No Time, No Budget, No Problem: Finishing The First Tree

In this 2019 GDC talk, David Wehle explains the tactics he used to finish his successful indie project The First Tree even while working over forty hours a week at The VOID and taking care of his family.

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[xdevantx]

"Other people need your game" might be the most inspirational words I've ever heard.

[samohickey]

Avoiding a 0% day is 100% in finishing ANYTHING in life. Great words! If you haven't read the book "The War of Art", not "The Art of War", "The War of Art"; it mentions that if you can just sit down and start.... every day... you'll usually get sucked in. Once you're sucked in, next thing you know it's 100% done. :D Good luck out there my fellow devs, artists, writers, and composers. Much love!

[CptMunta]

This is pure gold. As an indie dev and father of 4. This gives me hope!

[lumenwrites]

It's great that Chris Pratt was able to take the time out of his busy dinosaur training schedule to make an indie game!

Seriously though - amazing talk, thanks for sharing, congratulations on your success!

[noahnichols]

The guy's nice. Straight up. I wrote him an email and he hit me back with a reply quite quick. Awesome success story!

[harrysanders]

I think the most important thing to notice here is that this guy knows art fundamentals. He utilizes artistic principles to convey emotion successfully. Like color theory and shape language, so that his game has has a successful art direction players respond to. Without that, no marketing in the world will help you out. I guess it is important to not to forget that you need some knowledge about how art works and what elements it consists of. It is not only the work you need to put in, but also the knowledge. Everyone understands that when it comes to programming, but less people understand that when it comes to art.

[MidoriMushrooms]

"some people will like anything with a fox in it"
I feel so called out rn XD
I followed your game on twitter and bought it at launch. I...wasn't a fan of some of its launch-day problems but you were pretty cool about trying to address them. I'm glad it was a success because the art is amazing.

[ArielJimenez]

this is a perfect example of "No excuses!".

"If its important, you will find a way; if its not, you will fin an excuse"

[CodeGaff]

As someone with a full-time job and a family, this really hit home for me.
Well done to David for his accomplishments, I hope one day I complete a game!

[shyamarama]

7:42 “Never have a 0% day” 😎👍👍 Great work!

[TonsOfHunStudios]

Awesome talk! As someone who likes to be a "purist" and is afraid of what others might say about using other assets, it comforts me to hear that barely anyone cared or even noticed other assets were used.

[MattyAlanEstock]

I needed this talk last year, last month, today. No more 0% days!

[randomrandom]

This is gold. Cause people think the hard part of being an indie developer is having limited resource, limited time, limited people, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The hard part is to get out of obscurity, to be seen, to be known, to get eyes on what you want to offer to the world.

[swearsoft]

It's called the Pareto Principle and focusing your efforts on the 20% of things you do that actually produce 80% of the results is taught in business school

[csebastian]

One of the best presentations I've ever seen.

[CurtisJensenGames]

My big takeaway is to actually spend time on marketing. Developing has been more fun than marketing for me for the most part, but now that I've found Reddit I think it will help me to vent about joys and frustrations of the game.

[PixelGM]

11:04 "If you took two popular thing, people would love it. But if you take a brand new original thing, they don't know how to react", sooo relateable!

[tomaszkobus]

This video is a pearl among hundreds of statements about the work of an independent game developer.

[dsuitor]

I have a lot of bookmarks for Dev/Marketing/etc, but, after watching this, I created a folder called "Inspiration from Indie Game Devs". You're the first bookmark in it. This will be the folder I go to on those tough days when the self-doubt slams it's way through the front door. Loved it!

[JPMeyer]

This is really inspiring. I started coding at 12 because of games, and ended up in the corporate space as a web developer - it's soul draining but it pays well. I dabbled a bit with graphics programming in school, but it never really went anywhere. 17 years after writing my first line of code, I've started developing my first game. I work full time, I have no real budget for this, I have a family. I wasn't sure that it could be done, but now I know that it can be done. Thank you so much!