How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself

Getting into gamedev can be a daunting task, luckily there are a variety of resources out there that aim to help you. In this video, we look at Matt Hackett's book, which promises to guide you through the entire process.

Matt also does YouTube: @Valadria

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Timestamps:
00:00 Most gamedevs are solo
00:58 YOU are the producer
02:37 Find your itch
03:52 Building Blocks
05:32 Get an engine
06:07 What to make?
08:18 Find the fun
10:41 Managing scope
11:17 Good UX
12:47 Iterate
14:24 Ready to ship
14:57 General thoughts
17:06 Next book?

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[Valadria]

Thank you for the great video Marnix & team! I feel like you deeply understood the book, and I'm especially grateful that you appreciated the drawings.

Definitely agreed about the lack of marketing coverage, as I wanted to focus on just making the game. Maybe that'll be the topic of my next book!

[guillermomontoya]

Level Design - In Pursuit of Better Levels
That's the most underrated books about game design that I have read, and more people need to know about it

[AdjointGaming]

I am a solo game developer and I started on my 40+. Nice video to get ppl organised :) For sure it is different to make a game to have fun and it is different to make a game to sell it.

[Sweepy_Games]

One could argue that this has been covered in the "iterate" section, but it seems to me that it hasn't been emphasized loudly enough. Iteration also involves creating multiple games, starting with a small game and gradually making each subsequent one larger than the previous. No one has ever succeeded on their first attempt at making a game.

[kodaxmax]

0:05 urggh, a team? but those have other people in them!

[hamzahgamedev]

I am also a solo developer and loved that you made a video about it. I sometimes find it really really hard to manage my full-time work, my current solo open-world game project and posting devlogs on YT. The thing I took from this video was to don't be a scope creep! It is going to help me a loooot!! haha

[Seancstudiogames]

Thanks for the recommendation Marnix! I added the book to my Amazon Wishlist since I like to add my thoughts and postit notes to my books.

[TubantiStudios]

What helped me is taking a scene from your favorite show and seeing if you can replicate it and adding a gameplay component to it.

[blackdoc]

I've tried to start a team with game dev buddies I know but it always seems like I'm the only one who ever commits. They always wanna play it save and get a regular job (not usually game dev related) and it's a little crushing being the only one who believes it's possible.

[tommilman]

Good points And funny thing, I actually ordered it last night :)

[rtfmtech]

Thank you for all your content, I want to pick up this book.

[tjspeirs]

Appreciate this vid! Haven't heard of these books, I'm pretty interested in them!

[ElianeGameDev]

I didn't know this artist before watching your video, but I'll definitely go take a look at what he posts, his art seems really cool!

[thepolyglotprogrammer]

I had seen this guys infographics before, but never got his book. Very interesting stuff, specially the part about the building blocks though.
Nice video! Just got the book!

[ElianeGameDev]

I just want to say that I really like your recent thumbnails :)

[blakeearth]

Matt Hackett also has a great podcast!

[RealCoachMustafa]

Great video. I like that you show Ring Fit Adventure in the B Roll. I would love to one day make a fitness game that encourages people to get active, but right now that's not the game that I'm good at making.

[joshuadillon]

YES! more books that you would recommend that would be helpful. Please?

[TJ-fvvs]

Thanks so much for this book review, I really enjoy this kind of video! As an idea for a next possible book review, I have recently heard of the book "Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation" by Steve Swink. It covers some fundamentals about how to make a game feel good to the player. I haven't read it myself yet, but I might consider purchasing it in the near future to give me a better understanding of how to make games smooth and enjoyable to play

[ZedNerdStudios]

As I progress in developing 3 different games at once (each use the same core toolkit but changes with models and animations)

Its like a 70% of time taken off each dev-cycle...Its about working smart not working hard