Start A Game Studio In 12 Months (Seriously!)

hey guys my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called once upon a coma I've been making games for 10 years and in those 10 years I've been running my own game studio paying the mortgage paying the company's bills paying for my family my wife and daughter and my dog I've been doing all this with game development it's my job I'm an indie game developer it's the best job on earth and I had no idea how to start an indie game studio and I think the worst thing was I had no idea how easy and possible it actually was to do it so I didn't really know what I was doing I was just aimlessly wandering around and I wish I had somebody like me to tell me some baby steps some quick steps that I could take to start a game studio in a short amount of time believe it or not you could make a game studio in a year and so I want to give you 12 steps and that's month by month of how you can start your indie game studio now obviously this has to do with you it has to do with you being disciplined and working hard I can't guarantee anything if you're not gonna work your butt off on making this happen now you're gonna be tempted to think that your surroundings your world maybe your identity or how you were how you were born or how you grew up or or your family you're gonna be tempted to blame all of those things but what I want you to do for this one year is realize that you you are the person that's going to make this happen nothing else is going to stop you you are going to make this happen so let's talk about the 12 steps the 12 month to month steps that you can do to achieve your very first indie game studio let's get started [Music] now before I tell you the month-to-month steps for you to start your indie game studio I want to talk about something like Skillshare and I'm really excited to talk about Skillshare because honestly guys Skillshare can be used in these 12 steps Skillshare could teach you how to make great sound effects for your game great music for your game great story teach you unity teach you C sharp teach you 3d design Photoshop UX design whatever you need to learn about game development and creating your indie game studio it can be learned on Skillshare so if you guys want to three months of skill share click the link in the description spend two to three hours a day for a month brainstorming a generic small game idea be sure that this idea that you have this generic idea is small and it's sticky what I mean by sticky is that when you throw it as somebody when you throw this idea as somebody they can catch it quick they understand what you're saying it makes sense and preferably they get excited and they start offering more ideas a really good example of a sticky idea is super mario odyssey the idea was what if you had a hat and that hat gave you all sorts of abilities and so they just stacked up idea after idea after idea the simple concept of throwing your hat right that's a really sticky idea and notice how it's small it's like a diamond think of it as a diamond it's small but super valuable so I need you to spend a month just brainstorming two to three hours a day and that means working through lunch and that means working in the mornings early before work or late into the evening this is probably the most important step for your year-long process of creating your indie game studio now once you have this idea I need you to pitch it to people I need you to pitch it to friends and family members only pitch it to people who play video games and only pitch it to people who want to see you succeed there are a lot of people in your life who don't want to see you succeed because they aren't succeeding so be sure that you're talking to people who one see you succeed otherwise they're gonna turn down your ideas tell you it's a bad idea and make you feel bad about yourself so that's the first month it's huge an important month because everything else is gonna lay on this foundation this small tiny idea doesn't mean your ideas not gonna change to a degree but everything is gonna lay on this foundation all right the second month the second step to create your indie game studio in a year is you need to learn the basics just the basics of unity and some art tool okay so that could be Photoshop if you want to make a 2-d game or that could be blender or cinema 4d for creating 3d stuff now this is just the basics guys you're gonna be learning about the software as you're moving through the year as you're creating your game okay but this second month is learning the basics and so I need you to spend two to three hours a day every day for a month just focusing on learning the basics of unity that means that understanding the software environment understanding how things interact with one another opening up blende are taking blender tutorials there's a ton of places to be able to learn this software so there really is no excuse guys we are in the best time in human history to learn and create things to create worlds we have no excuse so spend that second month learning blender or Photoshop or both if you want and then unity just the basics it's okay if you're not perfect just the basics okay the third month in this process is learning a c-sharp now most of you have some kind of understanding about code now if you get no idea about syntax or code learning c-sharp in a month might be a bit of a challenge but I would just say if you can't get it done in a month make it two months make it three months it's okay if it extends beyond a year for those of you who know how to generally code and understand the syntax I think you can learn the basics of c-sharp especially in the context of unity because unity does a really good job of sort of helping you along as you code there so many amazing tutorials and also writing scripts in Visual Studio it kind of does it for you in a way there's a lot of recommendations in Visual Studio so I believe that you can learn it in a month now the fourth month is sort of rinse and repeat all of this okay especially months two and three the fourth month should be spent going back over unity and Photoshop and blender and c-sharp and just making sure you understand the basics guys if you think about it these four months are really spent on just learning the basics of software and understanding what your prototype is it sounds like you're you're compressing a lot but I believe that you can actually do it especially when you focus on doing two to three hours a day every day for these four months this is when things get fun okay the fifth month is you are going to create a terrible looking horrible looking prototype only one level for this idea that you created in your first month this prototype must look terrible if you find that your prototype actually looks kind of cool you've wasted your time and the reason why is because the prototype phase should be a highly economical quick phase it's almost like a game jam you need to get this prototype done quick because you don't want to spend any other time working on artwork or music or making this thing look polished and the reason why is because when you actually test it with a focus group when you do focus testing people are gonna want to change a lot about your game and they're gonna reveal things to you that you didn't know and you didn't fully understand so once you actually have an understanding of what's wrong with your prototype going back and fixing it you're probably gonna recreate it you're gonna start from the ground up and make it better so polishing this is not the time for polish so this is month five build a terrible looking prototype only one level once you finish this generic terrible looking prototype doesn't mean that it's not fun just because something looks terrible does it mean it's not fun alright we made it to the sixth the sixth sixth month relax a little bit the reason why is because it's kind of like why I sometimes take walks because I need a reboot I need a refresh okay so you need to take a break and the way that you're gonna take a breather is you're just gonna send your prototype out to friends remember those five friends I was talking about earlier these are individuals who want to see you succeed these are individuals who play games understand games like playing games I need you to send your prototype to these individuals and I need you to get their feedback a way that you can get feedback probably the best way is get a couple of beers go to your friend's house load up your game turn out the lights drink a beer and write down every single thing that your friend talks about that frustrates them or bothers them okay now this is with five friends so you're getting a lot of feedback you might get 100 to 200 things you need to change about your prototyping but this is a great way to do focus testing now if you have some extra time in this month send send your build off to some friends that maybe are in another state or maybe your Twitter followers or maybe if you have a YouTube channel see if some of your YouTube subscribers want to play your game and offer up feedback in a Google form but overall this month is just you taking a breather and getting feedback from people about what you've achieved and what they think about your prototype all right now that you've had a breather it's time to kick it into overdrive in the seventh month the seventh month is fine-tuning based on feedback thirty days two to three hours a day of just fine-tuning your game based on the feedback that you received from your friends that's honestly the seventh month just nose to the grindstone is that a word of that phrase I think it is nose to the grindstone let's just pretend it is right let's pretend it is a phrase but your nose to the grindstone and get those changes done now the eighth month this is where things get really fun it doesn't mean it's not hard work but this is where things get fun I need you to polish the heck out of this prototype make it look beautiful start putting image effects and camera effects and motion blur and a ton of game feel elements by the way guys if you want to learn about game feel just type in game feel tutorial or game feel lecture on YouTube and there are some incredible videos about how to make your game feel good that means screen shake that means particle explosions that means the sound effects having good bass and good treble I could go on and on about what makes good game feel this is the month where you polish it and make it look amazing again guys it's just one level we're not creating a game with a ton of levels it's just one level with that core game loop once you've achieved the polish that you want in those 30 days it's time for you to purchase a couple things now this is gonna cost you probably two to three thousand dollars to me it's totally worth it this is a great time it may be ask your friends say okay how do you think what do you think about this game do you honestly think that this game is worth any more time or investment on my part again if these friends really want to see you succeed they'll be honest with you if they say yeah I really like this game and I think it could be successful this could be a really good time for you to decide whether you want to get a little bit of a loan or use savings to purchase the next two things that I'm going to talk about in month 9 and month 10 I need you to source I need you to find an amazing video game musician they're all over the place so this is why it's gonna take maybe a month of your time 30 days for you to source the perfect musician for your game this could be somebody as high-profile as christopher Larkin I mean if you pay him the right amount of money he might make and he made the soundtrack for hollow knight by the way or finding someone like me who can write music now I do understand some of you saying that you could find a song on epidemic sound or production create calm or pond5 or there's just a ton of websites where you can download a song that works for your game I think most of us as game developers aren't really art directors okay so a lot of you watching this might not have a good understanding of what a good song is what makes a player really feel good and so that's why too it's more risky to spend all this time making a prototype and then not spend the money on someone who knows how to write music for games and knows how to make a song match your games feeling it's a wiser decision to do that so pay for someone to make a song one song for your game make sure it feels perfect now once you've done that you put it in your game then what I would say is purchase an incredible piece of 4k art for your cover and for your logo so that you could send it to people and pitch it to publishers so we're about to get to the end of this year now some of you are thinking I didn't make a game I just made a prototype I made a demo that's right you don't need a game to start a game studio once you have a demo with beautiful music once you have a that has a beautiful front cover with a beautiful logo it's time to start pitching your game to publishers and consider doing crowdsourcing this is the moment of truth guys and I know a lot of you want to release a game in a year if you've never made a game and don't really understand how to make a game it is not possible to get a great game done in a year but it is possible to secure funding so that you can finish it in the next year in months 11 through 12 I need you to reach out to 100 indie game publishers with concise emails that include everything that's part of your game here is the demo here is the trailer here is the gameplay footage here is my press kit and if you want to understand how to make a press kit just type in indie game press kit and Google will tell you how to do that and this is where you can also consider building a Kickstarter campaign now if you guys truly honestly created a great prototype if you created something that's really special and it's short let's say it's five minutes long or 10 minutes long if the core game loop works if the music really works if the art really works and you've made something that you think is really special publishers will buy this if they like your core game loop and and you did it all on your own they're going to buy it now if it's your first game they might give you $30,000 they might give you $100,000 but this money is where you finally say I'm gonna quit my job and I'm gonna make this game awesome see this first year guys it was about understanding how to make an incredible prototype that you can sell or guys if you don't want to work with a publisher you can build a Kickstarter campaign now this is just a side note but a lot of individuals think that Kickstarter campaigns need to have a fully completed game and I think what's happened here is that most Kickstarter campaigns that look really great they did a really good job of tricking you that they had a really long fully fleshed out game what they probably did has had a really good prototype and then they created a lot of cool trailer graphics and effects to make the game feel more alive and more full the truth is guys if you have five minutes of gameplay to share on Kickstarter and then a really good pitch you can have a successful Kickstarter campaign even with a small prototype alright guys that is my one year plan for creating an indie game studio if you guys like this video please hit subscribe leave a comment I'll try and answer as best I can and leave a like also guys I'm about to release my game once upon a coma it's my second commercial release we're gonna release it on consoles and PC at Mac if you guys are interested in that game please wishlist the game in the link in the description thanks guys [Music]

Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 253,679

Keywords: thomas, brush, Game Development, 2D Game Design, Pinstripe, Steam, Tutorial, Software, Unity, How To, indie games, unreal, nintendo switch, game career, how to make games, game dev, start a company

Id: YK7RPn5bPus

Length: 16min 36sec (996 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 30 2019