Why Game Dev Tutorials Will RUIN Your Life

Ever wonder why you always end up in an endless loop of tutorials? Are you worried you'll quit your next big game project? Well, in this video, I cover exactly how game dev tutorials might be stopping you from doing just that!

[AndrzejGieraltCreative]

*PLEASE READ IF YOU TAKE ISSUE WITH THE VIDEO*: It's been a year since this video was made and I want to address some common criticisms:

1) I know about the sound effects already! Thanks for helping me understand how to improve them, I'm happy to say my recent videos are much better in this regard.

2) Tutorials are useful a) to get an overview of what tools are available to you and b) when you use them to try to solve problems, they are NOT designed to teach you to FINISH games, so don't use them disproportionately. I believe you don't even need any initial "how to make a game" series to make your first game, but, there's certainly nothing wrong with watching tutorials as long as you recognize that you need to understand what it takes to FINISH a game, and what makes a game good, and are able to frequently release small games as you gain knowledge.

3) This is NOT an attack in away way against ANY YouTubers who make/made tutorials! YouTubers will use "Power People" to convince people to watch the video, and there's no shame in that, but if you think there is, remember - YouTube is hard, and as much as we might take issue with psychology, the truth is people will not click on a good video unless the thumbnail intrigues them, so you need to do whatever you can to encourage people to watch a video that will contain genuinely valuable information for them, which I firmly believe this video contains. Clickbait, on the other hand, is tricking people into clicking, while also having a video devoid of meaningful/valuable content.

I hope that makes sense, and I hope that clarifies what the point of this video was supposed to be!

[uber]

Secret 4th tip: Do not be afraid to just jump into the engine, Unity or Unreal, and just start reading everything. Click things, mess with them, see what you can get them to do. Open tutorial scenes or workspaces and go file by file and see how it all works together. If you just chase tutorials non-stop, you will never really learn how to *make games*, you will just learn how to *look up the right tutorial*.

[RockyMulletGamedev]

I feel one thing that helps actually learning something from step by step tutorials is to modify it, go on a tangent, try to make it different. Cause as you stated, just doing what you are told, you don't understand why you are doing it and you don't learn much, but if you try to do something else, you train your brain at going from a problem to a solution. The more tangent go on, the closer you are from doing something from scratch and knowing how to do the basics, to then have a new challenge to learn and then a new one and a new one.

[michaeltyers]

When you finally break free from all those online tutorials and start writing your own code, spitting out lines and lines of neat looking code with functions across multiple classes, you'll feel amazing as you feel like you're writing the best code you've ever written. You'll finally finish writing the code for that feature you've been meaning to implement, compile, then hit play in Unity and absolutely nothing will work. Fun times.

[ktSharp]

I found the best way to learn from a tutorial is a lot longer than just follow along and uses 3 steps(if it’s in sections do each step with each section).
1) watch the tutorial all the way through. Take notes if needed.
2) attempt what you learned go as far as you can without watching the tutorial but don’t be afraid to reference it if you have to.
3) modify what you learned to do something at least slightly different(ex give a tank two firing modes)

[ronron]

that's why "practice" exists, once you've watch a video, you have to practice them and make a very simple project based on tutorials them move onto next tutorial

[HaraiGoshi]

If it wasn’t for brackeys I wouldn’t have passed my first year at uni

[JimmyVegasUnity]

Interesting topic. I see what you're getting at, and you've hit the nail on the head on some things, but I think you're missing the mark just a tad on other things. One of the biggest things I will say is that 99% of people who watch tutorials copy it exactly and don't bother to deviate from it to make it their own. That becomes a problem for them, especially when they go into it expecting to make the next Call of Duty or Fortnite. That's where tutorials fail, but it's not exactly the video or creators fault, it's down to the viewer not trying to broaden their horizon, but in doing that, they're still learning something valuable in terms of development... hopefully they'll take that knowledge forward and build bigger and better

[carbharharbcar]

guys whos selling something trying to tell me that free things will ruin my life

[monetmonteal]

For me the experience was quite different. I just finished a tutorial about how to make a platformer and I had this idea of randomly generated platforms, ai spikes and rewind. I started implementing each feature by watching tutorials (ofcourse I didn't find all the answers but they were hidden in those tutorials). And in the process of implementing ideas to a tutorial I learnt game dev. Now I have participated in numerous game jams and I am a full time game developer but I still watch tutorials.
So the message is keep watching tutorials and just take the project to a direction where you want to take it.

[GuitarLover]

Every type of art or skill for centuries has acknowledged you will progress by studying under a master. Tutorials take the place of classes for a lot of people who don't want to do college courses. Almost every major skill I have developed has come from a book or tutorial online. And it takes time. If you missed the part of every tutorial where they told you to make it your own, add to it, break it, fully understand the moving parts so you can apply that knowledge, then it sounds like you don't know how to learn. I wish you the best on your journey, but as I have gotten older I'm careful with who I take advice from, because some of the best people in their field are terrible teachers, because they no longer can put themselves in a beginners shoes.

[xxxx]

As a game dev myself, although I haven’t made any real achievements, I can confirm that I’ve gone through the tutorial rabbit hole for much longer than I would like to admit. I’d be spending at least 2 hours a day watching tutorials and I can say for sure that I’ve forgotten basically every tutorial I’ve ever watched. I have probably 5 years of game devving experience now and I have 3 tips to say for people. I’ve told these to my friends and they always find it helpful and a time saver, but I’m not sure if it’ll work for everyone.

1. Don’t watch tutorials.

I know, it sounds weird, but I HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND watching any tutorials before trying to figure whatever you want to figure out, YOURSELF. Only when you’ve exhausted all your options should you consult a tutorial or guide. The only tutorials you would ever need to watch are basic tutorials to help you start your game, nothing else. These tutorials also tend to be the ones you’re most likely to remember.

2. Use documentation and read libraries.

Sure, it’s boring, but it’s by far the best place to learn some scripting. If you ever fall onto an error, consulting the documentation can help you easily find the reason and how to fix it. Libraries are similar, but it varies widely. If you can’t seem to figure out something like raycasting even after a tutorial, reading the documentation on raycasting can and probably will save you the hassle of watching or rewatching a tutorial.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

New game devs always tend to consult tutorials instead of anything else as their first option. As I’ve already mentioned, I do not recommend watching a tutorial unless it’s for the basics. Instead, if you come across an error, consult the docs and/or the libs (libraries) first. If you can’t figure it out even after that, asking someone for help can be a lifesaver. It’s also usually 5 times faster and more reliable than opening another tab of youtube and looking up another 20 minute video. I know from experience that game devs are usually nice people and won’t hesitate to help you understand something. Give them a piece of your code that you’re having a problem with and the error you’re having and more experienced devs will help you figure out how to fix it. Not only that, you’re actually going to be much more likely to remember what you’ve learned because you had to actually interact and engage with someone for help, not just soullessly watching a tutorial on how to make collisions using raycasts, spherecasts, or whatever you’re trying to learn.



That’s all from me. I know some of these tips may seem unreasonable and hypocritical to some people, but it has worked for me and a lot of my friends so far. There is one last thing I would like to say though.

To a normal person who doesn’t know what coding is like, for them, looking at code is like trying to decipher an ancient language.

On the other hand, someone that does understand code or scripting or whatever sees code as just another language and is actually surprisingly easier to learn than an actual language.

For example,

for i = 1, 10 do
print(“Hello world!”)
end

might look confusing to someone who doesn’t understand a thing, but to people that do understand, even if they haven’t specifically learned that coding language (lua), can get the basic premise of what it does using basic background knowledge. Even people who don’t understand a thing can grasp it if given a comparison of two different coding languages. Such as:

print(“Hello world”)

and

console.log(“Hello world”);

Even if you don’t understand what any of it means, you still instinctively know that they basically do the same thing.
That was lua and js by the way.

In fact, after learning a coding language, learning a different coding language is actually much easier. It’s like you’ve been given a permanent skill upgrade that helps you learn different things faster. It’s pretty dang cool seeing someone that only ever did python or c++ do something like lua and even if they can’t do anything impressive, they grasp the language much faster than someone who just started. Is that something to be discouraged about? Not at all.

You know what, just for fun, let’s talk about raycasting. It sounds complicated, but most languages have raycast built into them. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll be calling our raycast: raycast(v1, v2, v3)

Raycasting is surprisingly easier to understand than people make it out to be. People usually figure out how to start a raycast, but gets stuck on the variables or the v1, v2, v3 stuff.

Usually, raycasting requires 2 positions. Think of it as a line. You chose two points and those are your two positions.

raycast(5, 8, v3)

Great! I’m only using single digits because vectors, cframes, positions, and blah blah blah are different things and would take too long to write. It’ll will work the same way though. Don’t worry.

Anyways, we have our two positions now. Usually, raycast() takes the first variable as the starting position and the second variable as the end position. In other words, 5 is where our line will start and 8 is where our line will end.

But what about v3? Usually the third variable would be some kind of function or table for the raycast’s configuration, but it varies depending on the coding language. It’s better if you read on it in documentation. We’ll be ignoring it here though.

Great! Now we have a raycast that goes from 5 to 8.

raycast(5, 8, v3)

Simple, right? Now here’s the doozy part that newbies overthink. raycast(5, 8, v3) is like creating a line from 5 to 8. That’s it. You don’t have to think about it too much.

Usually, there would be a function or method to get an object or other position within that raycast. In other words, there is usually a way to find if something is touching that line you just made.

Let’s say that there was a bullet that was at 7.

Shooting our raycast will return anything that was hit by it. Since 7 is in between 5 and 8, our raycast has just detected our bullet. Easy! From there, you do whatever you’d want to do, but asides from that, that’s basically all there is to raycasting unless you need something very specific.

If that was still confusing to you, I’ll explain it but even simpler.


Raycast from 5 to 8 (basically making a line)


Bullet is at 7

Since the bullet is in between 5 and 8, it is touching that line and therefore returns it on your raycast with where it detected your bullet (which is at 7). BEWARE! THIS IS NOT HOW IT WORKS FOR A 3D PLANE. It is still a line that you’re making, but instead of having to be in between the first and second variable of your raycast, has to be touching the line that the two variables make.

My fingers hurt now, I’m gonna stop writing here. cya

[KonradGM]

Tutorials sohuld be used mostly to either get a quick prototype of mechanic you need, or to learn basic concepts as a stepping stone that you later expand on. I've started watching a lot of tutorials that allowed me to understand Unity, but i mixed it with both documentation reading, trial and error R&D and overall trying stuff myself.

[imraanakollo-arenz]

In addition to other game design content, devlogs I've found are also an underrated thing to look at. Not only does it focus on showing you the why they made the game in the way they did and how they designed the game, but you also get to pick up some tips and tricks on the engine you're using from time to time

[SethFunk]

Tutorials are just another reference. Some self guidance is needed when learning anything. The big issue for complete beginners is that they just don't know what they don't know. In other words tutorials help showcase information that the average newbie won't be able to extract themselves.

The whole recent anti-tutorial movement is just as harmful as the people who push courses. Eveything has a time and place. A tool is a tool and can be used for good or bad. It's up to the end user in how it's used.

[thequestion]

Just hearing this guy vent my exact frustrations for me makes me feel better about life! And gives great tips, every game dev should watch this FIRST before starting

[blackouttvp]

I thought of this exact problem before starting my game so everytime I look up a tutorial, I never copy step for step. I learn the ideas and concepts and immediately think of the other possibilities using that knowledge

[felixconrad]

What helped me a lot, not to get in this, " i cant do anything without a tutorial", i always stoped when i understood a lidle portion of it and just randomly tried mashing what i just learned with something else i learned. for example: learning about sounds and already knowing vectors, make the player only honk on positive x or something like that

[ar_]

To be honest, I didn't really like learning about Unity by doing a bunch of tutorials before making a game, because I felt like even though I could type up a tutorial script for something like player movement, I wouldn't really have internalized the lessons from the tutorial. Instead, I found that trying to make a game using my amateurish knowledge (and making a lot of mistakes in between), and only sparingly seeking help online for the most difficult of problems really helped me not only to get more proficient at using Unity and C#, but it also got me in the right mindspace for solving problems in my code, and increased the efficiency of my solutions as I learnt more commands in Unity and what they were capable of by messing around with it. After a point, I only searched up Unity documentation for getting the syntax of commands as well as broad introductory videos for certain facets of Unity, such as 'audio in Unity' or the like. Messing around with Unity and using tutorials just for inspiration was definitely better for me than following tutorials step by step for everything, since it helped me be more versatile.

[saeedbarari]

you're forgetting the most important part here. that those people who left game development may come back later, stronger, older, and appreciate these tutorials that helped them with the basics back then. like what you did.

tutorials aren't the problem, it's mostly the amount of effort one puts into their work, how much passion they have. it's normal to dream big and fail small, it won't hurt you you just do it. at first anyway. then as you become more experienced you learn to take smaller steps and think outside the box/tutorials, again, just like what you said you did, also, just like what I did, and also just like many other people I know did.

I understand your points, but with all the respect, I have to disagree entirely with this video 🙏