Why I Started Game Dev In My Late 30s

why would anyone much l someone in their late 30s start video game development it's a difficult and timeconsuming process and as an indie developer success is a tall order for me understanding the answer to the question above is an essential step for a task as vast as game development if you search for the phrase finder why you'll find lots of different results and if this was a serious video I would pull up some clip of Simon s but this is not that channel instead we're going to look at a clip from Speed Racer every one of us has to find a reason to do this you don't climb into a t180 to be a driver you do it because you're driven if you know so much why don't you tell me why I should keep driving sorry that's for you to figure out even a movie as light as Speed Racer talks about the concept of figuring out your why you may be thinking why is figuring out the why of something so important let me try to explain some of the reasons why I think this is the case I'm very new to game development so I haven't really hit a wall yet but I have come closer in the game gems I've done where I've tried to work at an accelerated Pace there were times where I got stuck for hours working on something during ludar ultimately that's a bit of a taste of what you might face as a game developer when you're looking at the same problem for days or weeks or you're working on a system that may take months to actually see progress on that's where you really need a y to back everything up if you don't have that why is that Foundation you can kind kind of lose track of what you're trying to do and a few problems that I notice people talking about in game development videos as I've gotten further into the space and watch them more are things like developers talking about hating their game developers thinking about quitting their project or finding a situation where you just think this is the one I can't solve this one even for a small scale game getting everything in order that you need to actually release can be a very time-consuming process whether it's creating the art or refining the art or or writing the codee or getting the level of Polish you need to actually put something on steam or epic or whatever especially when you get into the systems that may take months to develop and you really feel like you don't have anything to show for the work you've been putting in that's where you need that core idea to go back to like many my age I spent a good part of my childhood playing games on the Nintendo Entertainment System and the SNES and I played games like Mega Man a link to the pass Chrono Trigger just to name a few as I started gaming with friends sometimes the discussion would turn to wouldn't it be cool if we did this or wouldn't it be cool if we could do that or even just taking off on our own idea and thinking I wish we had a game like this I started playing around with something like RPG Maker in the mid 2000s but I didn't really have the drive and a focus to learn enough to actually finish a game I started trying to learn programming in my late 20s early 30s but the key here is I didn't really have a why I didn't have a concrete reason that I wanted to learn programming I just I wanted to learn it I was interested in it but I didn't have problems to solve I didn't have things to make this all changed in early 2021 I ended up working on a python project for something I was doing at work and the normal process would take about 10 to 15 minutes of focused work I took that and turned it into an automated process that all I had to do was enter my password and it completed all the steps I needed to do in like 30 seconds this was something where I learned a lot about programming just doing this project I had done tutorials before but again I didn't have a reason why this particular project and needing to solve this problem gave me a reason why and something to focus on I had a clear goal so before I had a what but now I had a why as I continued building my programming skills with various things like a dashboard to make a chloropleth map and other things like that I started really understanding programming more it really started clicking what the tutorials have been trying to teach me as I started 100 days of code this summer I started looking more at game development I ended up coming across a game jam and I did that game Jam then I couldn't really stop thinking about the Game Dev aspects of things that really kind of clicked into me hey this is something you can actually do you have kind of gotten past that initial hurdle and if you want to make games now you can that's what I wanted to get to is why I want to do Game Dev the first reason why is I have games that I want to make I have ideas of things I want to try I think other people will want to play them and just see if I can create something different or simply put my own spin on a type of genre like I am with the brick Breer game I'm making secondly right now triaa gaming is in a very rough space in my opinion which is kind of crazy because we've had a really great year for 2023 when it comes to games but for every Zelda tiers of the Kingdom we've had games like Gollum and then the more kind of what I think of as generic or soulless games out there in my opinion they try to be too many things to too many people they try to appeal to too wide of an audience it just doesn't work whether I'm right or not about that we'll find out but that is kind of my core concept of why AAA games aren't necessarily connecting like most Publishers think that they should the other reason is totally a separate one and it's personal to me is I like a challenge I want to have challenges in my life because to me challenges help you grow I want to be able to conquer challenges and getting better at game development is something that I find really intriguing every time that I come up to a problem you know sometimes I'll search Google or whatever but sometimes it's not out there and I'll have to come up with a unique solution or what if I tried this and sure enough that works and that feeling is just an awesome thing so once you solve that problem that sense of achievement that overcoming of obstacles is something that really helps you grow that new way way of thinking that you unlock by getting through those challenges is an awesome thing I personally have played a lot less video games in the past few years partially because I have gotten involved with other things like Rizo Jitsu and mu Thai but also because a lot of times games just ship broken or like I say I find them Bland or soulless that's where I think the Indie Market is really starting to come on strong to me one of the big things is just getting past self-limiting blades telling yourself that you have the mind of a programmer that's part of the initial problem that you need to get past sometimes that just comes to proving it to yourself that hey you can actually figure this stuff out I have so many skills to learn from programming to just learning more about game engines to the basics of like art and music even just game design it's one of those things where you have to really take the time to prioritize otherwise you can easily get overwhelmed and burnt out that's why I started this channel because I wanted to be able to document what I learned how I learned it maybe some tricks that I think could help people that are looking at this in the future that's one thing that I really want to help people do is if they want to do game development I want to try to find ways to help them advance so why are you looking to start game development or why did you start game development feel free to sign off in the comments below if you are looking for some highle Gau tips about that engine take a look at the video right here thanks for watching have a great day and I will see you next time

Channel: Game Dev With Michael

Views: 12,679

Keywords: game dev with michael, game dev, video game development, Why I started game dev, starting game dev in late 30s, too old to start game dev, indie game dev, game development, indie game development, Why start game dev, start game dev in late 30s, start game dev in 40s, game development motivation, why start game development, finding your why, importance of understanding why, overcoming obstacles as indie developer, staying motivated game dev, reasons to know your why

Id: 6alYg9mojqs

Length: 7min 32sec (452 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 13 2023