9 Tips To Help You Finish Your Indie Game 

1. Be consistent 0:43 2. Plan downtime 2:40 3. Build to ship 4:18 4. Be patient 6:02 5. Focus on what matters 7:41 6. No restarting the project 9:43 7. Don't get stuck in perfectionism 11:24 8. Pick a deadline 13:52 9. Prepare for the last 10% 15:42

About deadline: don’t launch a half-baked game just because you have a deadline. Instead, I would suggest: “Freeze the features/content list” (or even cut parts of it) and publish only when that works beautifully.

** Perfectionism is an infinite loop**

Pro tip: watch a couple of Tim's videos

My tip for being consistent (works for me), I always have the developing program running when I start on my computer (whatever you use, Unity, VSC, ...), it has to be the first thing you see when you open your computer. And that makes you have a glance on it, right from the moment you start your computer, so you don't start with videos and other fun stuff you might do, and even if you do you'll have your project started and you can turn to it right away.

*coding Your own games is easier than you think... you know, you should take this online unity course.*

I think my number one tip would be the opposite of not being bogged down/ caught up in dark work. So make yourself see and feel that the game is making progress. Write a journal/weekly summary. And we all have a list of polish or tiny things to implement/fix...knocking out a few of those feels good when checking them off.

Fantastic tips Tim! Especially that Don't Restart one... I did that with my current project because I thought I ABSOLUTELY had to due to severe performance issues but now that I'm 14 months past the restart point, there was an update to the engine that would have fixed my performance issues outright... and now I'm barely past where I was when I restarted. Hard lesson to learn but that's game design for you.

I just want to make a point that for most things (everything that requires some form of learning) 1. "Be consistent" should always be paired with 3. "Build to ship" and 8. "Pick a deadline". So this is not so much about how to finish, but more about how to get the most out of it. I did daily pixelart this year as well as last year (sort of) you can see what that looks like here twitter.com/twig_dev. Mainly to see if i can stick to it, but also to see what i can learn from it. I "quit" doing that last week. I did indeed learn something. I think if you look at my first few sprites you will see the diffrence. And there are more than one reason why that whole thing hit a plateau at some point. I used my time but i used it poorly (from an artistic perspective poorly, generally this was worth it 100%). The reasoning goes as follows: If what you are trying to achieve is unclear it will be very diffucult to get feedback (including introspection) of what you now can/cant do. Your Human pattern matching learning algorithm thingy needs that feedback to compare desired outcome to accual outcome so it can learn. The less ambiguous the diffrence the easier it is for you to consciously/unconsciously do better next time. If you plan with "build to ship"[setting the goal] in mind you game will be a THING and you and others can see what it IS and what its NOT and your next game will be better because of it. If you dont "Pick a deadline" it will be easy for you to say "its not ready / good enough / i can still improve it" but this way you deprive yourself of valuable feedback. This basicly ties to the 7. "Don't get stuck in perfectionism" 11:24 section. /essay end (urgh this was supossed to be a short reply >_

Every game I've started I've given up on, even ones that seemed pretty good. I have about 25 private git repositorys of these games. I have a tendency to get bogged down, optimizing code way WAY too early so that it runs on Android. even when my target platform is desktop. I think it stems from me wanting to show people what I'm working on, and being able to whip a phone out with a game you made on it is amazing. And I'll spend hours making pretty 9 patches for ui elements that aren't even connected to any underlaying system lol. I've spent hours one day finding the right FONT for my developer debug UI WTF! I've got a project on now which I've said to myself, if a system works, move on to the next, and the next, and the next. Then when ALL core systems are in, go back, polish, optimize etc. For example, there's an algorithm that cuts images into smaller geometric shapes and adding shading, sometimes turning a 1080p image into up to a thousand individual images. This is heavy work, I'm using Java so it takes to long imho. I found myself getting bogged down in trying to multi thread this algorithm, which caused issues with data being shared that shouldn't be. (I'll get it working I'm sure) Two days later I said STOP, IT works single threaded albeit slowly, move onto some other system, come back finish this at the end during optimisation. So only two days lost on that excursion. It's hard staying focused

Normally if I dont want to work on the coding part for a day, I'll just do sudo code in a file about how I want to do something in my project. That way I have a base to go from when I work on the project again.

Holy hell, consistency and restarting are my Achilles heel! Right on, and good advice. It's good to hear your recommendations repeated, both I implemented in my two games released last year but was slipping in my current project.

Just don't refine and polish too much: PROCEED with the game, and THEN you can polish later. If you won't see your game growing, you will lose your patience. So leave the perfectionism for later. You may also uncover that you don't really need those "final touches", because nobody will notice them. Just MAKE THE GAME.

good tips! personally i dont so much say "ok ima work for 2 hours", instead ill say "ok im gonna work until i get a certain thing done. just what works for me.

I'm terrible at finishing projects so thanks for the video! As I have done game jams and smaller projects before, all I can give as a tip is go for good enough. If you can develop a small project and make everything just "Good enough" instead of extra spicy like you planned, the finishing line shows up before you know it!

Here's my personal take on your tips; I've combined a few of them as they seemed very similar and added one more: "Plan short-term": *Consistency* That is to work on the project regularly - scheduling can help *Patience* You WILL get there with time and consistency - don’t let your expectations (deadlines failed to meet) bring you down *Prioritize* Try to spend time on things that move the game forward the most - don’t polish and optimize too much in early stages and avoid getting stuck in perfectionism with diminishing returns *Plan long-term* Plan out the milestones leading to a shippable product and to publishing - define target dates & announce deadlines *Plan short-term* Break down milestones to small, manageable and actionable tasks that can be accomplished within days, then break them down further to tasks that can be completed within hours *Down time* Plan time where you do something different - don’t work in the same way for extended periods of time (like 3+ weeks) - but ensure that you come back to it by planning the down time This down time could be a change in the area of the project; like work a week on the narrative instead of programming; or it could also be something outside of the project *Don’t restart* You’ve spent enough time internalizing the fundamentals of game development - now push through *Sprint* Be aware of the “last 10%” where everything needs to be tied together and the publishing get serious - try to schedule this as generously as possible

How to finish your game: 1. Turn off your wifi/internet 2. stay away from you phone 3. stay away from friends and family 4. lock yourself in a dark room with pc and coffee 5. Don't plan nothing, planning takes too much time and ends up stressing you out even more because almost nothing ever goes as planned. Time controls you. Just work on your game when it feels right. Edit: I can relate soo much on the point you make about how you build technology over gameplay first. I spend so much time focusing on things like UI, menus, health systems, enemy system, etc. The technology aspect of the game as you put it. And then I end up building all these things and they all go to waste because after I build all those, I don't feel like creating the actual levels or gameplay. Lots of scrapped ideas and lots of time and good game systems gone to waste because of this. Edit 2: The final 10% of developing a game is absolutely brutal

Consistency is simple advice, but the best type of advice. We are all looking for a silver bullet. Those who achieve their goals, goals that aren't easy; bite the bullet. It's not going to be easy, it's not going to be fun; it's going to be bitter work but it will be worth it. This is what I had to do to lose weight; I lost 70 pounds in a year and I've kept it off through life style changes like better eating and daily cardio; 5 miles a day on the treadmill at least. A lot of days I don't want to, but I do it to be consistent and not get back into that bad mindset. I've been trying to transition that consistency to my other goals in Game Development and learning Spanish. I think in any field; the only thing that is stopping yourself is you. There will always be others better than you, but that shouldn't matter. What matters is what you want. I want to keep being able to run so I can be fit to play with my younger siblings and nephews, I want to be able to learn Spanish to communicate with others and experience other medias, I want to be able to make some small games in Unity that my family and friends can play.

Really great video and advice. I have 2 more tips. Don't beat yourself up for not finishing something but use it for learning and analyze why you didn't finish it. Over time you collect a list of potentiel problems for future projects and can prepare. My biggest reason for not finishing a project is running into technical problems with tools or my hardware. My other advice would be to start with a very simple game idea (really simple) like a coin toss game but add one surprising feature, e.g. for the coin toss game to play against quirky characters in a unique graphic style who make funny or bizzar comments during the game. You need to add a lot which every game needs, e.g. Menu, sound particle effects, music, character design etc but the game itsel is really easy to programm but you might end up with somehing fun to play which you might use in the end as part of bigger project as a fun ingame game.

Much of this advice can easily be applied to any form of artistic craft, not jut video games. Really helpful, dude!

This is great! It's the part of software development, any software, that is not talked about so much and really matters. Kudos to you buddy!

Would also suggest that being consistent can include "freethinking" time, where as long as you are working on something in your head while doing other things (maybe walking or biking or doing the dishes) counts as part of your scheduled consistency, even if it's not actively producing actual code. . As long as you really are thinking about how to improve or expand or solve your goals.

Thanks Tim, my deadline is Christmas! Got it written in post-its everywhere coz I get motivated by post-its everywhere!

Hey tim, Thanks for another great video brother. Man I couldn't agree more with this video. This has highlighted pretty much every downfall I've faced over 10 years. I only recently began using Unity and I've started a pretty complexed project (as I've been asked to take it on for a company) but I really wish I could've just made 10 little 2 week games instead of this one, however, I've really enjoyed the journey so far. I've learned so much from your videos alongside other great RU-vidrs such as Brackeys, CodeMonkey, Pretty Fly Games and much more. I just wanted to point out about the restarting thing. I actually recently did that because I realised that my game demo / concept was designed as a single player game but then the powers that be asked about multiplayer. Quickly I've went from designing a single player concept to making a multiplayer peer-to-peer solution and now I'm working on a dedicated server implementation / backend for arena tournaments. I can't help but think I've literally jumped feet first into a puddle of shit but I've never been one to do things half-heartedly. So here I am, probably 6 months into the game project, I would say the first 6 weeks were basically understanding Unity, the asset store and migrating from C++ to C#. The following 2 months were designing the documentation, reading up on the lore of the project and then trying to throw together a concept demo for Android. Now the last 2 months have been understanding Unity ECS and the Jobs system and touching on peer-to-peer connectivity and understanding Authentication, Network Topologies and networking concepts such as Lag Compensation and important stuff like that. Now, I'm just about to embark on my dedicated server studies learning how to create a multiplayer game with Azure Playfab probably using CBS (Cross-Server Backend Solution), Photon Fusion (for lag compensation and lobby handling) then I have the task of slapping my game on top of it all (pardon the term) which we all know is NOT going to be an easy feat. Add to that my intention to implement the Unity Jobs System + ECS (if I still have the will to live) already feels like taking a peashooter to a warzone and expecting a victory :D Regardless, I shall plod on and do what I must. I have realised that the more I learn as I continue to study the more and more micro projects pop up in my head and I tend to get distracted with ideas. That's the worst thing about creativity, sometimes you can't control your urges to create other game concepts on the side. I have had serious words with myself this last week and I need to stop because since embarking upon my Unity journey I think I have about 8 different games on my TODO list haha. One point I would like to add is distraction. Distraction from the glowy, shiny, beautiful things you find on your game development journey. In my case, it's the Unity Asset Store. I see so many triple A assets, especially particle effects, VFX, Shader Graphs, all in one game suites, 3D modelling tools etc etc that I'm just buying buying buying with the intention to create my "next" game. I would STRONGLY ADVISE anyone NOT to do this. The truth is, since I began, I've bought around $800 worth of packs and items, some of which I totally forgot I'd even bought because I'm always blindsided by the next SHINY thing on the asset store. Don't be like Newb, be better. :) Well, that being said, I'm off to finish up Network Animations and Syncrhonization before I head on to setup Playfab / Photon Fusion. Wish me luck. God knows I'm gonna need it. Much love to you and the community, wishing you all the very best for 2023 and hope it brings us happiness, success and paracetamol ;) Regards, Newb Ninja

Man your stories are literally me. Thank you for the motivation

I like this advice. Especially the one about just making the game worrying about technology later. Its crazy to me that I didn't realize that I don't actually need a fully fleshed out character resource system before I can just make the gameplay and see if that is even worth playing. Thank you for the insight.

I am making great progress every week, I pick deadlines for a task I'm working on but not the 'whole project'

These videos make me want to dev everyday. I am finding that working consistently everyday has helped me move along quicker. I like the deadline tip, that will work for me. Thanks Tim

Thanks man, your videos are really great. I really needed to hear this.

This had an effect on me. Thanks for the buff!

Had I seen this video 2 years ago I would have ignored it. However I wish I had seen your videos and took it to heart. Things would have gone lot easier for me. But I guess better late than never! I hope people take this advice very seriously -so you don't have to learn the hard way. Thank you for making these videos, truly inspiring and helpful!! You got one more subscribe.

Establish the project scope from the start and stick to it

Love your tips man! Its insane how solid each morsel of advice you have, with a new set of them EVERY DAY! Thank you!

The game is 90% done 90% of the time

Wow, really impressed with this... really consice, well-ordered, and insightful. Definitely full of stuff I should already know but need reminding on a regular basis, I'll be rewatching again and again. Thanks!

This is good content, man. Keep on keeping on

learning art the only reason I have ever finished something is because I publicly said I was going to or I did a daily. in game dev this could be a game jam, learning game dev I keep giving my self a dead line to finish something and pass it with nothing done. So I think publicly announcing it is the best was to go

I can definitely relate to a lot of this. I hate deadlines though, been tough to stick to those and alot of the time for delaying for me is from distractions mostly friends and family bothering me a lot for this and that on top of getting frustrated trying to figure out some issues. Another Issue I have is I get other people telling me my game looks like crap or I should do this and that to it and its other developers and then I really feel like its terrible often.

Tim, your videos are awesome brotha!

Cool format. The numbering creates great structure. To the point and memorable.

The way I push through is that I know i have tasks that I have to do that I really dont enjoy, and I have tasks that I love doing, so I schedule myself to do a shit task, then a fun task, then a shit task, then a fun task.. and I enforce this.... as the last thing I want, is to do all the fun things first, and then be left with a tonne of crappy tasks left to get the game finished, because thats asking to never get done... I find it helps a lot to mix them together.

I have been working( and still do ) on an extremely big project for a rookie, learned a lot the hard way!!! Zero > Make the F$%^ Blueprint, Plan, GamePlay whatever, you MUST Know what do you want to do One > Prototype the CORE gameplay only use minimal assets Two > Make corrections if any Three > Make a more precise plan based on your prototype ( Ui Design, Character design, story, behaviours weapons, all as detailed as possible ) Four > Make A roadmap of your >>> Programming design >>> Gameplay >> User cases >> Scenario Five > Now you can close yourself in the dark room with a lot of coffee and start doing it by the book!!! Unless you want to repeat steps One and Five for the rest of your life.... Edit: The trick is to have a very serious, meticulous and detailed preparation, good strong foundation of what you want, even if it changes slightly in phase Two, you have a roadmap, you just have to walk it. I started without a plan.

can u make a "how to get back up from horrible reviews of my games?"

Great video! I admire your consistency it’s been very motivating and informative for a new indie Dev like myself. What are your thoughts on browser games? Must they be converted into an application?

Hey Tim I'd like to say I like the work you're doing so much. Your videos gave me a lot of motivation and interesting thoughts. Thank you.

Great video Tim! I get your last "tips videos" and check list my downfalls. Great for me to stay on my thoes and do not forget on something critical to my game project. Thanks! :)

Totally agree with the last 10%

Guilty guy here,i have been spending weeks to make just 2 animations, will try my best tlbot to do it again afer my exam. Thanks once again boss tim

Show your game often, share as much as you can. Release alpha builds to trusted strangers you met in your community early. That way there isn't a hurdle of "I am embarrased about my game" to cross later.

Cut your idea in half, cut it in half again and then half of that is what you'll probably end up making.

His shirt has same color as the background and because of that it was looking like his head and neck is poping out of nowhere lol.

Tim thank you for your honest videos and very, very helpful advices. I'm reflecting on my life and see how much of this video applies to me and how much better/flexible of a person I can become by implementing some of them into my life. Just wanted to say that some of these advice are life lessons that I won't forget and will teach to others. You're already making a better world and you're inspiring me to make games, be more flexible and more honest, get things done.. Who knows maybe I'll start a youtube channel also ;)

13:09 backseat coding is probably the main reason I don't want to do open source. People with infinite amount of time judging every parts of a piece of code, that is good enough for what it needs to do and given the appropriate amount of time it deserve and not a minute more.

You sir, are amazing :). Is there an email that we can perhaps use to communicate with you about tips and advisory? Would really love it

thank you man this tips very useful for me

great job rising the quality of the vids lately! I alwais tough that would be even better if you represent in the video your toughts with graphics etc not just you talking on the camera. that could make your vids more dinamic. (I know that take lot more time). Anyway Great vids sir. Keep doing this.

Great tips. I really liked the thumbnail on this one.

excellent talk man .. thanks alot

Very good tips. Thanks!

love the new format bro

It is super nice to know that I am not the only one that has days I just don't want to work on my stuff.

10:07: This is exactly what happened to us at Xona Games with Duality ZF -- xona.com/dualityzf -- our first game... never released. When we looked back, after feature creeping our game so much, we liked our first simplistic version. We figured we were working on v3.0 at the time, about half way done, when the project was put on hold. That means we could have released v1.0, and v2.0, and then likely had funds and a community behind the larger v3.0 ideas.

"Focusing on refactoring, changes..." omg, one of my biggest problem, refactoring for me is a mix of love(I really love software architecture) and hate(for making me undecided about the using os some architecture than other) :( Anyway, I loved the video, Iknew your channel these days and it is being really helpful specially this video, both because of the tips and for knowing that other people have the same problem of never finishing a game.

Nice video same allways, i do most time stuck on thinks like. Programming and start to learn programming then i wörk on the game again and then i need to learn more programming. so the game needs alot time. Bud i get forward step by step.

FINISH UR GAME & SHIP IT NO MATTER WHAT STATE ITS IN. & IF ITS BAD, MAKE A SUPERIOR SEQUEL (THINK STREET FIGHTER 1 - STREET FIGHTER 2) =)

Thanks man! You really helped me out!

thanks for the video.

Thanks ! It reoriented my focus a lot :)

Thank you Tim , it is so real :)

Great vid mate!

Wow, that Doom code point was really interesting. I never knew.

Ty for the tips, they're very useful

My current trick to overcome the last 10% is to work on another project, and when months later, you finally say yourself "I can't let all that last work wasted" I'll boost myself for a week or two to finish that damn last project. (may no works for everyone)

Hey Tim, will you be doing any Finish Fridays soon?

Thank you. Thank you so much!

I knew I forgot some of these tips.

Thanks.

What needs to done legal wise when developing your indie projects?

Ive bben trying to make this one platformer for 4 years and i keep putting it off and even switching engine first I used raw coding then decide its time I stopped and just used all the free engines out there, first it was Unreal- proved to be too much for my simple 2D game. the Unity- Eventually got bored of it, Now Im using Godot- the main attraction was that its completely free.

Love it!

Black rim? can we see a video of that game?

You are godam right man

What do you think about godot ?

what game you made

Guys i am asking if the first game is always going to be bad ?

hah, deadline, aaaaaaaaaa.... anyway, thanks man. great video XD

Hey quick question: What rhymes with turtle?

Need to ask s seriesus question

I'd add : play with your game ! Have fun with it, so you'll end up hating it...

Just have a consistent schedule.

Shit, this hits a bit too close to home....

I have another problem. How to start a game.... LOL

I do not agree completely with this guy, because in real life things are difficult and each project is different. If I will take the example of my own project which is huge, Consistency, Plan and Patience, are not enough. Not get stuck in perfectionism then your game will be ugly, but if you will not design the graphics or the other stuff and you pay freelancers to do this, then you will need additional capital that is the first problem I will mention. Deadline is unknown because the future is unknown, the problems and the issues that will appear are unknown also rely on your freelancers speed of creating your assets so the deadline is not standard even you know when your game will be ready, but your designer you will not know when will be ready and if you rush things the result will be bad. Sometimes restarting the project may will be necessary (Because some code was flawed from the beginning and needs to be erased and be rewritten from scratch again, I have encounter this problem, and restarting was fixed my problem). The most important all the indie developers the first problem they encounter is the lack of large capital (The most important problem), that will solve the perfectionism and the second problem is the lack of talented people (Graphic Designers, Music Composers, Actors) because all of these services are expensive and it is difficult to find very specific customized material. Another problem an indie developer is the Lack of knowledge of the tools they chosen to develop their game. (Maybe it is a part of the Plan). You need to have the tools and the knowledge you will need to use these tools. There are developers who want to develop a game but they do not know how to program in general. To focus on what matters, everything matters in your project. Another very important thing for me, (This guy said about build to ship), but you do not need to ship in any kind of platform exists. I can say skip mobiles completely. People play games in computers (Desktop) and I strongly suggest to program in Windows Only first or at least in Desktop Only (1:Windows 2:Linux 3:Mac). So it is difficult to give a specific advice because each developer have different obstacles to bypass and each project has different needs.

Maybe I'm a bit too dedicated. I finished every project I started

9 tips when you just cant think of a 10th.

Just think about all the money you will get haha.

Some advice for you: don't wear a black shirt against a black background. You look like a weird floating head, like you're the great and powerful Oz or something.

8:20 tHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS "You always want to have a game that is playable" why are you working on your leveling system when the player can't even move. Why are you doing procedural level generation when you don't even know yet what the player can do, how can you code a good algorithm to make a good level, when you don't even know what a good level could be. Stop it with the intro cutscene, screw that 37th page of lore you are writing, just make a game that is playable first.

This is not hate Please make you vids more up beat i was realy bored during this and got side tracked several times

Tip #10 - Stop watching RU-vid videos...