Simple ways to LEVEL UP gamedev SKILLS

When doing a certain task enough times (such as making a game), you will eventually get better at it. But by putting some focus on what you're doing, you can greatly speed up how fast you're learning. In this video, Marnix goes over some of the non-tutorial ways you can improve as a gamedev.

Timestamps:
00:00 You'll improve at making games
00:45 Improve at the technical stuff
01:04 Expand through other means
02:32 Go for broad instead of deep knowledge
04:04 Join other dev teams
03:28 Join game jams
05:03 Postmortems
06:38 Analyze other games
08:04 Closing

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[BalDraakNL]

I think your advice of focusing on a concept within the dream game and making a smaller game around that concept is a solid idea, thank you!

One thing that I'd like to add is, that if the story is an important part of your dream game you can use this opportunity of making a smaller version of it to make a prologue/epilogue to the story in the dream game, this may eventually help selling the dream game to fans of your first game and vice versa.

But do be carefull with the story, I had a small idea that was gonna connect to my dream game storywise. But after the story for the small game started living in my head it expanded beyond something that could be told in a small game before I even got the concept it was all about, a mechanic, functional.

[Draekdude]

I love listening to podcasts like:
game-dev-field-guide
dev-game-club
designer-notes


And a few others.

[Dailyfiber_]

I literally subscribed yesterday and I’m already learning so much from your videos. Thank you so much for making high quality content 🤘

[snm_dyxtra]

Analyzing other games is one of the best ways to level up your gamedev skills by learning from the tried and tested!!

[denkkab]

One of the best learning tools for me has been debating about game mechanics etc with other devs in the team or then even directly with players. Not just absorbing ideas or perspectives without giving it enough thought, but actually first processing the topic thoroughly by yourself, then presenting your view to others and then hopefully getting a strong counter view to help start reflecting and bouncing off ideas and finally learning more as well as hopefully reaching some conclusion.

[MajesticMindGames]

I would also say the best way to learn gamedev is by making many micro games, and trying something new each time, and always always keep it very simple and small scope. And your goal should be to just finished it ASAP.

Another great video. Very Informative, structured and entertaining to watch. Again, you're killing it with the videos Marnix.
I love how you tie it into you're own personal experience, examples from your own studio's experience and your game. And I appreciate the timestamps in the video.

I love gamedev and this community so much! ♥

[gamedevjourney]

One really cool way (especially necessary as a solo dev) is to talk to other game developers on events about your game. Honestly from every gamedev event I went to I came back the a bunch of cool new ideas for my games which I wouldn't have get to on my own.

[shunpeng]

I interest in your gdc playlist. I wonder if you could share with us, may be there are some that I am missing out.

[sealsharp]

The brain works best with data when it is used, so it doesn't just help to look and hear, you need to kinda work with it. Taking notes is a way of doing that, explaining it to others is also working with it. One good reason to make tutorials is that it forces you to consciously think about the topic in a way that is not required if you just take the information. With my current and past partners in crime in terms of gamedev, we would often explain things to each other, even if the other person, as part of different responsibilities, does not actually need the knowledge. It's a way of processing.

When i talked about this with a digital artist, she told me how conscious learning of certain elements by far exceeds just painting all the time. It's also more exhausting and just doing the stuff and repeating is also useful to create habits and get that muscle memory and intuition going, but treating learning as a coincidence that happen somehow if you do it long enough is not effective. For me as an engineer, i'm creating on a project level ( which is weeks or months), so my cycle of repetitions is longer and software projects do have more reuse, so the iteration happens on a smaller, on a component level because of that. I'm treating games the same. I try to avoid coupling because it hinders iteration if you have to change lots of components to change/replace one of them.

I don't think analyzing games by playing a lot of them is very effective. So i played shooters for 25 years and i mapped and modded in the 90ies, so my consumption was with an eye for the way it is built for most of that time. That helped to build a lot of intuitive knowledge about how things work, and historic knowledge of what worked and what didn't. But still now, if i create a system like "swimming and leaving water" or "using a ladder", i open up games like Quake, Dusk, Half-Life etc. and check for that specific element. You can play shooters for decades and not think about that little bumb to y-position games give to avoid the clipping of the water surface in the middle of the players screen ^_^

[zaftnotameni]

a simple "project euler" or kata style exercise where you implement very simple (jam style duration few days MAX per game) versions of classics (asteroids, space invaders, arkanoid, tetris, etc) or simple modern games even (but again, keep it simple) can be super enlightening