8 Game Development Mistakes to Avoid!

Game development mistakes can be costly! These are the eight indie gamedev mistakes that we have seen sink projects and add time and cost to development. If you are making games, use these game developer tips to reduce your risk!

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[dcwwekmods]

Mistake #9
Getting distracted by other game projects and not finishing your current one.

[MintStarGames]

4:19 the guy gets hit by a bus and all they are worried about is continuing a failing game

[local]

Godot Engine for most begineers. Its clean, great community and damn is it easy to get a game up and running in an hour.

Mistake #0... Don't start with your first game being an MMORPG.

[danielhavens]

Game development in my opinion should be approached more like art than a market product. Make what you want to play and your market will be those who like what you like. It's not the best strategy for making a fortune, but it is the best strategy for enjoying the process and the final product. As your skills develop, you will find yourself making things others want and your market will be drawn to you by those who are already following your work.
I thought the idea of getting people involved on social media from the early stages to see it grow was an excellent point. That is where the marketing really starts.
Ultimately, the game is your artistic expression and the expression of everyone involved. If you have others helping with development, you will need to let them express their own artistic tallents within pre-selected boundaries for all artists so that there is consistency and creativity throughout the game. Each artist will feel either freed or restrained by the tightness of the constraints you choose to place on them. Everyone needs a level of free expression, but everyone also needs boundaries or the final product will be a mess or worse may not work at all.
That's my two cents. Good luck everyone.

[willculpepper]

Correct use of "allot". 10 points to Hufflepuff.

[DevScape]

"Or gets hit by a bus" *bus goes through the wall into the room* 4:21

[haroldmcbroom]

Following trends doesn't mean anything,  except that you're willing to do what has already been done, and what is most popular to do.   I would rather create that one spark that has the potential to spread like wildfire, take a risk, where others will not, by having faith in myself, and no so much in what others are doing.   Just because something is not trending, doesn't imply that it's not what's wanted.   We play only what is available, and if no one is tackling those ideals that are not trending, how will you ever discover new frontiers.

[Orinslayer]

Beware captive audiences, most players will not switchover to your game when they are still having fun with their current game.

[selenium]

Follow the trends yay!! And now we have thousands of similar indie games on steam and google play...

[mertyilmaz]

You should create a trend rather than joining one. Look at all the battle royale, Minecraft, and Slay the Spire clones. Are they doing well?

[MrMacabreu]

The bus crash at the end... hahahahaha

[ArtsConfused]

Another thing I've decided I'll do once I get to that point, I won't announce a game until it's like 80% complete, and just show off old content throughout the development phase up till that point, and schedule releases for reveals. I noticed even with smaller studios, people reveal their games entirely too early.

[dnkum]

get a longer song or some variation or something. don't just repeat the same 30 second chip tune.
it got old quick

[michaelodetola]

The way you guys present content is so professional. Love it..

[TortoRacoon]

Post Mortem in latin means "After Dying" so I assumed they were exclusively failed projects

[seansopata]

Most important, and should have been number 1:
Starting development without some sort of Game Design Doc.
Everyone wants to jump right in to the fun stuff, but not having a gdd will lead you nowhere, fast.

[toshitosliba]

I was the one who tried to do an engine, I was doing it with C++ using WIn32 and Direct2D (later on moved to Direct3D, both of which are DirectX) and the complementary game that was also in C++ but using SDL2.0.

I can say it was a whole year developing that alone, every day taking a small step, still it wasn't done by then, there was still ways to go. I was determined to finish that tbh, but I made a grave mistake, a severe one, that even ppl may call that really stupid, I didn't used any application for version control (such as Git, sourcetree, fork, etc...).

So when I changed OS from windows 7 to windows 10, I trusted the safety of the OS, well I guess there was a time where Windows 10 started to delete files generated by visual studio and also the contents of the folders, such as assets and stuff like that. I felt really frustrated when that happened and sad, even now a days I don't understand how that happened, but I believe maybe it was the the crappy app windows defender.

I can tell you, I don't regret making the engine, it made me challenge myself, I was not after money back then, I was more about to enjoy the journey and to learn more. I guess this video pretty much cover some points, but one thing I find important is that ppl should learn first, should challenge themselves to commit for the development of these projects.
Making games requires dedication, knowledge, problem solving skills and discipline, if you don't have that, then you wont go far.

I didn't went to college tho, but because I made the progress I did back then and learn a new skill to solve the problems I found along the way, the resources I could gather and make myself grow as a person and as a professional It made me to land a job in the industry. Which is great, but my fight to reach greatness isn't over, so I hope it isn't over for yourself as well if you plan to follow your dreams, you should take your time and go for it, go with every strength you have, and tbh this actually apply not only for game development, but also for any kind of industry.

[AmyTheMeower]

*Another very important and vital thing:*
Be original, try not to make games based on an already existing franchise, first, because they might shut it down for being a competence and second, you can get even better ideas! one thing you *can* do is use a little inspiration, but not too much, for example "oh I like Undertale" and then you decide to completely copy Undertale by adding stuff like the same battle system, make your own mechanics, they might be really attractive to some audiences and it might also become an iconic game mechanic, for example in my own game I wanted to add powerups, but I also thought "hmm maybe that's a little too much like mario" and since my game (not finished yet also please don't steal my ideas) is a game about animals, each with their own special ability, so one of them is a hummingbird, whose special abilities are flying, being fast and pollinating flowers. I also happened to think magic flowers could give you powers, so now there are some flowers that you have to pollinate before using them.

[KadeMarkoux]

Thanks man, this is pretty helpful, I've been working on a game for awhile but I kinda feel like I may never get to release it just because I am trying to work on it when I'm not at my day job alongside trying to figure out game design mechanics more.

[henrykzajac]

Well, creating game for noone has some potential too. There are games quite popular, that before publish they might be concidered risky. Like: Robot unicorn attack, getting over it, Schizophrenic Mario, or The worlds hardest game. :D Well, maybe it not financial best idea, but I'm glad those have been made :)