I'm about to start working on my first real
project. And as I'm gearing up to get started, I found myself thinking back on the road
that I took to get here. Let me show you how I went from not knowing anything
about game development to working on my first commercial project. This is
my two year game development journey. It was 2021. I had spent nearly two years going
through a design program that had a huge problems during this time. I was struggling with a huge
bout of imposter syndrome. It got so bad that I actually broke down in front of one of my
mentors. I had gone into the program with so much enthusiasm and passion, and it kept getting
stomped on by a support staff that didn't care. A curriculum that even our instructors thought
was wrong and evaluations from our teachers saying that we were clearly not ready to get jobs
as designers. And, uh, I didn't know where to go, so I decided that I was going to learn how to
code so I could have real world projects in my portfolio that I could build myself instead of
trying to get a job with just concept projects. That's what I did. I started learning web
development so I could get a design job. I went to a vocational high school where
we learned the basics of web development, so I wasn't going in completely
blind. Alongside web development, I decided to give game development a try just for
fun. I wasn't expecting anything to come from it. So the first course I went through was a 2D
course from GameDevTV, and during this time I was also trying to find a design job and learn
web development. But as I was going through the course It was fun. It took the aspects
that I enjoyed about design and the aspects that I enjoyed about programming and married
them together in such a new, refreshing way. I had just finished the first section of the
course, and it was the first time I thought I can make games and put them online, so I had
a plan. I wanted to work on my first game and put it online to see what kind of traction it
would get. So I did it. I started working on a text adventure game based off of the first
section of the 2D course I was going through. The game was called Sister's Keeper and
it's a story set in the far future where you're trying to save your sister after
she went missing on a mining expedition. You could explore two different
worlds that would lead to vastly different stories and every decision
you made had ramifications later on. The 2D course didn't teach much beyond the basic
functionality of making the text adventure, but I didn't just stop at what
they were teaching. I started to add things in like voiceover. I
added achievements to the game. I even started to build out a whole story
with multiple endings and branching paths. And I got help from another writer
to build the story out with me. It wasn't a shooter or action game, but this
project was really starting to look great. I got a job interview for a design role at
one of my dream companies. I went to the interview and I thought I did pretty well.
And even my interviewer seemed to like me. They said they were impressed with my
portfolio, but I ended up not getting the job. This might seem like bad news, but I
actually felt reinvigorated. The fact that I got a job interview based solely on my design
portfolio, even without real world projects, really gave me a boost in confidence. So I decided
that I was going to pass on the project for now and focus on building out my portfolio more
and start applying for jobs more seriously. I continued with the course and I was really
enjoying building on top of the course projects and not just stopping at what they were teaching.
I think this really helped accelerate my learning because I was actively going out on my own and
trying new things without guidance. So I took the laser defender game from the course and started
to build on top of it with my own 2d assets. And I think it turned out pretty good for a
course project, but as I was working on it, I had a vision. I could turn this game into a full game. This could potentially be my ticket
into getting my first indie game success. So I started working on this new project called
laser stream. I was still applying for jobs, but I knew this game would eventually be
my ticket into breaking into the industry. I gave up on a week later because I couldn't
figure out how to get the movement working. To be honest, I wasn't really interested in
this game idea. I was just really excited to start working on another game project and
it kind of got away from me. At this point, I had just finished the 2D game course and
even though I couldn't figure out how to make a simple 2D movement system I thought
I was ready to jump into multiplayer. So I took another one of GameDevTV's courses
that taught multiplayer. I actually couldn't get footage of the multiplayer game because,
uh, I don't have anybody to play with, but this is the level. Whoa, look at that.
Imagine, like, Tanks running around and stuff, doesn't that look cool? After finishing this
course, I reconnected with an old friend who was also getting into game development, and we
decided to work on our first multiplayer project. We didn't have a solid name for the game,
but the working title was Phobia Pals. It was meant to be a 2D horror game where
you play as a mailman delivering quests to heroes. You were going to be maneuvering
yourself through this dangerous world with limited movement abilities, trying
not to die while delivering these quests. We started talking about game design, and I
started building out some multiplayer features, but we ended up dropping the project, uh, sort of out of nowhere. But I think it was
for the better, I wasn't really ready to jump into multiplayer even after I finished
the course. So I started focusing more on building out my design portfolio, and this
was actually when I joined my first game jam. You might be thinking, what? What? Big Leap, I thought you were going to focus on design,
and now you're joining a game jam? Yeah, the stars aligned with this game jam. I was in
a design discord server, and out of nowhere, this design server that focused just on design,
decided they were going to run their own game jam. But I didn't join as a programmer,
I joined as a designer. This was my first experience working with a team, and
thankfully, I wasn't the lead. However, I did have a design partner that sort of
looked at me for guidance because I had some game development experience compared
to her zero. But she was a great designer. I really enjoyed working with her and
our project ended up with an award. The game was a 2. 5D scavenger hunt and it's
actually available to play right now on my itch page. Looking back on it, the process
of working with the team was really great, but I don't think the end product was
the best. And personally, I think the only reason why we ended up winning was because
there were five winners and only 14 submissions. But hey, a win is a win. I still count
it. I am technically an award winning designer. You can't take that away from
me. Off of the back of that victory, I started working on more projects
for my design portfolio. And one of my friends introduced me to a free coding
bootcamp that was. just completely free. I thought it would be a great opportunity
to learn more web development with a group of students and the bootcamp had connections
with Verizon. So I could potentially end up getting a job at the end of the program.
And during this time game dev TV hosted their own game jam and were offering a free
course to everyone that submitted a project. This. was another moment where the stars
aligned. I literally joined a class with a group of students that were hungry
to learn programming and a few of them enjoyed gaming as well. I asked if people were
interested and they did form a little group, but people eventually started
to fall off the project just because we were still going through the web
development bootcamp and people had jobs. But I did have one partner on the project at
the end, and she did the art for our submission, Soul Collector. Soul Collector is a 2D platformer
where you play as a little ghost running around picking up lost souls to save them from eternal
torment. It ended up being a 2D collectible game, and that project is also available to
play right now on my itch page as well. the back of the positive feedback we got. I
said, this is it. I had forgotten about the text adventure. I had quit the 2d side
scrolling bullet hell. I gave up on the 2d horror platformer, but not this time.
This game is going to launch me into indie game success. And I started working
on the project after the jam ended. I added some much needed improvements,
better sound effects. Particle effects, speed running timer, improved dialogue
system and camera system. Then one day, I just couldn't move. I was so bewildered. I tried
to figure out what the problem was, but the only thing that I added was a speed timer and that
didn't interact with the movement system at all. To this day, I don't know what the problem was.
I did update the Unity version to a newer version later on, and that completely fixed it. I ended
up giving up on the project because of this one bug. This is literally the only time I have
ever given up. on something because of a bug, and it's one of my greatest shames
in my game development journey. Uh, I'm sorry. So collector, you deserve
better. Rest in peace. I finished the coding bootcamp and I started to dive really deep into
programming because I started to get a lot of interview opportunities at really big, notable
companies. Google, Dropbox, Airbnb. I got pretty far into the interview process at some of the
companies, like Really far and during this time. I learned so much about programming. I learned
about algorithms big O notation and different libraries You call me spongebob because I
was soaking in so much knowledge about coding I got far but I didn't get all the way but
it felt like a huge confidence boost that I was able to compete with Other people
that had gone through college learning computer science But it did feel like I
was sort of running up against a wall. I have been trying for so long to
break into tech, first with design, then with programming, and I haven't had any
success. Throughout this time, I was supporting myself just hopping around from freelance
job to freelance job doing video editing, but I definitely couldn't have gotten this far
without the support of my brother and mother. Getting close to those high paying tech
jobs was a confidence boost for sure, but it was also really emotionally draining.
My mother helped me through the rejections. My brother had always been really supportive
with my game development projects as well, and I talked to him about maybe
taking this game development thing. Seriously, this whole time I had
been doing it more for fun and not really seeing it as a viable option I
got excited at points about making games, but even then in the back of my mind I still felt
like it wasn't something that I could actually do after talking with my brother He gave me
the support and push to really try to get this game development dream off the ground Over the
past few months, that's what I've been doing. I've been learning about the business of
game development. I have been studying more about programming and unity and using
the engine. I took CodeMonkey's turn based game course and started to join
more game jams to implement the things that I've been learning. I have two videos
going more in depth about those projects. And now I feel like I'm at a point where
I definitely don't know everything about game development, but I feel like I
know enough to start working on my first commercial project and learn along
the way. So, my first commercial project is going to be dedicated to my brother for
helping support me throughout this journey. The working title for my first
game is Tower Quest. If you're interested in seeing the development of that game, hit the subscribe button. Thank you for
watching. I'm excited to get started.
