Why Does it Take SO LONG to Make Games?

In this video we reveal why game development takes SO LONG!

Part of the reason is that it's MONUMENTALLY HARD to make games... but what exactly is it that makes it so hard? We've discovered the answer recently and it's not exactly what you'd expect, there's a lot to it.

We cover things like scrapped work, the complicated web of links, optimization, self doubt and more.

Our hope is that this video will help you avoid many of the mistakes that we made when we first started developing our metroidvania game Veil of Maia so that you can save yourself a ton of time and frustration and do it better than we did.

With a few silly skits of course, lots of humbleness, authenticity, vulnerability, and a TON of compassion for our fellow devs.

If you're new to our channel, we're Brandon & Nikki from Sasquatch B Studios. We sold our house to start our game studio, and work full time on building our business and making our game, Veil of Maia.

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***Mentioned in this video***
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#motivation #indiegame #gamedevelopment

[AIAdev]

Man this video is a banger. Thanks for making it, so many good take aways

[lisa_jeffs]

"I need more friends" 🤣... Gold! Great Vid!

[AizakkuZ]

Making a game by yourself is insane it'd look something like this:

Writing (Story (World Building, Lore), Character Development (Know Your Characters), World Progression (Plot Without the Player), Video Game Genre(Hack N Slash, Sandbox, MMORPG, etc), Player Progression (Plot Centered Around Player), Planning of Mechanics (How Player Moves, How Player Interacts, etc))

-> Environment Creation (Creating the world that you build recognizing the specific genre)(3D Modeling or Art, VFX)


Now overview all of that again seeing if what you made makes sense WITHOUT changing the writing aside from the Mechanics.

-> User Interface (Use Previously Planned Mechanics and begin Drawing Concepts, Finalize Designs)


Now ensure the User Interface can be coded in properly, if not revise.

-> Animating (Plan out based upon mechanics, create animation)


Now ensure the animation looks good and it can now be coded in, this can be swapped after programming btw. Of course, this also needs several revisions.

-> Programming (Plan out Architecture (Programming Paradigms), Plan out Code Logic, Write Code, Comment Code)


Now ensure that the code works how you expect it mechanically within the world and for the UI that you designed, rewrite code logic until perfect.

-> Sound Design (Create and utilize sounds, Use created Environment + Plot to create music)

Now ensure that the music sounds good within the environment and for the gameplay, continue to revise until perfection.



Let me know if I got any of this wrong but, this basically shows you just how much work goes into a game and how much that actually can be for a solo developer. When you think about it, games are quite literally an amalgamation of several different areas which can all be fine-tuned to perfection and basically hold their own. For example, a novel has just the Writing portion, a comic or manga has the Writing portion then the Art portion, an anime or cartoon has the Writing portion, the Drawing portion, the Animating portion, and the Sound Design portion.

The amount of work that goes into any of these is insane but creating video games is comparable in work to a movie.

[rubekiG]

I have a computer science degree. It doesn't help with self doubt...

[jonathanlochridge]

But that is why I generally prefer to start with middle of the game when fleshing out a 7 day or month level prototype.
If the middle of the game is worse than the beginning and the end. So, long as it isn't too much less. That you can get away with it being like that.
(for dealing with the skill increasing during development.
And also making the main character after I make the main villain. Since, they are interconnected but relatively, making the main character is generally less work than the boss.
And you can use a placeholder in many genres.
I completely agree it is fundamentally iterative.

[PlayWithFurcifer]

Strong video, well done!
We threw out so much of our game it could be a whole other game i think.... like, really.

[nikhilvijayraj]

you are doing a great job in standing as an example for solo developers like me.

[lewessays]

What worries me the most is writing bad or very buggy code.
Thanks for the vid

[doug]

Thank you for the video, im solo developing a game too and sometimes a feature that i imagine would take a full day of coding takes three or four days, That makes me feel an impostor in every way possible, the emotional support that videos like this brings its amazing, thanks.

[kotcstudios]

Very awesome video!
I've spent years "reiterating" my item system, still not done.
I've spent over a year designing my vowel world, just to ultimately scrap it.
Everything you said is 100% spot on!

[KenWaite]

Keep going! You’ve got this! You are creating an amazing future for yourself.

[youkilledkiller]

I didn't know you knew so much about video games.
thanks Tom Green

[fontainewaite]

Can’t wait to see the full game. Keep going!

[opalwisdom]

Thanks for the video! I love playing video games and I’m not a game dev myself, but I stumbled across this while googling why game development takes ages and this answered my questions very well. I’ve definitely gotten some surprising insights into it.

[Ironroc]

Watched quite a few of your videos and it's been really cool to watch each video you make get better quality, more engaging, and just better overall. Well done! You deserve to grow faster :)

[kantagara]

I'm glad I'm not alone in this :D
Thanks for this amazing video!

[MikeMarkovMusic]

Amazing and underatted channel, you give me motivation to start working on my game and be realistic about it!

[KalilMasters]

As a Junior in College for Game Design, this video helps a lot.

[FlutterVR]

Excellent video! I feel seen. 😄 Also, loved your video "Why is Game Dev SO HARD?"

[Knight_Trooper]

I gain a lot of helpful insights towards game developement. Thank you very much