Don't Give Up On Your Game Dev Journey

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[AtlanticaWorldsGameArchive]

Game dev is not easy, but you never truly fail until you give up.

[digitbraul_music]

Thanks for the motivation and uplifting words!
I personally never wanted to be a game developer, it was a decent pastime activity of mine during my early teenage years. I gave up only to realize that my life kept hovering around it, doing what fueled my passion for games and finding the spark in doing it again.
It was essentially a journey of personal discovery.

[ddabrahim]

Given up when I simply lost interest in games. I stopped playing games and so I was no longer motivated to work on my game. But I never stopped experimenting with different game engines and frameworks. It is become my hobby just to learn how different game engines and frameworks works and to learn different programming languages. I did attempt to team up with game developers, designers to help them implement the logic they need but did never get further than a prototype ever because people always give up game dev due to lack of time, lack of money, I never had a chance to meet someone who didn't give up.

[sillieboy]

This one hit home man.
It can be such a struggle trying to develop a game on your own. This video perfectly points out the highs and lows an indie dev goes through. Thanks for the motivation to keep going.

[skyzra]

i think one part of giving up is because at some point you realise you are staring at the same thing for hours, day after day after day and it just makes you sick..

[kilthrall]

I have been trying to get back to game dev for almost a year now, but whenever I think of all the art work and design work that needs to be done I just feel exhausted and never get back. I just hope at some point I will have the energy needed to make it work once again.

[moonstrikergames]

dude this hit hard

sometimes i do little bits maybe 1 time a week but you helped me think about this, thank you

[styliejoker]

Thanks for the video it was inspiring to say the least. i've Been working on my first project for 2 years now and its ambitious for me and man you hit every points i wanted to quit so many times but what kept me going is that i knew i needed a win and that pushing to the finish line will be worth it eventually and may change my life for the better in ways i wouldn't imagine.
My advice:
- Don't take too long to think about what the game is cause most stuff you'll figure out when you're making the game.
- Set short term goals that you can actually finish, small wins matter they keep you motivated to reach bigger wins in the long term.
- keep your scope in check, there's so much aspects of the game that require your attention and if you try to do "too much" you may never get there, so always try to limit your game to a few mechanics and focus on them well.
- when you want to make levels the best way is to inspire from other games (i also use artstation and pinterest) and add your touch but start with "White blocking" (with primitive objects like cubes, cylinders, spheres in unity i use pro builder for that) never try to make assets early on cause you're gonna have to change them and if they're not simple primitive objects you'll be losing valuable time trying to change something that may not be in the game in the first place.
- one of the biggest mistakes i made was making levels before the mechanics of the game were set in stone which made me lose time because i had to remake the levels to accommodate for new mechanics/features.
- If you get stuck in something don't be afraid to ask others for help you may be surprised what you can accomplish with that, and also sometimes its better to take a break and clear your mind then get back strong to fix the problems you encountered.
I hope that helps and happy developing see you on the finish line everyone !

[Itsupikiokami]

You just earned a sub my man, indie game dev is very hard, and sometimes it feels insurmountable, but I'll never give up on my dream. Stay strong ya'll. Some day all this hard work will play off. I know it.

[jt]

I've been stuck in tutorial hell for almost 4 years. with each new year trying a new approach realizing more and more how long it takes just to reach the starting line. Thank you for the guidance and motivation to continue the longest journey of my life.

[Spicytenshi]

You recently helped me with something on your discord. And I was stressing hardcore. 😅 this was a much needed video 😂 I’ll send it to my other classmates

[mercantilistic]

It's been tough lately, my day job is also programming so doing programming on top of programming is draining but doing game dev is one of the most fulfilling things I do, so that lets me know it's the right direction even if progress is haltingly slow

[lilboiUK]

I get up at 2pm go to work and finish around 10pm. I then race home and fire up my pc to work on the game I 've been working on for over a year now. I stay up till 5am adding features, fixing bugs and optimizing my game. Every day I feel like i'm getting closer to my goal, i'm so close to releasing my game on itch and very excited.

[randomnumbers]

Good one. I too published couple games with no success. Made me give up. But that dream still burns inside me. I'm a creator. I can't live just consuming content, I need to create it too.

[Jean-sjxw]

This video came to me today. To be honest I'm a 31 old guy who dreams to create a game since I was 16 and learned that games could be created by a regular human like me, without having to be working in a Triple-A studio. My insight came while reading an interview from a game developer that I used to follow (and play his games as well) called Adventure Quest Worlds (AQW) from Artix Entertainment.
Every year I repeat the same process on "I'll create a game this year" or "This year will be my year!" and then suddenly I get scared of the engine/coding and given myself lots of excuses on why I'm not moving forward. Excuses like "I do not know how to code" or "I need to be an artist to do this as well" or "I'm too old" or the most common one "I do not have time, I have to focus on my body and mind before".

Getting frustrated a lot about this, but every year I'm coming back to try it.
I'll try it this year, again. Hoping that I do not give this huge break from learning.

[Gabesodyssey]

I got cvid a week ago, my brain stopped working properly, my project felt weak, wrong... i tried but it was like i was disconected to it...

My pc was slow, full of stuff...

I uninstalled everything, changed engine, and started brand new, new ideas, new perspectives, im starting again, and i understand the felling.

Its overwhelming, but its what i love to live doing in all my available time. Lets go

[FedorSimonov-hy]

thank you for that words it's very need it in hardcore what become my life right now! Thank you

[legomanshorts-co]

been working on game development for over a decade. have not produced one game sold but i have been constantly learning. now i am at the point i am confident i can make whatever game i desire but that is my new problem. what do i love and what do i want to make. writers block i guess it can be. i have been trying to make a game ever since starforge let us down. they were just 3 dudes so i figure what the hell some knuckle heads made something work sort of maybe i could too. 10 years later im still going and have been sticking with unreal engine since it became free to use for everyone. before that i was compiling directx sdks into boring nothing projects with a triangle or a guy that cant move because you have to code his movements. game dev has become very "easy" since then as long as you can learn one of the engines. i havent released any games yet based on my own views that i only want to release one game ever and maintain it forever. thats why it's so important that i pick the perfect game i want to make and that i will love playing for years on end. it's been rough staying motivated through the unreal 4-5 upgrade. unreal 4 got dumped off before it was completed. 4.27 is full of bugs that will remain. unreal 5 was full of hella bugs and still is. we are in a weird spot. unreal 4 and 5 are both an incomplete mess full of half working features. what is most sad is that some things cannot upgrade to unreal 5 ever and so the abandonment of unreal 4 stings for many users across the board. unreal 5.2 came out and it seems to be really good to me so far but i always find something somewhere eventually. 5.2 is blazing fast it seems to me compared to 5.1 compiling shaders feels 2-4x faster. maybe they upgraded to the new dotnet framework i hear its way faster. keep at it guys if you run into bugs thats normal always read the errors closely and google what you can report what cant be googled. the best part about having an engine is you can just tell your users "hey unreal engine is just this way" and move on to fixing more important things.

[CornerstoneMinistry]

I've been working on a game for two years and started over twice. But now I'm familiar with the rpgmaker mv engine so i think I'll see this project through

[typicaltoronto]

Strongly said, my short story on this path is as follows. Started working on a project with great results, motivation, passion, drive. All of this while at a full time job. No past knowledge of programming or 3d modeling. For 6 months was fine, then family/home life got in the way. Now can’t seem to find a way to get back into the groove again. Very upset, mentally destroyed trying to find a solution and a way to get back to working on my project into my happy place again.