeah I fell into the multiple games strategy a bit.
Fwiw I think you CAN make it work, but you're making the conscious choice to put something down and walk away. You could always say the game could have future updates, and so it's not "done" but you're choosing to work on other things, and I think that's a fair compromise.
The more games/genres... the merrier... right?
Having multiple games to work on isn't the problem, as most gamedev's have a list of game ideas they would like to work on. Having multiple prototypes is also quite normal, as long as you find out what is most interesting, be it commercially or from a hobby satisfaction point of view. The one thing to finish the game is dedication to a project, preferably with a planning consisting of estimated and prioritized tasks and enough documentation to pick up where you left off.
Some more tips:
* Make your game mechanics as complicated as possible;
* Remember if there is no perfect system made at the very beginning of your project without any testing whatsoever, its bad. Don`t test, don`t try just write a f*****g 5000 lines of code to make the game fighting/other system that will at the end of the day not be fitting your needs and you will need to make another one from scratch…
* Look if it is your first game, it MUST be an AAA. Trust me you don`t need to have hundreds people in your team to make an AAA game, you can do it all by yourself. Just ensure that your map size is at least the size of the Skyrim, you have an animation quality level of Sekiro or higher and you are good to go!
Some great additional tips! Thank you!
Bro had me going at first lol I was literally doing the opposite of everything. Then he said "Game Development should never be difficult or challenging." lol
If you have to engage your brain while doing game dev, then you're doing it wrong... 😜
@@Gdevtv you know, the ADHD in me loves hearing that lol
That's brilliant, finally got the long-awaited justification for my way of doing things! 🤪
We dedicate this video to you! 😄
What a creative way to motivate people. I love it. Shame that I don't need to learn anything about not finishing my countless incomplete projects.
Well, please remember these rules if you find yourself in that position of where you might actually start something 😄
Be sure to implement something, realise its not “perfectly implemented” delete your whole repo and start from scratch. Big brain thinking! 🧠 ⚡️
Big brain win 🧠
The most important advice on this topic I can give, at least for the well-heeled game devs, is, to buy anything on the respective Market Store that can even remotely be connected with your project. So even if you plan on making a classic FPS, people will always fancy some variation in graphical style, won't they? So those sharp looking top-down 2d sprites are really looking good, maybe for the game world's map? Because you spend quite a lot of money before the project even started it will immediately increase the pressure you feel to get the project done, it works like a charm!
Motivation is the key. Always keep in mind that probably no one is ever going to play your game, which is a good thing since whatever you're making has already been made, much better, by someone else.
Love the humor, very well executed😂
Glad you love it, would you want to see more videos like this in the future?
Amazing! I can't wait for part 2. where you mention learning all aspects of game development yourself such as music, sound, art, animation, story, and more. Then don't forget the important aspect of becoming a marketing genius and 10X everything in your daily life so you can sell it to every person you meet. Most of all being able to easily debug any issues due to having completed cs50 for Harvard in a week and now you secretly are a computer genius. Looking forward to this, thanks. 👍🏆
thank you
Now THAT is an idea!
I find writing the game in a new still in development programming language with no history of successful use in game development, iffy library availability and which frequently makes breaking changes to the compiler and syntax really helps boost my productivity to the next level.
Using Jai, Zig, Odin or Rust is for pussies. Rolling your own language is where real productivity comes from. ;)
Two extra things from my own experience:
- Polish your code all the time, trying to make everything so scalable and flexible that you could sell it as a game engine asset one day or the other. Spend hours looking for best practices, and try to optimize your code even before having a fun prototype to play!
- Watch videos daily about marketing video games, so you realize it is hopeless and that you'll never make it. Excellent motivation breaker!
Never finishing a game well enough to publish it on steam and not having to end up with the cesspits of steam reviews and steam forums to deal with sounds like a good enough reason for this mindset to me. And this is speaking as someone who loves doing gamejams and working on smaller projects etc and has taken part in tons of those sort of events.
Steam can be brutal!
I think gamejams are the modern version of the Commodore 64 and Amiga demo scene. You wont make a dime, but you will learn a lot and hopefully have fun. Many from that scene ended up in gamedev, but many didn't. When the thing you do becomes work, it stopes being a hobby.
@@dancingdoormanable Funnily enough if I valued everything at same as buying it, I've probably made more value from gamejam prizes (including cash, gift cards, software licenses, subscription coupons (like free year of X etc) and merch etc) than a certain percentile of steam launches even make gross revenue. But not a livable income at all lol.
Point #2 is a rough to hear but ill adjust, thank you for this !!!
You're welcome!
This was the motivation I needed to stop noodling it so much in my head and start writing it. Thank you sir.
Yes, I do too. Lots of ideas coming for 2 games, devices, systems, and website design. Organizing my time has been difficult. Career change, online friends, fictional project with blender and krita, a writing project for storytelling, and family stuff.
The variety advice was actually something I thought I was doing as a good thing.
😎
Tip 5 is the easiest for me to follow because my interests keep changing. One week I want to make a zombie game, the next I want to make a stealth action game, the next I want to make a flying game.
Finally! No one is talking about this in the game industry, but this man has blessed us with a solid roadmap to help ensure we never finish our games! Thanks, mate! 😂
Also, your perfect game should definitely be ported to every single platform. First, click the "build for mobile, console, PC, VR, and Alexa" button in your preferred modern engine, then spend a year or two optimizing and testing your mechanics with every possible kind of input. No need to design for these kinds of things ahead of time.
Excellent point!
I found it helps to spend at least a week putting off the one thing you don't wanna do. Don't do anything else during this period, especially anything that may progress your skills or push forward that aforementioned procrastinated task. Just think about the fact that you could get it done, and will get it done, but it'd take too much time, so just do it later.
Make sure to start with a physics-based, voxel, open-world, ultra realistic, MMORPG ❤
I have only just learnt to get out of my own way! I've been doing your courses with Grant Abbitt and it's so well done the only issue would be me and I am not gonna stop me!
Never stop you! ❤️
1:34 Build engine, " I want know, what is inside, how everything working "
I believe the core of an engine is run by a digital hamster wheel.
@@Gdevtv No stop, over and over again xD
I felt like number 4 resonated with me a little too hard. 😆
Right in the feels?
It's been 10 years since I started my 50 games none is finished based on this video I guess I have the right approach!
I was laughing along until the last one... I've been simultaneously working on a First-Person Horror and a 2D action side scroller and I keep telling people it's because I'm learning more about the program between each project...🤦♂ that one felt personal. So.... thanks 😂😂
another important tip is to compare yourself to others, focus on how much fame and money your perfect game will make, and focus on that more than what you're actually making. This will both demotivate you and make you lose interest on what you're currently making, and increase your anxiety to even try.
Ah.. You forgot that you should always aim to build that MMORPG game as soon as possible. Why wait?
Yeah multiplayer is pretty easy right? You just gotta do: if (Game.isMultiplayer()) initializeNetwork() else initializeLocal()
😎
On all devices and platforms. Don't worry about optimisation... the game will optimise itself...
I always make sure to make my scope as large as possible. The more a player can do, the better!
I think the problem is that there have been attempts to steal games in the past... Like Mobile specifically... Preferably I make my sh*t myself because I learned to do it myself, but at the same time if I get an asset pack to work with its like a literal chef's kiss... Idk... Tho I do recommend to stay indie, my team with bigger companies was riddled with marketing decissions and alike... F*ck off Tencent I hate you... Managments are likely the biggest threats to new games nowadays, which is why staying a compact studio with realistic and focused ideals, such as Larian for example, is absolutely worth it... Oh yea never work for Blizzard... They don't pay enough to put up with their sh*t...
Before writing your own engine, you should make your own programming language first, for absolute game perfection.
Correct! I want full control over this endeavor. I am 95 years old. I better get started now! But first ; a nap😂
I love feeling justified for rewriting the entire game's plot for the fifth time 🤪
Best make it a sixth time, just to be sure.
My experience with game plot is that it could have used a rewrite and that includes Renpy visual novels who are mostly plot.
Having even mentioned a rewrite makes you a HERO in my book.
Bonus points if you know about a screenplay writing channel like FilmCourage where Hollywood pro's talk about script writing. Games are a visual medium so lots applies and pacing as one of the hardest part of a script, is left to the player. Super combo if you heard Brandon Sanderson talk about world building and magic systems.
Can confirm, I have tried many of these techniques over the years, and they really work!
Irony of the tone of video and your responses when instructors encourage infringement in your courses
What inspiring tactics! I will be sure to implement these into my workflow ASAP. Thank you!
didn't have game dev calling me out on my bucket list this year, but here I am
Just when you think you know us, we throw a wild curveball 😁
I like to add a dash of imposter syndrome and a little bit of unrealistic perfectionism to allow myself to convince myself that finishing the project isn't worth the effort anyway, because it's never going to be good enough. But before I get that far, I plan out way more features than I can realistically add to my game, so I can take a step back and realize how long the road is, and give up right there, because of course the game will never be complete, unless I add every one of my ideas.
This is the best non-tutorial content I've seen from you guys, love it. Hope you don't take my feedback seriously though, it might make your content "unpure"
We took the comment exactly as you intended... wait are you being serious or? 😄
Hey, I've been working on my own game using your courses. Thankfully, I'm only doing the first thing you mentioned. But I've been taking notes in Obsidian while my game idea is stewing around and I'm working through your courses and finding asset packs.
I'm hoping that by focusing on the GDD and figuring out the tech stack, that very soon I will be able to start making the game, and it will be easy to document over time. That should make me more productive in the long run. Does that make sense?
It makes absolute sense! 😁
I agree with all of them but one. When you see your game similar to popular games that's not good and boring for me as if you're playing an old game.
This is so perfect! I'm doing everything wrong and I'm loving it! :D
A missing step, agreeing to work with other people that have some skills you don't, and they eventually let you down and quit working!! I would tell my past self to NOT collab, but learn a working foundation of all the things FIRST. I have been left high and dry dozens of times by team members that couldn't actually do what they thought they could do and gave up, wasting everyone's time!!
Who needs a team? Just develop extra personalities and it's like having a team of different people. 😄
@@Gdevtv Wow that's a great point!
You bring up a great point. Not being able to asses the work that needs to be done implies that you need to trust the one who does the work completely. This often happens if you need a plumber or some other profession, but would you trust an inexperienced plumber who does it on the side, completely? Would it be any different for gamedev?
Being able to judge prior work helps. Checking references might help too. Having a plan with milestones makes for an early warning system when things go wrong.
That Heisenberg moment... LOL! Well done!
bro this speaks to my counter productive instincts i the best way
it's amazing how useful it is to hear my ridiculous paranoid thoughts out loud
Too complicated, just don't start working on the game. Works every time.
Thank you for the tips! I will follow with my heart!
💖
I am guilty of endless iterations in the later stage of a project, of well everything.
Two years of gestating? Try 10. No, try twenty!
The longer, the better!
I didn't read the title until the Very End and did not felt suspicious
Only budget 1 month to complete a 6 month project. Then, after 2 weeks, start a new project because you've had a totally awesome new idea.
Make sure to watch all trade conferences and "game awards" shows. Compare the pre-rendered footage of billion-dollar AAAAAA titles with your own zero-budget endeavours and rejoice over the fact that you can't even handle the math to describe the gap between you and them.
Bonus : Make sure to switch game engines at the very second that a new experimental feature drops because it will ensure your game's commercial success.
how I don't finish my game is to work on things other than the game itself to earn money to live and make the game
Thank you for the video~ xD
It made my day!
This guide has helped me so much that I have not even started my game.
Glad to be of service.
The best games are still the ones you feel satisfied with when you finish it. As a gamer. If it's designed to spin project length, then it quickly turns into a slog. But I suppose there's plenty customers out there to dredge through.
I seem to have fail -- I finished a couple Java arcade style games in a weekend each, and then went on to release my roguelite FPS (albeit in terrible condition at launch) after only a year or so of screaming and cussing at Unity. Interestingly, most of this helps me finish games faster.
Honestly if you are going at it for the purposes of learning, some of these are excellent advice lol
Sometimes reverse psychology works 😄
I am using the unity game engine ONLY so it would be a great idea to learn C++ and other programming language to be better at programming in general before writing anything in unity. Better... do an AEC in general programming to be sure you are good enough and then find a job in programming to make money to repay your school tuition. That way, you won't have enough time to work on any projects that could fail because of poor programming skill... oh yeah, do that for arts too since you don't like people in general and collaborating with people you have to pay with no money would make no sens. Better to do all yourself even if it takes 30 years!
Nailed it!
You missed the most important step: you're first game should be a MMORPG because your ideas are so much better then what is on the market, and all you need to make a better one is better ideas!
"I'll just learn a few new skills before continuing my game" take on a new course on something you don't really need and end up getting stuck in a loop of prototypes to explore that new skill you didn't need in the first place (for that project at least).
Making a 2D racing game, studies course about 3D environments
@@Gdevtv exactly! Never know. Maybe it'll be useful and help you not finish your game! 🥲
Thanks Rick good advice as usual, that I needed atm.
Rick with another W
Some counterpoints:-
a} One of the main things holding me back as a game developer, is the belief of modern gamers, that if they give you as a developer more than $5 at the absolute most, they automatically own your eternal soul. I can't remember how many videos I've seen from entitled vermin whining about the lack of "developer feedback." Maybe live service gaming is to blame, but it still sucks, and I really don't want to deal with it.
b} Unity's parent company ARE corporate psychopaths of the kind that Patrick Bateman would consider inspirational. I'd honestly love to use that engine, but I do NOT want to be treated like a medieval serf.
c} Pretty much every single one of the greatest games in history, have been developed with original engines. All of id's games, Minecraft, the GTA games...most 80s games were handwritten in assembly. It is false that no one should ever write a new engine from scratch.
Your point about asset packs is legitimate, as is the stereotype about gamers generally working on half a dozen different games at once.
This is great and all, but can we get a whole new course on this subject?
Hey, I'm already doing all of these! So that's a good thing, right? ha ha ha ha ha...
You're on the right track, keep it up!
You can also constantly improve features every few months after you've learned how to do things better. 80% perfect is not good enough. Always aim for 100% perfect and hopefully you'll never ever finish a game!
I fucking love you man.
Not as much as we love you!
this reminds me of that meme where the reporter is talking to the kid and he smiles then cries
Lol - Awesome - Artindi got some competition - Going to follow this
We just want to help people 😁
I agree to most of the things you say except the 1 thing. You said we have to program our own game engine and there is the problem.
First ; if this were such easy, everybody would have done so but that's not the case. Most of the companies (some big included) are using either, Unity, Unreal, Cryengine or even Godot.
Second; if we are to make our own game engine, your Godot, Unreal and Unity courses are obsolete then? Why do we buy them? you see the paradox here?
So what's gonna be? I would love to learn to program a game engine if you give me that as an exchange for all the Unreal courses I bought up until now hence using Unreal is not good ;) :)
A very cool video, i never tried to finish a game all the time i keept making systems LOL, i get bored at some point when i start making a full game ;--;
The only one of these tips I'm guilty of is Tip #5. I have too many ideas for games
Or, the reason for incomplete projects is cancer. I have had cancer since 2015, and had to stop. Thankfully I am retired Navy and can use the VA for my chemo.
😟 You've got this! 💪