Watch This Before You Make Your First Game!

guys I want to actually read a journal entry from ten years ago when I started my very first game this is a little bit raw a little bit emotional but I wanted to share it with you to make sure that you guys can understand that you're not alone January 1st 2009 January 2nd 2000 before we talk about those five things that I wish I would have known about when I created my very first game I wish I would have also known about something like Skillshare all of the information all of the stuff you have to dig around on google to find or dig around on YouTube to find and learn how to make games all that stuff is in one place guys there's a ton of courses you can take unity courses code courses UX design courses animation courses sound design courses if you're interested in it that information is probably on Skillshare if you guys are interested in giving Skillshare a shot click the link below how's it going guys my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called I just hit the mic I'm also working on a game called once upon a coma I love making games have been doing it for about 10 years and there's a ton of videos and tutorials online that I've watched to learn how to make games especially when I was making my first game I can't tell you how much research I did on Google and I think before YouTube was really a thing I was doing just a ton of tutorials as many as I could find but I never really found a video that told me how I should feel as a game developer some emotional pitfalls that you're gonna experience as a game developer especially when you're making your first game so I want to make a video with five things that you're gonna feel and I promise you you're gonna feel these things when you make your very first game so let's go ahead and get started the first thing you're gonna feel and it's kind of annoying because everybody talks about this this is kind of like a meme in the video game industry you're gonna feel like an imposter and it's called an impostor syndrome and notch the creator of Minecraft talks a lot about this feeling of feeling like you're a fraud feeling like you're not a professional feeling like you're not good enough and that people are gonna find out sometimes I've felt this way especially in the past I felt like I was putting on maybe a mask or something that made me appear like I was a confident professional game developer when in reality I was lying to everybody and I was a fraud and I was gonna be found out right who I'm gonna be found out well the thing is is that most people will say you're not a fraud you're great you can do it you're a professional you're amazing I appreciate the encouragement here but the best advice that I've told myself and nobody ever told me this I kind of figured out is it's okay to be a fraud it's okay to not be great I think a better way to put is not necessarily it's okay to be a fraud it's okay to not pretend you don't have to put on a facade you don't have to try and be someone you're not just know that it's okay to be incompetent to not know exactly what you're doing if any of you have ever worked a desk job a cubicle job or maybe gone to university you understand that the adults the adults in the room or the people who are smarter than you they're really not that much smarter they sure they've had experience but I think everybody in some way is walking around pretending there's someone they're not so be one of the few people out there who's honest about who you are and learn a lot and be willing to be humble because those people the people who have humility are definitely the people who are gonna rise to the top because one you're gonna learn a lot and to the people at the top realize that you're humble and they want to work with you in the end it's okay to feel like a fraud the best medicine for feeling like a fraud is admitting to yourself that you don't know everything and then it's time to admit it to everybody and learn and have fun okay the second thing that you're going to learn when making your very first game is you're going to hate it you're gonna hate your game oh no this is so sad you're so excited right now you're working on your game you love it you're passionate you can't stop thinking about it you're up all night it's like your girl friend right you're infatuated with this game well the truth is is that you're gonna learn just like any relationship you're gonna learn to hate things about your game and you might even hate it across the board but here's the thing be careful the reason I'm telling you that you're going to hate your game is so that you can emotionally invest and prepare for that fact so that you don't quit your game don't quit on your game just like you don't quit on a marriage just because it's difficult okay your game is going to become something that you don't really like those first few months of excitement for your game are amazing you're infatuated you're in love you love the thing but it's going to fade and the months after that are gonna be the most challenging months of finishing your game or years of finishing your game I spent five years working on my game pinstripe and now I've worked about two to two-and-a-half years wait it's a three years it's something I can't remember like maybe three years on this next game I'm working on it called once upon a coma I promise you 80% of the time it's just been boring and I don't really like the games but I'm finishing them now here's the best part of this relationship you have with your game the infatuation is fun the challenge is the dislike almost the loathing of your game that's not so fun but when you finish your game when you finish it that's love right that's commitment and you're gonna feel that love you're not only gonna feel that love for your project but you're gonna feel the love coming back from your project in the form of money or praise or comments or anything reviews after 5 years of working on pinstripe I was thrilled to see that rolling stone Vice Time magazine Washington Post PC gamer GameSpot in spite of the bad review all of these publications wrote articles about pinstripe and that was a dream come true also the audience across the world received the game very well with a 9 out of 10 on Steam so all I can say is it paid off that feeling of loathing my game it was worth it because it paid off in the long run number three you're gonna wanna quit I promise you you're gonna want to quit your game this relates to the second one it's okay to feel the feeling of one - quit your game you're not a bad person you're not a screw-up you're not a failure everyone wants to quit something we don't want to follow through but here's why you do want to follow through because what we talked about earlier it pays off okay it pays off let's pretend for a second that your game doesn't pay off and that the audience doesn't like your game and that the publication's across the world don't actually like your game or they don't even write about your game well was it worth it should you have followed through the answer is absolutely 100% no you should quit you're a fraud no of course not you really do need to follow through the reason why is you're building muscle in here okay I've finished a lot of projects in my life from middle school all the way up til the end of college I finished dozens of projects none of which had any real positive outcomes other than me growing as an individual the thing is is that the reason why most game developers fail and why a lot of entrepreneurs fail is because they just don't know how to finish something they're weak they have a weak mind and a weak work ethic following through is all about being able to mentally work through all of the fear all of the feelings of insecurity and being a fraud and feeling like you're not enough being an entrepreneur being a game developer it requires you to work through that I tell you what my mind has a lot of emotional muscle because I followed through a lot of you right now your mind is a bit weak because you're not exercising it think of your mind as a muscle and you've got to exercise that you've got to practice being confident in yourself and in your game and you cannot practice effectively if you're quitting stuff all of the time follow through be repetitive think about going to the gym which is something I love doing you are very repetitive day after day mondays are the same day Tuesday's are the same day Wednesdays are the same day Thursday's the same day on and on it's a loop but you're growing it's repetitive it can be numbing but it's not numbing when you look back and look at what you've achieved and how much you've grown number four mental illness might reveal itself and I'm not making a joke here I'm dead serious there are certain mental illnesses that I think we all have a propensity to getting for me it was anxiety for a lot of years and especially during launch seasons which is like two months before you launch a game a lot of anxiety will come up and it turns into like this generalized anxiety kid tell you how many times have been on and off different kinds of meds trying to feel better blah blah blah best thing for me was just going to the gym and exercising and learning to control my mind and all the worry and not staying awake at night just thinking about stuff but forcing myself to not think about stuff but all that said if you feel anxious if you feel depressed if you feel kind of like you may be a little bit bipolar or you're OCD about certain things a lot of these things are mental illnesses that reveal themselves maybe you didn't know you had them but you just needed the right stimulus to push it forward and show itself so don't feel bad don't feel like you're a fraud or a fake or you're not the right person to be making games just because these things show up it's okay that they show up now what I'm gonna say is don't make them your identity and don't turn it into something that you think you just have to deal with I'm the kind of guy who if I have a problem I know that there is a solution there's a solution to my anxiety and I solved that a long time ago and I don't worry about worrying anymore but when I was going through it I felt like there was no answer there was no solution and I felt like a fraud a lot of people might ask why did game developers often feel so anxious well the reason is is because building a game is building a world you're playing God and the truth is we're all not gods right we're human beings and so we're gonna create flawed products for me I always feel like I'm building a house of cards and I'm just waiting for it to crumble right now I'm working on a game called once upon a coma and I'll be honest I haven't felt confident with this game it's just the way it goes I felt like I'm putting together pieces of paper and and building this rickety mansion that maybe people will enjoy but it's probably going to crumble that's how I feel all the time and so there's always this generalized anxiety going on it's just this lull feeling like you could do more to avoid the inevitable if you feel like a storm is coming if you feel like this dreaded storm is coming meaning GameSpot gives you a 5 out of 10 that happened with pinstripe or you get a really bad review or the audience hates your game or the sales aren't good enough you feel like all these things are looming you feel like they're always going to happen you're always going to feel like you should be doing more so this leads to being a workaholic which just sort of puts it into this death spiral of working more if you like anxious more and then it just leads you to crash and burn so if you're feeling these things please number one don't feel bad but number two find a solution go for a walk stop worrying life is more than games there's a ton of different things that I could tell you maybe I'll create a whole video on how you can avoid anxiety overall just relax it's okay it's okay your game is not everything I'm trying to talk myself down here because I've been feeling a little bit anxious the past couple weeks the fifth and final thing that you're going to find out when you're creating your very first game is your friends and family don't understand what the hell you're doing number one and number two they don't understand your schedule they don't understand when you're gonna launch a game because you keep telling them Lots I'm almost done I'll be done in a couple months when in reality it takes a couple years and they're thinking in their heads they're thinking you told me you were gonna finish the game in a month but it's taking you a year you must be lying or you must be lazy when the truth is even people like is it Kojima I think it's Kojima or neo moto one of the two said that a delayed game can be good but a rushed game is always going to be bad he said something like that my editor will put a quote on the screen but your family won't really understand this and I say family what I mean is just your close circle of friends that maybe don't understand your career they're gonna be really confused they're not gonna understand why you're working so long on this game it's kind of like in their mind it's he's painting a picture why is this picture taking so long and in your mind it's no I'm actually programming a picture I'm writing music for a picture I'm creating millions of pictures I'm animating this picture there's a ton of different trades and talents that you have to put into one product and it's really difficult to try and explain this to people who really aren't in the industry so people might not understand who you are they might not understand what you're doing why it's valuable whether you're wasting your time so here is one piece of advice regarding this point don't listen to them don't listen to people who don't understand what you're doing listen to people who are in the industry listen to me right listen to people who are in the game industry because they're gonna give you advice that is real that makes sense that you can better understand because they understand you love them to bits kiss them on the lips but they don't fully understand what you're doing anyways guys my name is Thomas brush thank you so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it please hit the subscribe button or leave a comment or a like don't try and answer your questions as best as I can thanks guys bye you [Music]

Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 254,357

Keywords: thomas, brush, making your first game, first game, game development first timer, how to make first game, indie game development, how to make games, unity, tutorial, unreal, solo game dev, how much money, college, game career, game industry, GDC

Id: v9edu2qL9Q4

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2019