Money and time are two other challenges game developers can face which weren't mentioned in the video :) + many other small ones that can be very personal (health) ! Anyway I hope you enjoy it and see you very soon for lots more :) !
For those who are not in school anymore and want to make money from making games, I have a tip. Don't try to make money from making games lol, or get hired for it. I did a lot of research on that subject and what most people end up doing is get a part time "safe" job, and then try to earn money from making games with the rest of their time. You can succeed but it takes a lot of time, practice, contacts, marketing, patience, and so on. Freelance contracts can bring money but they are not reliable enough, at least when you start. In my opinion it's always better to have a "safe zone" instead of risking everything. And if you can get a job that is related to game creation, like music, art, video making, or programming, it will be even easier.
Make a "Checkpoint" gameobject, add a rigidbody, add a collider and check "istrigger", then add a script with an OnTriggerEnter method that stores the position of the checkpoint in playerprefs. And it's done! Save that object as a prefab, drop it everywhere you need it. Of course when the player dies, you need to respawn and get the last checkpoint position from player prefs.
hello dude. great emotional game. i was absolutely immersed into the game until i found a game breaking bug :(. in the level where there are a lot of frinedly characters (i think last level) if u go left straight to the wall and jumptowards it then change ure direction u will go to the other side of it (sometimes u can jump to the highest end of the wall) and strat infinitly falling some screens : ibb.co/ghOfNy ibb.co/mxBZhy (dont laugh about my browser tabs =[ )
The biggest thing that a lot of brand new beginner-level devs don't realise: Your abilities increase exponentially. A lot of people just give up completely right at the start because initial progress is so slow and they feel they simply don't have the time/ability to continue going at that speed; but getting good at game dev isn't a straight shallow line on a graph. It's a curved line that jumps upwards sharply and then keeps going vertically. If you can just make it through that difficult, slow start you'll start racing along before you know it and you'll be amazed at how quickly you can tackle new, ever more complex concepts.
I am 12 I am learning c# unity What I know about unity c# game development now was achieved by just seeing other game Devs and learning from my own mistakes
My biggest problem is school work. I’ll open a new project at the start of the holidays and then when school starts back up I slow down production and the further through the term the less I get to make. I haven’t open unity in about 3 weeks because of this. It’s annoying because I loose track of what I’m making and have to rethink it all. ❤️❤️love your videos btw❤️❤️
I can really relate to that :) ! This year is my last one at high school and I've been thrown such huge piles of work ! My best advice here is to try and do 1 hour every evening of game dev, even 30 minutes if you really don't have the time, this way you don't lose track of what you're making and during the week ends and holidays you can catch up :) ! It sure is tough coming back home after longs days of school work to then make games (which is awesome but very "thinking heavy") but I can assure you it's really worth it ! Best of luck and thanks for the comment :) !
Yeah Once school starts I have to study at home or i'l fail. And when i'm done i'm pooped, can't think and must wind down, but then I have more school tomorrow so I have to waste my breaks on my game making -_- "sigh" it's not fair but at least it's much much better than 50 or 30 years ago when there wasn't any engines to ever start making a game at all
Noa, THANK YOU! I was about to give up on a game jam because of some of the things you mentioned - this came out at the very right time - I really am very glad you created, AND shared. It is great to know that we are not alone in thinking like this, and to see someone overcome those thoughts and create is helpful. Because you can help guide those of us out of the dark hole we make for ourselves with our thoughts! Your tutorials are clear, have concise instructions, LOOK fantastic, don't ramble, are easy to follow and quick to implement. You are tops among my go-to tutorials when I need help with a game aspect. I thank you, and my abandoned games thank you also! Keep up the AWESOME work you do.
fire bone *YOU KNOW, YOU SHOULD TAKE THIS ONLINE UNITY COURSE, ON UDEMY. YOU ARE GONNA LEARN C#, OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING, VARIABLES, BASICALLY EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW, TO MAKE GAMES! AND IF IT DOESNT WORK OUT, YOU CAN GET YOUR MONEY BACK IN 30 DAYS. I CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU MAKE WITH THIS. GET STARTED NOW, WITH A SPECIAL DISCOUNT.*
Thanks so much Jay :) ! I'm so happy to hear you like my content ! It's people like you that keep me so motivated, big thanks once again and stay tuned !
This video is legit 110% accurate, also my first game was made completely from rectangles and boxes because I was horrible with 3d modelling, now days I love to model and do it myself, coding has never really been a problem and story and level design are my fav parts of games so that leaves only music left and still to this day I can't do music, but luckily I ran into a composer who makes great music for free and loves making music for small games.
Try out a program called MagicaVoxel, it's very easy to use, it's like building in Minecraft. It has made my life so much easier as I just couldn't figure out how to work with programs like Blender.
If u struggle with comparing your work with others, as I do, another tip is to look back on whoever you are comparing your work to, and examine their old work. You'll often find that they started out alot like you. Like hollow knight, the game was originally just a top down game about a bug addicted to cherries or something. The devs behind it had previous games before then too, most were very simple and weird. Everybody starts off somewhere
Fellow game dev here working on a commercial game that's planned to be released a year out from now and have been working on it for the past 4 or 5 months or so. Everything you stated on this video is spot on. The #1 thing is you have to do is run that marathon theirs no way getting around it. Video games are multidisciplinary by nature theirs no way around that so focus on your strengths as an individual. BE PROUD OF YOUR WORK! DON'T LET ANYONE DISCOURAGE YOU! Strive to be creative and do a better job than a lot of the sheer number of other games that are already out there. Keep up the great videos and game dev Blackthornprod! This one hit home with me.
Man this is a video I kind of needed to hear. I've been wanting to make my own games for so long, but I always hit a wall. More often then not it's my laziness, and other times it's my inability to really code. I can only get a general idea of coding, but then having to type it all out and trying to figure out what goes where, and how things need to be structured starts to confuse me. My only other issues are my job, and that I have other priorities at home. I'm at least talking to some people on things, but still, I've got ideas I'd like to work on, stories I want to tell through games, but I just hit a giant wall.
EcoDirts yeah, it’s kind of why I’ve wanted to make 2D games honestly, I’m not great with 3D, plus I’ve been working more with pixel art. I’d rather make a top down game, or a beat em up.
The hardest struggle is when I watch tutorials and I telling myself: I watching this for improving my skills but its not true I watching this because I don't have the power and motivation to improve my work.
What I find helps with constantly restarting, is the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” saying. I’ll write a list of bugs I can’t fix in the code at the time, and come back to them in a month. I keep doing this until I only have one or two minor bugs.
Same here ^^' For all my LD entries I invite a friend who can draw or make 3D assets. When I make a game alone I always prefer 3D. It's more "mathematical" in a way and you can get a lot of nice textures for free, or just use simple colors. Add a little VFX and you can have superhot for example ;-)
Meh git gud. I have spent 5 years drawing and I still can't shade. My art sin't even that good to what I want but I just keep on going and I have improved significantly from a month ago
On your final point, the advice to set aside a small amount of time each day is really important. There was a great lecture I watched a few years ago about creativity from John Cleese, where his major point was that you need to set yourself an allotted time to work. If you can do it at any time you are unlikely to actually start, but if you have an hour a day, and once you reach the end of that hour you actually stop, you'll be looking forward to starting again the next day instead of being burned out.
My struggle is anxiety and depression. Took me four years to complete my first game and I still haven't put it out there for people to play just for fear that nobody will like it.
First of all thank you, you showed in the video how to get past a part of "He almost killed me" I was stuck, now I 'll go back and continue from there :D :D My major problem about game development is that when I am about to finish a game, I find a similar game of someone who has done it better (art and level design)...and my motivation goes down to 0. The good news is that each time I start over I do it better than the time before....looking back a couple of weeks or months, all the work I've done, it has improved so much - and it will keep on improving. The other problem, I lack of original ideas. PS. you guys are great, I bought your Udemy course.. and I recommend it to everyone! Thank you!
Great Noa! Yeah difficulties arise and managing them is the key, you covered it all here, with all your own experiences, you are so rich and passionate, great to visit here again!
"Motivation comes with momentum." Nice :) I found that very helpful. And I love your little series on procedural generation. Very helpful to my project.
Noa, just wanted to say thanks again for sharing your enthusiasm and your knowledge with the game dev community. Your videos are great and I speak for a lot of us when we say your work is super impressive for someone at your age. Keep up the great work and never lose your great attitude!
Fantastic video, my guy! It's comforting to know that other people are going through similar struggles. Introspection and being brutally honest with yourself are vital for improving - not only in game development - but in all aspects of life. Keep up the great work!
art, I suck both at pixel and normal art and it stops me from actually doing anything, literally just sat down on my computer, tried to continue on the project I was working on but since I couldn’t draw I just stopped for the day, and ironically found this video right after laying on my bed
Two of my biggest problems on game dev was procrastination and lack of organization , i was always doing things in a random order , what made me feel like i was doing no progress at all , then i started to organize things , i put a white board on my wall then put post-its telling what was planned for the day , it made things much better for me , doing things on a rational way ,the feeling of progress.
I'm so happy to hear you found a solution to your problem :) ! Organizing yourself can be really important and useful (should of mentionned that in the video ;D), as you perfectly said, it gets you feeling as if you're really making progress ! There's something so very satisfying about ticking off a to do box and getting closer to your goals :) !
My biggest struggle was people I care wanted me to add more and more things to the game and at some point I understood that I was in a black hole so I had to say stop to them and finally published my game after 3 years, "but" I have learned a lot in those 3 years about making games and even though it was a small project, 3 years was the project + learning for me, so it wasn't even a waste. Stay strong my pals, you will reach to the end with the right decisions!
finishing things and being overwhelmed by coding is what holds me back. i got a team of 3 now with a few mates and its going better but very early in development now.
it's my second time i get into gamedev and there's 2 thing that really help me out compare to the first time: 1-English, the last time, like 5years ago, i wasn't really good in english, i tried to find out answer to my question in french but there's not a lot of ressource, if you're good with english, that will really help you 2-i'm not alone this time, we are 2, we are constantly sharing idea, i specialize on code, he specialize on design, the project always advance even when i'm stuck on coding problem for a while.
5:48 I used to try and make models on blender to use in my games, trying to make them low polly, that would get difficult when modeling characters, then I just started doing everything in Voxel and then animating in blender (which I am quite good at). PS.: I prefer programing to art and music which also reminds me to thank you for presenting me that simple music program (I can't remember it's name).
Thank you for this video.. I was in the middle of some of these struggles, but after watching this video, I'm feeling confident and motivated to create games now. Again, thank you very much, cheers from Brazil ;)
On man band at 5 years in and 4 projects burned :\ ... each was grand in scale that was my problem, always trying to bite more than I can chew. But I've settled on and planned the current project much better... a simple( he says) 2d top down shooter which some of your tutorials have helped with. Much thanks. It's nice to hear people talk about the reality behind the curtains...
Many thanks for such a useful video. My main struggles are the impostor syndrome (specially on art), and the believe that I should spend my time on something with more odds of making money rather than games. The former is easy to overcome (just practice), the second one is really hard.
*THANKS MAN!* .. For me the best way to keep progressing is to START A NEW PROJECT over and over when you feel unhappy or depressed or any somthing bad else ..
thank you for this wonderful video! ive been working on my first game for almost 5 months now with a very artistic friend, im going to start posting vids about it on my channel for advertisement and attention sake like you said, i will be devistated if i get no players on my game :(
And I can totally relate to that :) ! The best thing you can do is try making a flappy bird clone, finish that from A to Z and then from there gradually increase your projects size and complexity ! Even if you're more than capable of making a flappy bird, just the fact of finishing what you started will make you that much better as a game developer ! Anyway thanks a ton for the feedback and best of luck ! I would love that you send me your finished game (flappy bird or not) via discord :) so I can try it out !
It's probably foolish to post this, but the video was very good, so here goes: I've been trying to make games for probably 15 years now, and never really got anywhere. I come from a background in programming, and learned 3D and modding and then dove into game development. I first began with Torque, but it felt more like modding than developing, and seemed more for making an FPS when none of my game designs were an FPS. Next I made a game in Flash, and that went well until the size and complexity of the game began to slow it down. I then moved onto OpenGL+ Java and got 60% of the way done on a cute game, but a change in the openAL license made it so I couldn't deliver it to any other machine, and that made it pointless. This was very demotivating, and I stopped for many years. Now, I'm trying to learn Unity, and it's slow going, but I keep at it. Thanks for the video!
Great video man. Thank you for tackling a topic that doesn't get nearly enough useful feedback. also, hats off for getting through it! Better to complete many small games that work, than to have several broken, unfinished "masterpieces" lying around collecting dust.
Ouch number 5 hit me like a bee. Many times I have got started and soon found myself in RUclips loop, or something like that and saying "Pff alright I start tomorrow".
I've heard a suggestion online about restarting and getting better problem, "finish your first and last levels at the end of development". They're the most impactful on the player, so they need to be the very best.
A big problem for me is... making a portfolio and knowing where to post! I've posted some unfinished prototype stuff on Itch before but I'm not sure if I should be posting on other places too like Gamejolt and Newgrounds. I definitely need to take your advice on blogging whether it be YT or Itch.
Hey Evan :) ! Yep definitely post your creations on the most platforms possible ! Newgrounds is a great place to get loads of views and feedback (more than Itch.Io actually) !
Great video, I've found it hard to juggle many projects. I get bored and start new ones often. So I have many unfinished projects. Also the more I learn, the more I want to go back through my games and redesign the UI, streamline the code and add more features. It's a never-ending cycle. I like your point about doing an hour or two a day. That's achievable. Keep up your excellent videos.
gotta say as someone just starting the biggest struggle I have is knowing so little and wanting to make so much to have ideas but know I can't make them atleast not yet
I was literally just thinking on how to start programming. I have the basic knowledge of C# coding and still want to make progress on it and I also know how to use Unity pretty well. But I've always stumbled upon a problem. Sometimes it would be a creative block because I want my first game to be a "bestseller", sometimes it would be a bug that is challenging to fix or art because I'm not a very talented artist. When school finishes, I'm sure I'll make my first game. Plane and simple just as you said and I will give my self a deadline because when I start creating games, I get bored of it and just restart. Thanks for all the tips!
I'm really glad you liked the video ! I really look forward to the day you finish your first game ! And of course don't put yourself the pressure of making a top besteller, already finishing something is awesome ! Best of luck :) !
I played your game, really enjoyed it :D especially the boss levels. On the final level (the credits, basically) I glitched out of the map by going all the way left, and ended up falling forever. I had to go to the menu to return to the game. All in all, very enjoyable!
If you could please start putting your games on mobile, I would download and play every single one. That being said, could you make a video about the issues with doing so or just about that process? You're beliefs, advice, videos, and art are all truly inspiring!
Even though I can do all 3(coding, music, and animation) I am not good enough at any one of them to make a part of my game have good gameplay. But that's not my main issue. Since I'm not a pro at one of those skills, I look online day and night studying and learning all this but get burned out really quickly. After the advice from the video, I now can relax a lot more and still think about my game in a positive way.
Me and a friend are currently working on a game together, and my biggest put down is how I haven't done much on the coding side, but I've done a lot of the art instead, and that isn't as important because the game needs to be functional before much of the art can start rolling in. This game is being made for a state competition coming up soon, and we only have a month until it's due. My biggest gripe is how every function isn't perfect and so one, we wont have animations due to time constraints, or sound for that matter. I'm worried about the AI we're implementing isnt going to be fully flushed out either due to our lack of AI knowledge. However, we have a course on Udemy teaching us and we're already almost done with that. But I'm just concerned about what will be finished when the deadline comes.
Really great video! I can see myself in most of your mentioned struggles haha. Especially the first one, I'm kinda in the "restarting" loop.. but I'm working on it!
Heyhey! Thank you for the most motivating video about being GameDev I've come across on RUclips so far :) When watching it, a question came to my mind: Do you recycle your old art and code and so on or do you only make fresh and new content every time you start a new project? Greetings and keep on the good work!
Hey Blackthorn! i encountered all of them at least 10 times :D Really good to know that i am not alone. I am working on my 15th or 16th project in the past 3 years :D But current one continues from 6-7 months and i cannot restart now. I hope i can finish it someday. Thanks for encouragement!
This video is just GREAT! im speechless, you gave me a great insight and motivation on game dev. Please keep on with your channel, I really love it , and your videogame is AMAZING, really thank you for everything!!
i think maybe whenever i'm feeling discouraged from working on my rpg maker game (it's called project crystal and even though it's been a few months since i started developing it, it's still far from finished), i'll probably go onto my old laptop, upload my old unfinished project to google drive (i was never able to finish my old project because not only does it suck but also i was using a free trial which expired over a year ago), download the files to my current laptop and compare it to my current project also, being a game dev is my dream job so i'm trying not to just abandon project crystal (i've gotten way too attached to the characters i created for the game to do that lol)
Honestly for me its the "your work isnt as good as others" part of it that demotivates me that makes me wanna just play games rather than work on them myself which isnt as satisfying.
for me biggest struggle are sound effects... not saying I'm superb at other areas, but can do some simple pixel art, can do some coding, if I'll try hard I think I can come up with some simple background music (far from awesomeness), but sound effects, I'm not really sure how to grab this actually - there's quite little about this area to teach from and get some "how to" inspiration: any suggestion/hint appreciated ^^ anyway, great video, gave some inspiration and courage :)
Clawing my way out of tutorial hell was by far the most challenging part of learning development. I'm not even fully out of it, but at least now I'm working on my own projects and I'm aiming tutorials and learning at my end goals rather than just remaking other people's projects. Also, sorry to ruin the 420 comment count.
I think the idea of comparing ones self to their previous self is great! I sometimes have this issue, but looking back at my previous games I have really improved!
Exactly :) ! Look back at your past self and you'll really see the progress you've made :) ! I'm really glad that tip helped you out :) ! Cheers mate :) !
My biggest problem is health. I have 10 years experience of gamedev and my game is almost finished (about 8 more months) but i have cancer and only 3 months to live.
The struggles for me are A- Levels, I have to create a game for a teacher who expects far too much, and I am expected to dedicate all my time to a project that is 10% of one of 4 A- Levels, I am barley making progress because I am having to resit tests for other subjects that I simply don't have time to revise for.
Why do you think pixel art is so easy, I mean it’s hard to get the right shape and look with squares and the animation is harder because it’s hard to get the illusion of depth with pixel art, I’m sorry, it’s just not that easy and it takes more time then regular art, again sorry I just put a lot of time into my games art which is almost entirely pixel art
Hey :) ! What you say is completely true ! Pixel art is in no way easy and of course can be as awesome and epic as any other art form ! The only reason it may be more accessible is because you don't need a drawing tablet (should have said that in the video) ! Thanks for pointing that out :), I should have been a bit more clear in saying that pixel art is not easy but is more accessible than other art styles ! Cheers !
I have like 20 Unity projects which are all unfinished, because I just lose motivation on the current idea and want to start something new. Think it's because I don't limit myself - as I make something, I just add more and more onto it until it just becomes one big, complex mess. I have to try to keep the scope small when working on a project.
Yep lack of motivation/laziness is tough, best advice I have for you is that you just "force" yourself to get going, to start your project or finish up some piece of code / art. Even if forcing yourself doesn't sound great, by doing so you'll gain momemtum, you'll advance on your project and that visible progress will boost your motivation like crazy ! Best of luck and just keep creating, keep drawing, creating art and it's impossible you don't improve and find that motivation :) !
I dont know If you sayed it, but my most common problem is to stop thinking about the possible features of the game. I just catch myself floating away in tons of cool game ideas without realising the real state of the game! So the solution is simple: just write anything down (structured) and think about the simplicity of these features. And then play the game and think about what you now have to do. And if you struggle with some difficult gamefeatures you have to include, think about what exactly the most important thing this feature contains. Sometimes recoding functions/... is necessary to make things work / stay focused. But, as he sayed, dont recode to often. The first step should be to make everything as simple as possible! You will see... :) (If you are interested in what i am doing: subscribe and stay tuned for my game, coming approximately in 2-3 month)
My biggest struggle is game art and the fact that I am making mobile game not pc games which make it really hard because there are not a lot of tutorials for mobile games
![MY GAME CREATION JOURNEY - The History of Blackthornprod [so far] !](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NHPo-wnCqjU/mqdefault.jpg)
![MY GAME CREATION JOURNEY - The History of Blackthornprod [so far] !](/img/tr.png)
Money and time are two other challenges game developers can face which weren't mentioned in the video :) + many other small ones that can be very personal (health) ! Anyway I hope you enjoy it and see you very soon for lots more :) !
For those who are not in school anymore and want to make money from making games, I have a tip. Don't try to make money from making games lol, or get hired for it. I did a lot of research on that subject and what most people end up doing is get a part time "safe" job, and then try to earn money from making games with the rest of their time. You can succeed but it takes a lot of time, practice, contacts, marketing, patience, and so on. Freelance contracts can bring money but they are not reliable enough, at least when you start. In my opinion it's always better to have a "safe zone" instead of risking everything. And if you can get a job that is related to game creation, like music, art, video making, or programming, it will be even easier.
Blackthornprod can you make a video how to make checkpoints
Make a "Checkpoint" gameobject, add a rigidbody, add a collider and check "istrigger", then add a script with an OnTriggerEnter method that stores the position of the checkpoint in playerprefs. And it's done! Save that object as a prefab, drop it everywhere you need it. Of course when the player dies, you need to respawn and get the last checkpoint position from player prefs.
Julien Bonte thanks for guide me but if we wont to make more checkpoints so what we will do
hello dude. great emotional game. i was absolutely immersed into the game until i found a game breaking bug :(. in the level where there are a lot of frinedly characters (i think last level) if u go left straight to the wall and jumptowards it then change ure direction u will go to the other side of it (sometimes u can jump to the highest end of the wall) and strat infinitly falling some screens : ibb.co/ghOfNy
ibb.co/mxBZhy (dont laugh about my browser tabs =[ )
The biggest thing that a lot of brand new beginner-level devs don't realise: Your abilities increase exponentially.
A lot of people just give up completely right at the start because initial progress is so slow and they feel they simply don't have the time/ability to continue going at that speed; but getting good at game dev isn't a straight shallow line on a graph. It's a curved line that jumps upwards sharply and then keeps going vertically.
If you can just make it through that difficult, slow start you'll start racing along before you know it and you'll be amazed at how quickly you can tackle new, ever more complex concepts.
The only hard thing is to get the basics right
I am 12
I am learning c# unity
What I know about unity c# game development now was achieved by just seeing other game Devs and learning from my own mistakes
@@venkateshanujpawar405 i am 11
@@venkateshanujpawar405 wow! that's great! I'm 16 and I started programming at 14 :)
Yup, once you learn something, especially code, you don't have to relearn it. All your knowledge and experience just continues compounding.
My biggest problem is school work. I’ll open a new project at the start of the holidays and then when school starts back up I slow down production and the further through the term the less I get to make. I haven’t open unity in about 3 weeks because of this. It’s annoying because I loose track of what I’m making and have to rethink it all. ❤️❤️love your videos btw❤️❤️
I can really relate to that :) ! This year is my last one at high school and I've been thrown such huge piles of work ! My best advice here is to try and do 1 hour every evening of game dev, even 30 minutes if you really don't have the time, this way you don't lose track of what you're making and during the week ends and holidays you can catch up :) ! It sure is tough coming back home after longs days of school work to then make games (which is awesome but very "thinking heavy") but I can assure you it's really worth it ! Best of luck and thanks for the comment :) !
Me too
Damn im going through the same thing. My final exams are coming up in 2 weeks 😭
Yeah Once school starts I have to study at home or i'l fail. And when i'm done i'm pooped, can't think and must wind down, but then I have more school tomorrow so I have to waste my breaks on my game making -_- "sigh" it's not fair but at least it's much much better than 50 or 30 years ago when there wasn't any engines to ever start making a game at all
Yeah I have the same problem.
Noa, THANK YOU! I was about to give up on a game jam because of some of the things you mentioned - this came out at the very right time - I really am very glad you created, AND shared. It is great to know that we are not alone in thinking like this, and to see someone overcome those thoughts and create is helpful. Because you can help guide those of us out of the dark hole we make for ourselves with our thoughts!
Your tutorials are clear, have concise instructions, LOOK fantastic, don't ramble, are easy to follow and quick to implement. You are tops among my go-to tutorials when I need help with a game aspect.
I thank you, and my abandoned games thank you also! Keep up the AWESOME work you do.
And remember making your own game is easier than what you think.
fire bone hahahaha i see what you did there
fire bone *YOU KNOW, YOU SHOULD TAKE THIS ONLINE UNITY COURSE, ON UDEMY. YOU ARE GONNA LEARN C#, OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING, VARIABLES, BASICALLY EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW, TO MAKE GAMES! AND IF IT DOESNT WORK OUT, YOU CAN GET YOUR MONEY BACK IN 30 DAYS. I CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU MAKE WITH THIS. GET STARTED NOW, WITH A SPECIAL DISCOUNT.*
I always get that add xD
i will kill myself , if i see that AD one more time :D
*ADBLOCKER*
it's a simple spell but quite unbreakable
Thanks for the motivation man, This is by far my best channel on RUclips. Thumbs up
Thanks so much Jay :) ! I'm so happy to hear you like my content ! It's people like you that keep me so motivated, big thanks once again and stay tuned !
This video is legit 110% accurate, also my first game was made completely from rectangles and boxes because I was horrible with 3d modelling, now days I love to model and do it myself, coding has never really been a problem and story and level design are my fav parts of games so that leaves only music left and still to this day I can't do music, but luckily I ran into a composer who makes great music for free and loves making music for small games.
Try out a program called MagicaVoxel, it's very easy to use, it's like building in Minecraft. It has made my life so much easier as I just couldn't figure out how to work with programs like Blender.
I could sounds interesting, but I have learned blender though and am pretty ok at modelling now days.
Helluva necro but who is this musician you mention?
If u struggle with comparing your work with others, as I do, another tip is to look back on whoever you are comparing your work to, and examine their old work. You'll often find that they started out alot like you.
Like hollow knight, the game was originally just a top down game about a bug addicted to cherries or something. The devs behind it had previous games before then too, most were very simple and weird. Everybody starts off somewhere
Fellow game dev here working on a commercial game that's planned to be released a year out from now and have been working on it for the past 4 or 5 months or so. Everything you stated on this video is spot on. The #1 thing is you have to do is run that marathon theirs no way getting around it. Video games are multidisciplinary by nature theirs no way around that so focus on your strengths as an individual. BE PROUD OF YOUR WORK! DON'T LET ANYONE DISCOURAGE YOU! Strive to be creative and do a better job than a lot of the sheer number of other games that are already out there. Keep up the great videos and game dev Blackthornprod! This one hit home with me.
Man this is a video I kind of needed to hear. I've been wanting to make my own games for so long, but I always hit a wall. More often then not it's my laziness, and other times it's my inability to really code. I can only get a general idea of coding, but then having to type it all out and trying to figure out what goes where, and how things need to be structured starts to confuse me.
My only other issues are my job, and that I have other priorities at home.
I'm at least talking to some people on things, but still, I've got ideas I'd like to work on, stories I want to tell through games, but I just hit a giant wall.
Heres a tip: never start gamedev with making 3d games
EcoDirts yeah, it’s kind of why I’ve wanted to make 2D games honestly, I’m not great with 3D, plus I’ve been working more with pixel art. I’d rather make a top down game, or a beat em up.
The hardest struggle is when I watch tutorials and I telling myself: I watching this for improving my skills but its not true I watching this because I don't have the power and motivation to improve my work.
What I find helps with constantly restarting, is the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” saying. I’ll write a list of bugs I can’t fix in the code at the time, and come back to them in a month. I keep doing this until I only have one or two minor bugs.
the biggest problem of mine is I cant do art... even pixel art
Same here ^^'
For all my LD entries I invite a friend who can draw or make 3D assets. When I make a game alone I always prefer 3D. It's more "mathematical" in a way and you can get a lot of nice textures for free, or just use simple colors. Add a little VFX and you can have superhot for example ;-)
Lol what's worse is that I can't do code
use GMS / construct, it made for someone who cant code, but I still prefer unity, gms is for noob xD
Meh git gud. I have spent 5 years drawing and I still can't shade. My art sin't even that good to what I want but I just keep on going and I have improved significantly from a month ago
I'm like the exact opposite. I'd say I'm pretty good with art, but coding is just really difficult for me to wrap my head around.
On your final point, the advice to set aside a small amount of time each day is really important. There was a great lecture I watched a few years ago about creativity from John Cleese, where his major point was that you need to set yourself an allotted time to work. If you can do it at any time you are unlikely to actually start, but if you have an hour a day, and once you reach the end of that hour you actually stop, you'll be looking forward to starting again the next day instead of being burned out.
My struggle is anxiety and depression. Took me four years to complete my first game and I still haven't put it out there for people to play just for fear that nobody will like it.
I’m so glad I watched till the 10 minute mark, that is sooo helpful
First of all thank you, you showed in the video how to get past a part of "He almost killed me" I was stuck, now I 'll go back and continue from there :D :D
My major problem about game development is that when I am about to finish a game, I find a similar game of someone who has done it better (art and level design)...and my motivation goes down to 0. The good news is that each time I start over I do it better than the time before....looking back a couple of weeks or months, all the work I've done, it has improved so much - and it will keep on improving. The other problem, I lack of original ideas.
PS. you guys are great, I bought your Udemy course.. and I recommend it to everyone!
Thank you!
Great Noa! Yeah difficulties arise and managing them is the key, you covered it all here, with all your own experiences, you are so rich and passionate, great to visit here again!
"Motivation comes with momentum." Nice :) I found that very helpful. And I love your little series on procedural generation. Very helpful to my project.
Noa, just wanted to say thanks again for sharing your enthusiasm and your knowledge with the game dev community. Your videos are great and I speak for a lot of us when we say your work is super impressive for someone at your age. Keep up the great work and never lose your great attitude!
Fantastic video, my guy!
It's comforting to know that other people are going through similar struggles. Introspection and being brutally honest with yourself are vital for improving - not only in game development - but in all aspects of life.
Keep up the great work!
art, I suck both at pixel and normal art and it stops me from actually doing anything, literally just sat down on my computer, tried to continue on the project I was working on but since I couldn’t draw I just stopped for the day, and ironically found this video right after laying on my bed
Two of my biggest problems on game dev was procrastination and lack of organization , i was always doing things in a random order , what made me feel like i was doing no progress at all , then i started to organize things , i put a white board on my wall then put post-its telling what was planned for the day , it made things much better for me , doing things on a rational way ,the feeling of progress.
I'm so happy to hear you found a solution to your problem :) ! Organizing yourself can be really important and useful (should of mentionned that in the video ;D), as you perfectly said, it gets you feeling as if you're really making progress ! There's something so very satisfying about ticking off a to do box and getting closer to your goals :) !
An EXCELLENT look at things that make creating games difficult! A fantastic job! This should be watched by ALL young game developers. Keep it up.
My biggest struggle was people I care wanted me to add more and more things to the game and at some point I understood that I was in a black hole so I had to say stop to them and finally published my game after 3 years, "but" I have learned a lot in those 3 years about making games and even though it was a small project, 3 years was the project + learning for me, so it wasn't even a waste. Stay strong my pals, you will reach to the end with the right decisions!
finishing things and being overwhelmed by coding is what holds me back. i got a team of 3 now with a few mates and its going better but very early in development now.
I've yet to find a video of yours that I haven't liked, thank you for making these!
Number 5. That's what I am struggled with for long long time. Working alone and trying to push things to a good level of your taste...
The problem that I deal with the most is the lack of motivation. This comes from writers block, low confidence/ tough days, or having too many ideas.
it's my second time i get into gamedev and there's 2 thing that really help me out compare to the first time:
1-English, the last time, like 5years ago, i wasn't really good in english, i tried to find out answer to my question in french but there's not a lot of ressource, if you're good with english, that will really help you
2-i'm not alone this time, we are 2, we are constantly sharing idea, i specialize on code, he specialize on design, the project always advance even when i'm stuck on coding problem for a while.
This channel is really starting to grow on me. Great work boys!
Thank you
For someone who's a complete beginner to start making games this video is a lot inspiring
5:48 I used to try and make models on blender to use in my games, trying to make them low polly, that would get difficult when modeling characters, then I just started doing everything in Voxel and then animating in blender (which I am quite good at). PS.: I prefer programing to art and music which also reminds me to thank you for presenting me that simple music program (I can't remember it's name).
Thank you for this video.. I was in the middle of some of these struggles, but after watching this video, I'm feeling confident and motivated to create games now. Again, thank you very much, cheers from Brazil ;)
On man band at 5 years in and 4 projects burned :\ ... each was grand in scale that was my problem, always trying to bite more than I can chew. But I've settled on and planned the current project much better... a simple( he says) 2d top down shooter which some of your tutorials have helped with.
Much thanks.
It's nice to hear people talk about the reality behind the curtains...
Many thanks for such a useful video. My main struggles are the impostor syndrome (specially on art), and the believe that I should spend my time on something with more odds of making money rather than games. The former is easy to overcome (just practice), the second one is really hard.
Me and my friends have started game development and had many struggles like this this really helps so Thanks!
*THANKS MAN!* .. For me the best way to keep progressing is to START A NEW PROJECT over and over when you feel unhappy or depressed or any somthing bad else ..
thank you for this wonderful video! ive been working on my first game for almost 5 months now with a very artistic friend, im going to start posting vids about it on my channel for advertisement and attention sake like you said, i will be devistated if i get no players on my game :(
Love the content you are making. The biggest struggle for me is that i make new projects all the time.
And I can totally relate to that :) ! The best thing you can do is try making a flappy bird clone, finish that from A to Z and then from there gradually increase your projects size and complexity ! Even if you're more than capable of making a flappy bird, just the fact of finishing what you started will make you that much better as a game developer ! Anyway thanks a ton for the feedback and best of luck ! I would love that you send me your finished game (flappy bird or not) via discord :) so I can try it out !
My guy you are a real inspiration and you make me believe anything is possible. Thanks for that.
I recommend starting with macromedia flash
This was really helpful and inspiring. I should open back up unity and try again.
An year and a half late but just wanna say how beautiful I find "He almost killed me". You're very talented, keep up the good work.
It's probably foolish to post this, but the video was very good, so here goes: I've been trying to make games for probably 15 years now, and never really got anywhere. I come from a background in programming, and learned 3D and modding and then dove into game development. I first began with Torque, but it felt more like modding than developing, and seemed more for making an FPS when none of my game designs were an FPS. Next I made a game in Flash, and that went well until the size and complexity of the game began to slow it down. I then moved onto OpenGL+ Java and got 60% of the way done on a cute game, but a change in the openAL license made it so I couldn't deliver it to any other machine, and that made it pointless. This was very demotivating, and I stopped for many years. Now, I'm trying to learn Unity, and it's slow going, but I keep at it. Thanks for the video!
Im starting in this world of game development, it's nice to have a channel to guide you like this one.
Hey Aldo :) ! I wish you the best of luck on your game creation journey and will do all I can to help you along the way ! Cheers !
Great video man. Thank you for tackling a topic that doesn't get nearly enough useful feedback. also, hats off for getting through it! Better to complete many small games that work, than to have several broken, unfinished "masterpieces" lying around collecting dust.
Ouch number 5 hit me like a bee. Many times I have got started and soon found myself in RUclips loop, or something like that and saying "Pff alright I start tomorrow".
Wow! That's a good game you made there! Played it in one sitting!
Now it's an hour past my bed time.
This video was also a great help! Thank you!
I've heard a suggestion online about restarting and getting better problem, "finish your first and last levels at the end of development". They're the most impactful on the player, so they need to be the very best.
A big problem for me is... making a portfolio and knowing where to post! I've posted some unfinished prototype stuff on Itch before but I'm not sure if I should be posting on other places too like Gamejolt and Newgrounds. I definitely need to take your advice on blogging whether it be YT or Itch.
Hey Evan :) ! Yep definitely post your creations on the most platforms possible ! Newgrounds is a great place to get loads of views and feedback (more than Itch.Io actually) !
Great video, I've found it hard to juggle many projects. I get bored and start new ones often. So I have many unfinished projects. Also the more I learn, the more I want to go back through my games and redesign the UI, streamline the code and add more features. It's a never-ending cycle. I like your point about doing an hour or two a day. That's achievable. Keep up your excellent videos.
gotta say as someone just starting the biggest struggle I have is knowing so little and wanting to make so much to have ideas but know I can't make them atleast not yet
I was literally just thinking on how to start programming. I have the basic knowledge of C# coding and still want to make progress on it and I also know how to use Unity pretty well. But I've always stumbled upon a problem. Sometimes it would be a creative block because I want my first game to be a "bestseller", sometimes it would be a bug that is challenging to fix or art because I'm not a very talented artist. When school finishes, I'm sure I'll make my first game. Plane and simple just as you said and I will give my self a deadline because when I start creating games, I get bored of it and just restart. Thanks for all the tips!
I'm really glad you liked the video ! I really look forward to the day you finish your first game ! And of course don't put yourself the pressure of making a top besteller, already finishing something is awesome ! Best of luck :) !
I played your game, really enjoyed it :D especially the boss levels. On the final level (the credits, basically) I glitched out of the map by going all the way left, and ended up falling forever. I had to go to the menu to return to the game. All in all, very enjoyable!
If you could please start putting your games on mobile, I would download and play every single one. That being said, could you make a video about the issues with doing so or just about that process? You're beliefs, advice, videos, and art are all truly inspiring!
6:19
*Megalovaina plays in the background*
I am filled with determination
(I really am, his idea and music is sooo amazing)
There are so many project and ideas i coded the logic for but never finished just to move on to a new idea and start a new project
Even though I can do all 3(coding, music, and animation) I am not good enough at any one of them to make a part of my game have good gameplay. But that's not my main issue. Since I'm not a pro at one of those skills, I look online day and night studying and learning all this but get burned out really quickly. After the advice from the video, I now can relax a lot more and still think about my game in a positive way.
love this video
your video make me felt motivated and helped me a lot in finishing my first game
So.
I make like 50% of a game then my mind starts thinking about a nother Idea 😐.
😭😭😭 im never gonna finish my work...
Me too man hehe
me too. I have a new idea but im making smth already
Same
try to add that idea into your game then
I merge games together instead.
You are really inspiring, thanks. And “he almost killed me” looks great, I really think you should publish it on steam
Me and a friend are currently working on a game together, and my biggest put down is how I haven't done much on the coding side, but I've done a lot of the art instead, and that isn't as important because the game needs to be functional before much of the art can start rolling in. This game is being made for a state competition coming up soon, and we only have a month until it's due. My biggest gripe is how every function isn't perfect and so one, we wont have animations due to time constraints, or sound for that matter. I'm worried about the AI we're implementing isnt going to be fully flushed out either due to our lack of AI knowledge. However, we have a course on Udemy teaching us and we're already almost done with that. But I'm just concerned about what will be finished when the deadline comes.
Really great video! I can see myself in most of your mentioned struggles haha. Especially the first one, I'm kinda in the "restarting" loop.. but I'm working on it!
Heyhey! Thank you for the most motivating video about being GameDev I've come across on RUclips so far :)
When watching it, a question came to my mind: Do you recycle your old art and code and so on or do you only make fresh and new content every time you start a new project?
Greetings and keep on the good work!
Hey Blackthorn! i encountered all of them at least 10 times :D Really good to know that i am not alone. I am working on my 15th or 16th project in the past 3 years :D But current one continues from 6-7 months and i cannot restart now. I hope i can finish it someday. Thanks for encouragement!
When you spend a ton of time on a huge line of code, only for it to not work and you have to study it carefully to find the mistake.
Your videos are always helpful, and some of the best created I’ve seen, you keep everything smooth and easy to understand. Keep it up! 😁
This video is just GREAT! im speechless, you gave me a great insight and motivation on game dev. Please keep on with your channel, I really love it , and your videogame is AMAZING, really thank you for everything!!
Thanks so much for that comment :) ! It's so encouraging and motivating ! Stay tuned mate and best of luck on your own game dev journey !
This was very helpful, you came around everthing! Thanks for the help mate.
i think maybe whenever i'm feeling discouraged from working on my rpg maker game (it's called project crystal and even though it's been a few months since i started developing it, it's still far from finished), i'll probably go onto my old laptop, upload my old unfinished project to google drive (i was never able to finish my old project because not only does it suck but also i was using a free trial which expired over a year ago), download the files to my current laptop and compare it to my current project
also, being a game dev is my dream job so i'm trying not to just abandon project crystal (i've gotten way too attached to the characters i created for the game to do that lol)
Honestly for me its the "your work isnt as good as others" part of it that demotivates me that makes me wanna just play games rather than work on them myself which isnt as satisfying.
So good! Really enjoying these videos. Preach buddy!
for me biggest struggle are sound effects... not saying I'm superb at other areas, but can do some simple pixel art, can do some coding, if I'll try hard I think I can come up with some simple background music (far from awesomeness), but sound effects, I'm not really sure how to grab this actually - there's quite little about this area to teach from and get some "how to" inspiration: any suggestion/hint appreciated ^^
anyway, great video, gave some inspiration and courage :)
You are an amazing educator and story teller man! I love watching all your stuff
That's so motivating to hear :) ! Thanks a ton for the encouraging words and stay tuned :) !
Noa! ^^ I have to say thank you so much for this awesome video and I'll keep your great words in mind forever😊
Clawing my way out of tutorial hell was by far the most challenging part of learning development. I'm not even fully out of it, but at least now I'm working on my own projects and I'm aiming tutorials and learning at my end goals rather than just remaking other people's projects.
Also, sorry to ruin the 420 comment count.
I think the idea of comparing ones self to their previous self is great! I sometimes have this issue, but looking back at my previous games I have really improved!
Exactly :) ! Look back at your past self and you'll really see the progress you've made :) ! I'm really glad that tip helped you out :) ! Cheers mate :) !
Thanks!
My biggest problem is health. I have 10 years experience of gamedev and my game is almost finished (about 8 more months) but i have cancer and only 3 months to live.
The struggles for me are A- Levels, I have to create a game for a teacher who expects far too much, and I am expected to dedicate all my time to a project that is 10% of one of 4 A- Levels, I am barley making progress because I am having to resit tests for other subjects that I simply don't have time to revise for.
Este video era justo lo que necesitaba, muchas gracias :D
Why do you think pixel art is so easy, I mean it’s hard to get the right shape and look with squares and the animation is harder because it’s hard to get the illusion of depth with pixel art, I’m sorry, it’s just not that easy and it takes more time then regular art, again sorry I just put a lot of time into my games art which is almost entirely pixel art
Hey :) ! What you say is completely true ! Pixel art is in no way easy and of course can be as awesome and epic as any other art form ! The only reason it may be more accessible is because you don't need a drawing tablet (should have said that in the video) ! Thanks for pointing that out :), I should have been a bit more clear in saying that pixel art is not easy but is more accessible than other art styles ! Cheers !
@@Blackthornprod I saw some pixel-artist draw a silhouette then draw based on it, i think that might need a tablet
Motivation and ideas. Starting is soooooooooooo difficult!
Agreed :) ! I'm currently finding starting much harder than finishing ! Best of luck anyway :) !
happy to see your channel grow this much .. i am *motivated* ever time i see your videos :-)
My biggest problem is that I don’t have a pc or a laptop
I have like 20 Unity projects which are all unfinished, because I just lose motivation on the current idea and want to start something new.
Think it's because I don't limit myself - as I make something, I just add more and more onto it until it just becomes one big, complex mess.
I have to try to keep the scope small when working on a project.
The things that bother me the most is being lazy and not being able to make good art for my games, also the lack of motivation
Yep lack of motivation/laziness is tough, best advice I have for you is that you just "force" yourself to get going, to start your project or finish up some piece of code / art. Even if forcing yourself doesn't sound great, by doing so you'll gain momemtum, you'll advance on your project and that visible progress will boost your motivation like crazy ! Best of luck and just keep creating, keep drawing, creating art and it's impossible you don't improve and find that motivation :) !
I think making a game is easy when you dream of ideas but to make them come to life is the hard part.
This video realy helped me....I would struggle with the last part alot :3 Thanks for inspiration
you are the top designer and developer game I be motivated every time i watched your videos this game is in playstore
I dont know If you sayed it, but my most common problem is to stop thinking about the possible features of the game. I just catch myself floating away in tons of cool game ideas without realising the real state of the game! So the solution is simple: just write anything down (structured) and think about the simplicity of these features. And then play the game and think about what you now have to do. And if you struggle with some difficult gamefeatures you have to include, think about what exactly the most important thing this feature contains. Sometimes recoding functions/... is necessary to make things work / stay focused. But, as he sayed, dont recode to often. The first step should be to make everything as simple as possible! You will see... :)
(If you are interested in what i am doing: subscribe and stay tuned for my game, coming approximately in 2-3 month)
Just starting out. Biggest Struggle ... getting overwhelmed
Really liking your channel, thank you for your content!
Thank you for the inspiration! Love your content
My biggest struggle is game art and the fact that I am making mobile game not pc games which make it really hard because there are not a lot of tutorials for mobile games
Thank you so much for reinspiring me.
I'm so gad my video helped you out :) ! Best of luck mate !
Really helpful i was watching utube vids all day long and did nothing.
All I wanna know is what's that cube based game on 6:15 onwards cuz honestly that looks kinda crispy and fun.
This is the most brilliant advertisement ever
What is the name of that little square/block fighting game first shown at 6:12 ?