Why I Almost Gave Up On My Indie Game - Devlog

side projects the bane of every programmer's existence maybe you're working on a big project or maybe you're just i don't know researching and then you think you know what i should try make it a side project big mistake you find yourself getting so distracted by this small project it's fun it's always exciting starting something new but then you look back and that original main project you're working on slowly fades away into the bleak black void of unfinished games i'm gonna take you on a journey and show you how i almost gave up on my indie game and i'm gonna show you some of the mistakes that i made along the way so buckle up grab some popcorn and get ready [Music] our story begins in the summer of 2019. at the time i was working on whiz birds a bird themed mmorpg that uses magic for the combat i've actually made a whole video on it that you can check out here and i was interested to try something a little bit different i kind of got bored working on an mmo especially because the project just lasts forever and i was thinking what could be something kind of small that i could dig my teeth into i had never created a mobile game before so i thought why don't i try making something like that and put it on the google play store and that way it'd also keep my game pretty simple because this was a side project after all so i played around with some concepts of some mobile games i could make and i thought about making a japanese learning app it would be cool if i could make something that i would use uh that way if no one else played it at least i would get some use out of it also for some reason i had this idea of making it frog themed i have no idea why i don't know if i was reading stuff about frogs at the time but i just knew i had to make it a core mechanic of the game somehow so there i was i had a game i had a platform that i wanted to release it on and a theme and i was ready to start my first mobile project now the first mistake that i made on the project i made an unrealistic timeline and i'm sure that many of you have done this before you think that a project may only take you a couple days or a week it ends up taking you a month or half a year and this is because games have a lot of nuances to them there's little details that you really don't know what's going to happen especially when it's something new like releasing it i don't know it's like mobile or something so i don't know what i was thinking when i created the timeline but i thought i could make this game in a matter of three days well obviously i was horribly wrong and the game actually didn't end up getting released for another three months afterwards so my first piece of advice for you indie devs out there is to double the length of your timeline if you think it's gonna take a week it's probably gonna take two or three and doing that makes it more realistic and you lose less motivation because you're actually sticking to your timeline it's the worst feeling when you're trying to make a game in three days and you publish it three months later you'll end up losing motivation for the project which kind of ended up happening to me but you'll see shortly the second issue that i had is that i had the bright idea of using a new game engine now it's unheard of to try a new game engine and especially during a game jam but that's normally when you have a limited time frame now when you're making a title for yourself you tend to get really relaxed and think you know what i have time what you know what harm is it if i work in the game another day which turns into another day and another day and at the time i was only using construct and i wanted to learn godot so i thought why not try to make this game in godot now if you've seen any of my previous videos you'll know that i actually use godot as my primary game engine but at the time i don't know why my brain just could not understand or handle it so i spent the first couple days making artwork and just struggling to make basic movement and ended up getting really discouraged and wasting so much of my time so after a week in the project already way past my deadline i realized i probably should be using a game engine i'm familiar with especially because this is a side project so i scrapped all the progress that i made in the dough and decided to restart using construct i was able to actually mock up a version of the game and construct in a matter of two or three days this is what i call the infatuation period of a project when you first start out you make that clean slate and you're adding stuff and you see all this progress from having a white screen to having people move around and controls and all this artwork and i was just having a blast now that infatuation period doesn't last forever and unfortunately after a week or so working on the game i started to just really lose interest the game was at a good place it was it was getting close to being done you were able to practice both hiragana and katakana your frog sled around interacted i even made it so that your frog had cute hats that you could switch in between because why not so the game was at a really good place but i made one huge mistake that would cause me a two-month delay and that was putting aside all the hard stuff until the end endless amounts of menus music sound effects saving features all these things that you would think are primary mechanics to an application i waited until last minute and i don't know about you but i don't find that stuff very interesting and i'm a graphic designer by trade i literally design for a living but when it comes to making a game it's so boring so my second piece of advice is trying to tackle the most difficult stuff in a project when you're still in that infatuation phase it's a lot easier to tackle things like saving or menus when you're still really excited about the project two months later i was getting restless again i wanted to work on something small and i was toying around a few other ideas the problem was i was miserable i was trying to think of a new game idea but i was still haunted by the fact that i didn't finish my last game so i called up my brother who is a professional animator and game dev himself and he gave me a great piece of advice basically he said that i was gonna get stuck in a loop of never finishing games unless i actually finished games now i know this isn't like any groundbreaking piece of advice but for me it was really profound at the moment because it meant i had to pick up a project that i had no passion had no energy for and i had to finish it because working and starting on these new projects just it was going to have the same result if i never actually had the discipline to finish something well my third piece of advice is that you have to finish games in order to make new games um if you're if you have these big projects looming over your head that you're not finishing you're gonna fight insecurity because you think how am i gonna finish this if i can't even finish these smaller projects so i really encourage you to push through even when it's hard because that's the only way you're going to continue to create games so after that phone call i sat down and i continued to work on my game now here's the thing it wasn't like i magically got motivation i still didn't really feel like working on it but it was beyond that it wasn't just about oh i'm making a game because it's fun it was about i need to finish this to prove to myself that i can and i was able to wrap up the project in less than a week i went through the process of uploading it on the google play store which is a whole journey in itself but when i finally did it and all said and done i was really proud of my accomplishment so for those of you that are getting discouraged about your projects or maybe you're losing motivation i really encourage you to give your project a second chance you know i encourage you to have good timelines think about how realistically how long it's going to take also try not to jump from side project to side project as tempting as it is you'll realize that over time that you'll kind of cherish your game more and more now if you have an android and you have an interest in japanese make sure to check out khan upon i put a link in the description below also if you have any extra helpful thoughts or questions about this video please leave a comment below i'm always looking for helpful advice on how i can stay motivated with my projects especially for my current project do drop dynasty which is a bug themed metroidvania that i've been working on for the past year or so so thanks so much for watching this video if you'd like to stay up to date with me make sure to subscribe or follow me on twitter stay tuned for more devlogs and game related videos thank you so much and have a wonderful [Music] day you

Channel: Goodgis

Views: 61,669

Keywords: goodgis, ohio, godot, devlog, how to create a game, wizbirds, snomes, fuzzites, dewdrop dynasty, construct 3, game dev, indie dev, game maker, game programming, game process, how to make, firith, firith studio, finishing your game, mobile game, how to finish games, making a game in construct, can't finish games

Id: 3LG4zlCfnmw

Length: 9min 24sec (564 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020