5 MISTAKES I Made When I Started Making Games 

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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

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!

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

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.

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?

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 RU-vid 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.

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.

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.

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

Game design documents are soooo important

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Now I'm working on my really first game, alone. I'm not expecting it to be that good, but I wanna publish a game to get through the whole process

My bigger mistakes have been .. scope/content creep . . being too ambitious, wanting to make AAA - AAAA, as a beginner ( not listening, when everyone told what were mistakes ) . . . thinking too much about money, or, the ' praise ' / cheering, instead of making fun, or cool stuff, or, stuff I just liked, or, at least thought was fun / cool, so on . . .

Lonely, need a pat on the back.

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

Can't wait for Father man!

Thomas "Six-figures" Brush

when it comes to publishing, what is necessary and what is not, such as is it important to make an llc (I can't as I am 15 and in england it is an llp)

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

Talk about timing! Currently, I am working on my first game that I plan to fund via Kickstarter. And I wanted to avoid Mistake #1 that you mentioned. So I started writing GDD 3 days ago. Takes a bit of time when it is the first time, but I think it will be worth it in the long run. GDD Template that I use: www.cs.unc.edu/Courses/comp585-s15/DesignDocTemplate.pdf

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

OMG This useful! I plan a lot and never done my game.Maybe I just do it and keep improve it.

3:55 :D

Hey Thomas, I'm an old school gamer (48yrs old first computer zxSpectrum in 1983) who has recently spent a fare bit of time going through the web and learning Unity. I came across your RU-vid channel and was very much inspired by your journey and the games you have created. I have an idea for a game that I would like to bring to life. The story I put together some time ago now with my daughter so it's a joint effort as such. Because the story is close to my heart, my biggest fear is to start a blog via social media and the story, characters possibly show up elsewhere by someone else. Should I be scared of this?, am I being stupid?. Your advice would be appreciated.

It’s so frustrating im watching all ur video and trying with ur game kit but I’m alone and I need to do the game I have in mind I never quite doing what I want to do even if that will take me so long

The thumbnail almost makes you look like Rob Zombie haha

I'm actually alone making my game. 5 years since I've started the project (alternating between studying for university and working). I'm preparing a demo for September, but it's really difficult to make 3D models, rigs, animations, textures, scripts etc. all alone. Sigh T.T

Ive been watching your vids for a while now! Ive recently started working with a team for my Third game. Goodluck to everyone else out there! Give it your all!!

0:49 this has been the story of my life lately😅

I think social media is prob. a good thing, bec. other people can see your title, work, give support, and hype it, esp. if it deserves it, or, is sort-of 'worth money', or quality . . I also think Kickstarter, funds, even publishers ( they want something back ) can be a good idea, or, try to get funds, so one can pay team - members, or, pay for pro - assets, even say mo-cap stuff, pro - sound audio stuff, or sound tech clean up some say themes, etc . . Money isn't everything, but, it makes some thing easier, and, ton of stuff more fun, esp. for the team, but, also getting a mo-cap suit, then having fun, or, travel to a big indie show, suddenly is possible, so on . . . Paying for a team, to go to another country, also, having a bit vacation, isn't that cheap, but, it can be part of budget, or, some team - building, etc . .

Dude good points

I hate social media... what am I going to do?

yay video

I don't have any friends that are interested in game development, can suggest some people so they can help me ??

The biggest mistake I made was going to college

Those transitions were really disruptive.

I'm currently a lonely mofo working on my projects 🙃

lonely? ive spent a decade on my game alone lol.. i prefer it to waking up to a ton of errors and changes made by a so called co-coder !

How many times are you going to milk this same idea? I don’t mean to come off as an asshole and completely love your content but all I’ve seen is just 5,10,20 mistakes. Could you make something a little more original like a discussion the different inventory systems and which would work best for your game or how to design a flow of gameplay and story. Just something technical, you know? Thx, have a good 1

Severely depressing.

I'm lonely😔😌

game design docs are literally a waste of time imho

first