5 MISTAKES I Made When I Started Making Games

Let's chat about the Top 5 Mistakes indie game devs are making in 2022!

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Resources for this video:

Game Design Docs I recommend:

Discord Servers:

[thomasbrush]

Thanks for watching! Hope you learned a ton.

[panickal]

Contents:

0:40 - #1 Avoiding Planning
3:37 - #2 Avoiding Teamwork
5:58 - #3 Following your Heart
7:27 - #4 Focusing Only on Game Sales
8:36 - #5 Avoiding Social Media

[Jaqueendufonte]

This is def my biggest issue is the planning. I’m a full time student, full time employee and dad and by the time I get home I’m just exhausted. Really wanting to join your classes if you still have an opening this Thursday when I can join. Good luck on the current game!

[AlfredBaudischCreations]

The book Videogame Developer's Strategy Guide has a whole chapter dedicated to say DO NOT MAKE A GDD - "Beginners Shouldn’t Start with a Design Document! I've seen many people try to get started in videogame making by writing a huge document. As soon as work begins on the game, plans change entirely! Documents can be useful... but far more so after getting experience. It's like writing cooking recipes without ever cooking. I would start by following recipes. Then I would modify the ingredients or cook time in my favorite recipes, experimenting in the kitchen." - Unless of course you already know what you are doing.

[vishwa]

Yesterday I started creating my first game. This video is really helpful for me😊

[FabiulousGames]

Game design documents are soooo important

[smirkinmerkin]

If you read the comments, I'd be interested for you to expand on what you mean in #1... I'm all for a solid plan, and Design Docs are super useful, but what about rapid prototyping? How do you even know if you have a game worth playing unless you actually throw together something playable? A lot of game ideas come from discovering something new and better while trying to prototype something else. And how do you avoid wasting time writing out a whole design doc for a game that just... isn't fun to actually play when you finally get around to prototyping it?

[CreativeSteve]

Hey Thomas, Can I say Glad I discovered ya way back during summer of 2017. You were the first indie dev i stumbled upon here on YouTube and grew my interest in learning Game-Dev. When ya launched your course I instantly saved money n bought it on pre-ssale. I have it bookmarked for reference keeping. Going to take a break from school again after summer break comes to focus on my game that I'm slowly building up since fall last year. Art classes though has helped me improve on my physical art which I'm thankful for having great professors of. Thanks for the motivation videos Thomas. Started my learning journey at age 28 now 32. Trying to make a game combining elements of my old school favorite games.

[CatDribble]

planning is sooo good, it lets me break down all my tasks and keeps me on track so I don't have to spend any down time think on what to do and can just focus on the doing, it's always good to spend some time just planning out what you want before hand, that way when you do just get home from work you know what to do when you go to do it

[LorneDev]

I've been feeling REALLY lonely at times. I recently had the second person join up and I really felt more inspired immediately!

This is my first game that I've been working on for 6 months now. Please drop by and say Hi! I would really appreciate it.

Thank you Thomas for being a great content creator and that you show the some of the "Dark side" of development too.

[Doorlock]

I am make my games alone kind of boring but still got the spirit

[yuuisland]

last night i had a dream that i was playing the final version of the dog game and you didn't start with the high jump, you just started with a normal jump and had to unlock the big jump.
and it was sadge

[rhomphaiagameprojects]

Working on a RTS Alone, Sadly not sure if others can see the way I am wanting to take my game. So I wish I could find others with the same views as me. But not sure if I could find anyone, so doing what I can for now, hoping maybe to run into someone in the future.

[SteamPunkVGC]

Currently working on my first game and this video is really helpful.

[keaultra]

I've heard you shouldn't work on your GDD yet until you get a vertical slice. The game would have changed so much or you may have quit the game before working on it at a point in which a design doc is most helpful.

[migetmnkey]

I would love to see an example of a game design doc.

[reiimouse]

I also feel lonely making games :")

The worst part about being a solo game dev in my opinion is that it's very hard for me to get feedback for my games so I sometimes fear that my game is actually crap and I don't realize that since I am not getting any feedback, so I start to think that I am investing so much time and energy in something that won't be good, thankfully I don't really have that fear anymore ^^
However I still think that if I had a team to work with it would make my life so much easier since I could get feedback from them and potentially avoid making bad decisions.

[legendguitargamer]

Man, your tips are so valuable! Thanks a lot for sharing!

[skyrealminteractive]

Thank you for sharing these useful experience and information! We will make sure to avoid making these mistakes during our game development journey. :)

[greenviewmedia]

Thomas, master of engaging thumbnails. Also very helpful video! Thank you!