Watch This BEFORE making Your First Indie Game!

In this video, we dive into the immense pressure and stress that often accompany the gamedev journey, shedding light on why many individuals never start on this creative path or why they may ultimately even abandon it.

We identify three major categories of expectations that can lead to burnout: unrealistic timeframes, attempting to manage every aspect of game development alone, and expecting everyone to like the final product.

Drawing on personal experience trying to finish a commercial project, we share our strategies that work for us to make the journey more sustainable and enjoyable while navigating the challenges of expectations, burnout, and stress.

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[darronvanaria]

I think the source of stress/anxiety comes from knowing just how much work/time/effort a game is going to take (years of full-time work possibly) with the odds of around 98% that no one is ever even going to play it, given how saturated the market is. It’s a tremendous amount of risk.

[HE]

One marketing learned the power of is making a good trailer video featuring the game you made. Feature some of the interesting parts in your game. Videos are even how I discover the games that I want to play. So, that's what I do and then one could post the video on social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok (which is become more and more huge by the day); and put it on Facebook, Instagram and community forums.

[newleafgames]

Your editing style is really coming on. Appreciate the content.

[JelowGames]

I want to say something that a lot of people never talk about for some reason when it comes to being an indie developer. Not every game has to be made in 2-4 years. Youre only one person, i think it makes much more sense to build small ideas that can be prototyped relatively quickly and expand on them but not every project has to take years. Because at the end of the day most of us arent professionals and will probably think making that game wasnt a good idea or you realize you like working on a different type of game. This is especially true if youre still not experienced in making games

[AnEmortalKid]

The best feedback I’ve gotten is someone telling me the game wasn’t for them. Not every game will be liked by everyone.

[Taibot]

This editing evolved very much over the last weeks. Good job!

[Diablokiller]

What really drives me crazy is trying to find "good practices" for problems I have.
How do I implement first person animations?
IK or FK?
Do I use events to communicate with components or just method calls?
How do I connect all scripts in a loose enough way?
I hate to get stuck in a analysis paralysis, but I always think that to implement it how I think it's OK will give me a lot of headaches later (already happened).

[-TOLINSKI]

Great Advice!
I will take a lot of it under consideration when I start working on a game release, Thank you!

[darkprince]

This is something I needed to hear. I've been slowly learning how to create video games for about the past 3 years and it hasn't been easy. Definitely had a more than a few instances of just wanting to quit everything and give up. I work full time while also trying to become an indie developer and sometimes I only have maybe an hour or two that I can dedicate to working/learning game development and it is going to be a long hard road but definitely worth it in the end. Keep up the great work with these videos!

[LiamWilson-hbbt]

This video has been so help full i am in high school and almost quit game dev this has really shown me how long it is meant to take and i am now planning a game that i estimate to take 2-3 or more years.

[zeekkh]

You nailed it. This is not just for those who are starting out, but also a good reminder to everyone.

[fablefolk_studio]

Thank you for sharing valueless experience! I also revealed such thing as scope creep in my videos, and this is completely accurate!

[RizaBochiza]

Love, love, love this video. There’s a lot of truth and wisdom in your words.

[KendawgIV]

Finally came over from the podcast to your YouTube channel phenomenal content!

[Joomsan]

There's so much talk about how your first indie game will most likely fail, but is there any stats on how much more likely your 3rd Steam game might make some decent money? How many quit after their first Steam release? I've published 10 android games years ago and my first Steam game 2022. This year I will be releasing my second Steam game, but I don't think it's my last one.

[humman]

At the beginning of the year I started to make a new game with the idea that before the end of February - I have 3 more weeks ;P to make the website on steam, then in 3 months a demo for the festival and after another 3-4 to release the game, the plan is ambitious but I think I will succeed, wish me luck

[charlesthedev]

Yeah learning to temper my expectations was a game changer for me

[idontknowwhattowatch]

yea, the first game i tried to make long ago took me 2 years and never finished, i ended up burning out, sometimes give up requires courage.

[ECAKJ]

I've been in tutorial hell for a few months. I don't know where to learn, I feel like what I learn is a bad way of doing it. I'm not stressed about anything besides how to learn this language without forgetting a certain syntax next time i go to use it. I have no social life, I spend all day everyday coding, yet I don't feel like I'm learning anything, can't do anything on my own. I feel defeated.

I've been trying to make a top down 2D game, maybe it isnt for me

[flashheart]

Since I am a solo game developer, I have had to reduce my scope dramatically in order to attempt to finish my first game. So, say my first game takes 9 months from start to release. I think that's a good goal for a very small scale game. I am very curious how long each game genre would take to make. Some genres, like MMO take much longer than a simple match 3 game. By looking at enough dev logs an personal stories it may be possible to gauge how long each genre would take in "man" hours. My game for instance is a mobile arcade game and may take about 1500 man hours (just guessing, maybe double that and add 1). If I paid myself some ridiculously small wage of $20 per hour I would need to net $30, 000 after the publisher takes their 30%, plus, plus. So say $60, 000. Not going to happen, lol.

So how many "man" hours to make a (successful?) 2D platformer, or a pixel art RPG or a 3D RPG, or solitaire? Impossible to know?

I think it can be calculated, (roughly) and it would make for a very interesting video imho.

It may also help those of us (like me!) from biting off more than we can handle for our first game.

Cheers!