"But a small, complete game is worth infinitely more than a huge game that never actually exists" is SO true and hits very close to home hahaha Great video, thank you so much for sharing your experience and tips with us! 😄
Artists have such a technique. Before adjusting the color palette, try to make the image black and white. All important objects that you want to highlight on the scene should be sufficiently contrasting to be easily read on a black and white image. good luck
Oh yeah, values. But when you look around the industry, it's not really go to technique. I appreciate it though, specially blender makes heavy use of it as you model without texture/colors. Just gray matter where you can resemble some depth.
As someone who's been starting projects but never finished one in nearly 20 years, this is painfully relatable, especially that meme at 0:43. My problem is even if I try to come up with some kind of structure or deadline, I immediately justify breaking it for X or Y reason.
"Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more." helps me push for more progress, especially when nearing the end of a project lifecycle; that covers finishing projects but not satisfying deadlines. Thinking about a qualitative vs. quantitative results tradeoffs is better, but the prospect of firmly grounding a specific system, even if it's innovative to just your current experience, has helped me cut the scope of projects into multiple small ones that can be separately commended
Found this video after playing the game. We had a raid party event in my discord where a handful of speedrunners competed for times. Just want to say that the game is really well made and was one of the more enjoyable events we had in the community. Thanks for the hard work
9:14 "A small, complete game is worth infinitely more than a huge game that never actually exists." This video is probably the best, most truthful advice I've seen in a while. Especially that quote from you.
[Aaaand YT is auto-deleting comments. Sheesh.] Finishing a game with settings, menus, and promotional art for store pages is a long slog that you might not see coming.
I made a game demo in a week to prove to myself that I could. It was only three levels, not much going on, used premade assets, and I still had to cut a lot to get it done on time. Maybe I’m the only one who will ever see it, but it’s a complete game that I’m proud of, even if it goes no farther.
Hey, You may need to change links of Publisher and Developer of your steam page. In your old games' pages, takes to switchback studio page. But in this game's page, not working correctly. Amazing and unique game btw. Nice work.
I've been staling on my game for while now, but I have now decided to finish it this year! Whilst making tutorials so that other people can do the same thing.
I've just scrapped my first game project after working on it for three months. Dont think you're immune to this you guys. I didnt think it all the way through and just thought i had a good idea but then i got stuck with no real goal. I'm starting a new project from scratch that is muuuuch smaller, and i got a working prototype done in a week. Thanks for the encouraging video. Im excited to actually finish something this time
Oh hey! I watched this whole video and thought it was from someone with millions of subscribers. This advice is really hitting at the moment as I'm coming to the end of the prototyping phase...
This is how larger projects get structured as wel btw It is to be noted that this approach doesnt work for everyone under every circumstance. For me it works better to make a list of things to do, as i will min max a planning and slack off when nothing important is on it, but a list without a deadline needs to get finished asap, i can do this because i dont have a fixed deadline for what im trying to do, if you do, and want to be sure your game comes out, follow the vids advice. Its good advice.
It feels like some things are just impossible to complete. Like making a character model with facial rig (blendshape? bones? eye target?) so I just do something that is not it. The game won't be completed if I don't have a player character though. So I am a bit nervous.
As someone who had to complete a game in 2 weeks for a jam... oh dear lord this is all brutally true! I had what was supposed to be a fun ace attorney style story game... just turn into a linear visual novel b/c I had to cut so much out. Even then I almost didn't make it. But judging from the reviews, I made the right decision
I've been wanting to get into game development for so long, but I haven't been able to find a good starting point for managing a project. This has genuinely helped me so much, thank you for putting out this video! And good luck to your future projects, or updates to Grippy Golf if you find yourself doing that!
Solid advice! For all kinds of projects really, not just gamedev. My own game scope was written by coming up with a rough timescale first and then figuring out what could fit into that, it's actually quite freeing when you let go of the more unrealistic plans and realise that concentrating on the core features will end up a better experience for both you and probably also your players! And thank you for the GanttProject recommendation, I've been looking for a decent one. Love a good chart, haha :D Congrats on the release!
Fantastic job, so few people actually manage to release a game. And this looks pretty great. Definitely gonna pick this up, at the very least to support an indie dev
I would also add that FINISHING the project is not the same as FINISHING AND RELEASING the game. I finished some projects but is finished, working project of a game the same as finished product/released game? Hell no. People will expect polish, little to no bugs, good performance, art/sound effects/background music that are similar in quality. Your game to work on every supported by you system and resolution without any minor issue or adjustment. And it doesn't matter if you ask $5 or $50, expectations towards quality will not change, only content. And even if you ask someone to make art/sound/bgm (which you have to pay for, obviously), it also needs to fit your game. Your story needs to work with your gameplay. Your gameplay might work but it also needs to be interesting and everything must be fun or provide unique experience. Making games, if you are really making them yourself and you don't use existing templates, is probably hardest thing to do I can currently think of. Amount of knowledge and skills required is immense. I no longer think that anyone wanted to make a bad game (except for monetization maybe). Physics, math, logic, programming skills, UI design, art design, sound design, all the theory behind art and music, writing, ideally knowledge about how computers work which is more of a software engineering rather than just programming, deep understanding of concepts you work or write about, marketing, time/resource management... I just can't disrespect indie devs. Specially those who are doing their things. If someone copies tutorial, pastes assets from unity (art, models AND systems), yeah it's different. People with deep understanding what they are doing and skills to back it up? Dude, I am telling you, these guys are assets to any project they work in. Only cons is that person working on even 5 different skills will never master them all. But it's alright, all you need is to be good enough to express your creative vision.
i'm playing some other games rn (secrets of grindea) but as soon as i have finished i'll play yours; can't wait! ps: I want to say you shuold really put out more content on yt regarding your game on more of a weekly or every two week time, but i'm not talking about this kind of video, more about low effort propgress update, nothing fancy, just 5 minutes of footage from in progress assets and gameplay (you shuoldn't spend more than 30 minutes). You have made a full game that looks and (hopefully feels) great, if you are consistent you can make a big userbase!
Het man, I am in this struggle right now, I just want to release a Steam Page, and its been a few months by now... the trailer alone is taking a considerable amount of time (even though it is just a minimal trailer) Love the devlog, Your game looks good. Why don't you provide a demo? it looks like the perfect game to have a demo. Good luck man I wish you the best. and thanks for the video
Amazing video! The things you point out really gives an idea on how people should manage their projects in the future! Im definitely trying these next 😅
congrats on releasing your game :) and thanks for the video. It feels like a lot of people probably know a lot of those things, but the thing that doesnt seem to get mentioned often is the "plan" part, especially in terms of time.. I'm in the "prototyping" phase right now and having a hard time actually figuring out what I want the game to be XD so it feels like an endless circle of trying to figure out stuff while my thoughts and ideas are constantly changing depending on what I feel like 😂
As someone who cannot keep track of time properly or estimate how long i'll take on something, a gantt chart is not very helpful, it just induces panic Other than that, i really like how the level on screen flips upsude down when you say "isn't that a bit backwards?" and flips back upright when you talk about looking back at the original plan, the visuals matching the audio did not get lost on me (or this might be a case like that artist who "gave hiccup wings" by using the sillouette of the clouds)
Can I suggest one thing, which is to practise estimation? I used to be hopelessly optimistic in all my time estimates, and I know that panic feeling when you realise that it’s all going wrong. However after a few years I have got a lot better at it… it’s a learnable skill! The only ‘trick’ I would mention, take your honest best estimate, then add 50% slippage allowance. This is to cover unexpectedly hard bugs, or major design issues. But don’t carry that slippage time forwards if the task is done ahead of the estimate, pat yourself on the back but keep the impetus by writing it off when you don’t need it. I find this means you’re often a bit ahead of schedule, and if you write clean code to a solid game design, you may end up with additional “polishing time” at the end!
"But a small, complete game is worth infinitely more than a huge game that never actually exists" someone who could REALLY use that kinda advice is whoever is behind the videogame development of ' beyond good and evil 2 ' cuz the first game was short and sweet and amazing...and.....the sequel....... doesn't exist and very likely won't because the person behind it dreams too big to actually complete the videogame.
I personally think the "post your deadline on social media" is very bad advice. It might work from a motivation perspective, but I think it would be a horrible from a marketing perspective. If your deadline isn't enough to finish your game, you will either have to postpone it, or release the game as it is. Delaying the game will upset people and hurt the hype for your game. Many will be understanding of it, sure, but it's going to make many wonder what was even the point of announcing a release date or even a prediction. Releasing the game as it is, even if you crunch to make it as polished as possible, might result in glitches or poor game design slipping through the cracks. I cannot stress enough about how important a good release is, if you care about your game being successful. Just look at games that had to work hard for over half a decade to regain their reputation after bad releases, like No Man's Sky and Cyperpunk 2077. Some smaller games have never recovered. Mighty No. 9 is noticeably better than when it first released and it's still near-universally hated. At least in my opinion, there's only one circumstance where you should ever announce a release date, and that's when your game is 100% done.
but.... we don't need more noise on Steam. Make a good game, or never finish it. Either from an industry or consumer perspective, you're not actually doing anyone a favour by releasing something that is too heavily compromised.
I understand you only want to see the best games on stores. But this guy is clearly not advocating to swamp the stores terrible asset flips. It's just to make a very small scale, competently made product. Sometimes you gotta make wonky games before you make good ones. The witcher 1 is a bit of a mess, but if CDPR didn't make it we'd never have witcher 3. Plus if you were a publisher signing a deal with a dev would you really risk your money on someone with no games and an "uncompromising vision" vs the guy with a few 5/10 games under his belt looking to step up his talents, get a bigger bidget and maybe and make a winner.
@@amongus.impostor yes I made many. Star dew Valley does not have half the features of Harvest moon. Its only good because it has double the features of Harvest moon. Nobody would play Stardew Valley if he had cut the scope in half.
