LEGEND OF ZELDA, its OPEN WORLD mostly, the idea of going to any boss first is key the bosses or of average challenge easier as you progress & add in a puzzle or so type mechanic & they will still feel unique enough to be fun, THUS YOU CAN HAVE AN ENTIRE SMALL ISLAND THATS OPEN WORLD ENOUGH BUT NOT BE A MASSIVE SAND BOX, thats where you will run into trouble HAVE SMALL OPEN WORLD NOT A BIG ONE!
it's quite sad really to be seeing nearly everyone start devlogs where they proclaim to be making their dream game, because you know that most of them won't get there.
I definitely get that. I want this video to steer newer devs into a possible new outlook / development path. Making your "dream game" is definitely not impossible or a bad thing, but there are other ways of making a living as an indie and feeling fulfilled 🔥
@@ReeceGeofroy And just because you'd pay even hundreds of dollars to play your dream game, doesn't mean that random people will even pay $10. It's not their dream game. They may just not care at all. Also people may overestimate their skills and talents.
Yeah, I mean, he did say it's just his opinion but I feel like that's not great advice. Making games that *you* want to play seems like exactly what people who make good games do. I think some much better advice is DO NOT *START OUT* trying to make your dream game. Make games that you want to play but make sure they're smaller and more attainable games. Don't start trying to make the next Fallout game when you've never made a game before or have never made an RPG before. Start small. Focus on making smaller games with fun gameplay and tackle that dream game much later in your career when you're confident that you can do it justice. Perhaps when you are able to hire a team or work at a studio where you can get proper funding and have experience working on a project with a team.
I think this mindset is totally fine as a developer who makes games as a hobby or for fun. If you are trying to turn it into a job and lifestyle I think this mindset will ultimately hold people back.
@@Edward-Not-Elric i think you might be misinterpreting his advice a little. it's not that you shouldn't create games that you want to play, it's that you shouldn't create games that you don't enjoy creating. if you're favourite type of game to play is also your favourite type of game to develop, then that's awesome! a win-win scenario. however i think most people, myself included, find that the games we enjoy creating and the games we enjoy playing aren't the same. and that's ok. the main takeaway here is to be careful not to invest too much into a project that you don't enjoy (or worse: hate) developing. it can cause real hardships even if the end result is a game that you would've enjoyed playing.
@@ReeceGeofroy don't know if you could make your Pokemon like game and wish you could bring it to the Nintendo switch not only to eshop aswell and could do things with game builders garage game maker make space game and shooting up games aswell if ok to ask that I am into at this time tiny bit more easy to figer out how to make a game use this way then other ways I find for my self but up and down to work out if wish to bring them to life because my life has times no matter my gender do say or Act troll's come at me puts me off most things it is just a big painful time I to love Pokemon games and games with dungeons and crafting and weapons and armour that made so cool looking and if the game has lots of shops and mounts and chest to loot and lots to do in game sometimes get so sick DLC at times some wish game dev would mix up for who like or love DLC it fine but that not into it all time wish could do for free play stuff add in game like stardew veally dose next patch of stuff you have to do in game stuff to unlock next game things I love doing it that way if they mix up that yes DLC make money for who pay for it that will still work out for them if doing that way 🤔 like your video and hope you do well with your game 🤗🤩😎PS I have also played under rateed games to
I have to give you credit for not playing into survivorship basis. A lot of successful people focus on how their talent and hard work was what made them successful. Here you lay out clearly all the extra factors that made your experience more successful, such as outside revenue streams and a strong early fanbase. A good message to send.
So basically this wasn’t a mistake but more of a huge lesson that you could share with everyone. Take on your dream game but understand it won’t be a journey you’ll expect. Hard work and dedication is half of your journey. While the other half is not quitting and remembering to have fun even if you don’t make the next star dew valley. 💯
I felt this! When I started working on my game Ikarus it was so much fun and the idea of making "my dream game" was incredible, but once you get past that ultimate high it becomes more and more difficult to see it as a fun project to work on and it becomes mostly hard work and as you said...a job. Great video, thanks for sharing😁
If you think you shouldn't do your dream game because you might not finish it, you don't want to do a dream game: you want to be seen by society as someone who did a game. Validation issues.
Here is a philosophy I go by: good games take lots of time, and making a fream game is usually a good game, meaning it takes time, so spend that time making the game untill its perfect for a version 1, the improve it as you go and tak your time to perfect it, or it'll end up like a lot of modern triple a games, glitchy and way too unfinished for version 1 and barely fun
Naw, I think you've got it wrong. You can't enjoy the work all the time. If work was always easy, everyone would make wonderful works of great aesthetic beauty. What separates the professional from the neophite is the ability to push through the block that comes when you're doing the parts you don't enjoy, or putting off something you care about to do something mundane that needs to be finished right now. The reason you shouldn't start with your dream game is much simpler: you aren't good enough! No one starts out at their dream-skill-level. Spend some time doing stuff that matters less before you tackle the passion project, otherwise you'll end up starting over a half-dozen times as your good taste outpaces your skill. Each time you get better, you'll want to start over because "Dream Game" means "do eveyrthing exactly right (tm)". The reason making an open-world RPG is a huge mistake is even simpler... feature creep!
For me, I make my dream game not to be nesecarily successful, but rather get the idea I worked on for years out there and just make something for myself and possibly other people to enjoy. I enjoy the process of game dev so yeah!
@@TheBlackSkimmer ill give you a tip. Start tonight. Go online, check out Default cube if u want a 3D model design and get blender. Honestly dude, its how i started. With this stubborn idea that I wanted to make games, even though mathematically, (i might aswell be numerocally dyslexic) I wasnt the best, I butt my head against the wall and learned how to program on my own. The 3D modelling I will admit (cause this is where the journey led me) is infuriating, difficult at times and none of it makes sense at the start but put in the work dude, you can do it. Dont give in on that stubborn idea dude. :)
@@picklesplaysgames975 woow!! Thanks! My game is 2D since I'm an artist! It's so inspiring, it reminds me of my art journey as a disabled autistic girl
I finally got started on coming up with my first game idea. I already wrote down my notes on my laptop. but after seeing the sponsor I'll try that out instead. XD
I really want to leave a "support comment", but there's nothing to say that hasn't already been said. Your journey really looks like something special, and trust me, the game has "failed" only when *you* say so, so don't give up, we're rooting for ya mate!
I've rarely been happy to see a sponsor, but this is cool! I'm obsessed with logistics, but it's one of the hardest things to debug with a huge impact on longterm play. :/
I understand and appreciate all of the concerns of creating one's dream game. That being said, I will continue to spitefully work on mine no matter how many years it takes ;-;
That's good! Keep doing what makes you happy, as I said this video is a subjective view and just to keep people aware of realities, not shoot down everyone's dreams 😁
Great video (as always 😄) I'm glad you are addressing the topic of making a dream game, I agree and think that one has to work on a game that they actually like, but also that they feel good creating. Too often gamedevs start their dream game which has a massive scope and must be 'perfect' and end up not finishing. Good to see RU-vid is helping encourage your development of Monster Tribe💜
From one devlog creator to another: you have one of the most unique styles of devlogs on entire RU-vid. The combination of "my thoughts on X" paired with gameplay and then here and there some devlog-y moments really makes a great watch experience. That being said, I might steal 1-2 ideas from your editing style for my own videos! Keep up the great work and I 100% agree with the message here.
Thanks so much bitbrain! I try to create something out of the ordinary and am still searching for my fully unique style to this day. Appreciate the feedback 😭💜
Always inspiring! Thank you for allowing us to see the hardwork behind Monster Tribe and insights into the mental battles that come with developing a large passion project.
I have a dream of this adventure jrpg game. Have been imagining the story for years now. And finally after found out that RPG Maker is exist on Steam's latest winter sale, I started developing me own game. Don't be mistaken though, creating your dream world is unbelievably fun. It wasn't stressing at all, and when it started to stress me, I stopped and take a rest. I only work during the night tho, about 2-3 hours per day. It's a fresh breeze. I don't even think I would ever finish the game, but I do enjoy making it.
I always worry about that with making games, that by the end of it, I'll be sick of it. But, I'm passionate about making what's in my head come to life, and the game I'm working on isn't just for me, but for my family and my father. There's a game we enjoyed playing together when we were younger, so I want to make a spiritual successor to it. I'm not just making my dream game, I'm making someone else's dream game. But, for most people, if there's a game they want to make and play, then there might be other people who want to play that game, too, even if they don't know t yet. So, don't get discouraged. Your games have value, at least to someone out there.
It is the wrong mindset of many people when they say "You won't become the next big hit". Not just in the game industry but a overall rotten mindset people have that is costing many people pleasure in their jobs. If you go for the money and fame, you do it wrong, if you only work for a company to become the big boss you are doing it wrong. You should do something cause you like it, your job should be fun cause that is what you will be doing for the biggest part of your life. Many of those who go for the well paying jobs end up depressed and overworked, yeah sure they brought in the big money, they also brought in addictions to keep up with the work pace (many people at the top level in corporations are doing speed to be able to keep working when their bodies are tired). Needless to say this isn't the most healthy of life styles and even when not on drugs many of those people suffer from stress related deceases eventually. Do something you like and that makes you happy. Now we do need money but there are enough jobs were you make a nice income to live, spend a little extra here and there and have some breathing space without you being rich. I myself have had a job that made me Misserable but I had no choice, I had to take that job in order to have a income after been unemployed for a while. Two years of my life were of a pure hell every day. Now I got a great job that pays well but most of all is very fun to do and I never ever look at the clock "is it time to go home yet?". That is what you should aim for too when you make a game, is it fun for you to do. If you make a nice income with it, awesome! You don't need to become the next minecraft and make billions, that is only for a select few that released the right game at the right time. AAA games only sell millions cause they got a massive budget to spend on marketing, you as indy don't have that budget (I think at least, if you have it, well maybe not spend it on marketing but on fun stuff huh?). They can afford to by publicity world wide, reach a massive audience but as Indy you have to be more creative and accept that you will only reach a small piece of the gaming community and that is okay. Don't go in expecting anything, so you won't be disappointed either and don't let these negative people stop you who will say "Yeah well you ain't gonna be a hit like Stardew or Minecraft!", likely you won't but hey the Stardew developer also didn't think he would be making the hit game it has become so you might still be that lucky too, likely you are not but it shouldn't be your goal anyway.
100% agree with this! Great insight and thank you for sharing your story. Work is something to an extent we can control. Find something you want to wake up to every morning, don't live for the weekend as everyday should be a good one 🙂
damn you made me think of the creative process in a new way. I always end of so sick of whatever I'm making by the end of it...but maybe that's not what's important
I feel the finding what you enjoy developing message. As a solo dev I was working on these months long projects that, I liked the idea of at the start, but they weren't things I could keep interested in long term. I'd get halfway through development and have figured out so many things that I could use to improve my next game, but all too late to fix them in the current one. By that point I would lose the passion to keep working on it knowing it could be so much better, but I'd have to scrap all my work so far. Things turned around this year when I decided to go for making much smaller games quickly, and found what I like making as a developer, rather than a player. Now I work on shorter games, without sweating finding 'the best way to do things' and just focus on getting things done so, by the time I've figuring out what I can from the experience, it's when the current game is ready for release and I can jump straight into using that new knowhow to make the next game better. Lot happier overall.
Yesss, exactly! This is very much how I feel as well lol. You are always going to learn a ton (especially in the first 5-10 years of a skill) just gotta find what works for you 😄
I dont think youre making games just to make yourself happy, rather to have the knowledge of making other people happy. Of course its very important to have fun making it as well but in my opinion its not just you who can make yourself happy, its everyone else who is enjoying your creations as well.
Only about 3 months into my first game and this kind of discouraged me. But, I think that if you are in the mindset that your game will hit the shelves and blow-up in popularity, then you have the wrong idea and it won't be a fun experience. My game started out with the intention that me and a few of my friends would play and that I'd use this as a learning experience. I still have that mindset. If me and my friends/family members can play this game - and it be enjoyable - then I'm happy. I've been building small projects in different areas of programming for about 10 years now and none of them went anywhere - I don't plan for it to, it's just another fun hobby project. As long as I keep that mindset, I think I could finish.
Keep progressing Brett, just remember this is only my insight on my method of working. I do game development as a full-time career, so I have to look at things a little differently, don't let my mindset discourage you from your path. Good luck out there! 🙂
Brilliant Video! It's soo inspirational to see your project and to hear your story :D Even tho you're advising against jumping into the deep project, it's pumping me up to build a stupidly complex game lol. My advise is to start of small projects so you can finish them.. you will learn SOO much about syntax AND your own style and will be ready for bigger and more complex projects .. then when you feel ready - Start on that 'Dream' project .. just remember, no one said it was gonna be easy :D :D :D
I always love Content creators who reply to comments. And that is the first time I've heard of machinations. It sounds like a smart thing and I will take a small look into it.
I'm making my dream Parkour game, and I'm still loving every bit, so I'm not sure I agree that this is true for everyone (as you said, it is subjective). I'm not doing this full-time, so maybe this is different for people who do it full time. I think if I went full time I would just try and target genres that make money, to be honest. As you said - after spending hours debugging every day I don't think I would love it anymore.
Yeah,same as you, I really love my "dream game", and if it's didn't get income from my "dream game" and somebody out there doesn't like my game, I dont care. I JUST WANT TO MAKE MY DREAM COME TRUE 😇. But thanks for your advice @Reece Geofroy, That will help me to make "an income game" 😁
Great video and overall message :) Dream games seem so exciting when you first envision them, from the concept art to the different mechanics, but then doing the actual work can be tedious and frustrating... especially when the mechanic doesn't play out exactly how you envisioned so you go back and forth from development to the drawing board over and over, or worse, dropping the feature or project entirely.
For sure Hyve! Good insight and this is exactly what I want to help people avoid. Making games is an amazing experience, but sometimes we can become the biggest roadblock to our own success and happiness.
Got a bit of feedback; I really dislike the animation when turning from left to right and vice versa, just doesn't fit with the artsyle and feels kinda immersion breaking, the game gives the illusion of 3D with it's art but that turn animation is like a 2D slap on the face lol. Might be better to just have a pixel-art animation that's like 1-2 frames of an in-between when it turns and the follow through will just be the direction the the character is facing when you turn that way.
Congrats on your journey my man. You have achieved exactly what I am trying to do. I work full time and every spare minute i have i spend working on game dev. 👍❤
This is good advice for those who make games to make money. If you make money to make games, work on your dream project. We need both so people aren't just making games that will sell.
I'm making my dream game because I want to bring this ideal game into reality for myself and hopefully others. I'm doing nothing else with my life, so I said screw it and started working on it. Whether I fail to make it or succeed in releasing it, I'll be happy that it exists. It's the journey, not the destination. Nor is it a promise of money that drives me. Because there is no promise of money in indie dev.
I disagree with the sentiment here. If gamedevs only made games that were enjoyable/easy to develop, then we wouldn't get innovative games that push the boundaries. Existing games make choices to ease development, resulting in a lot of games being similar. The standout ones are the ones that don't stick to the formula, which by necessity will not be a nice smooth development using existing tooling that was made for the existing game style.
Appreciate you sharing your experience, personally I only enjoy writing the game design doc and making sprites, so until I can find someone else to make my games for me I guess I'll just keep slogging away on my dream game because nothing else motivates me enough to actually work on it.
@Reece Geofroy an open ended, open world game with similarities to Zelda and Pokémon mixed together? Yes, yes please. Honestly the footage I’ve seen so far of the game looks incredible, I’m really excited for this! It would be amazing if further down the line there were physical releases with special/collectors editions including art books, posters, soundtrack etc I would pre order the heck out of that! Lmao I know I’m getting ahead of myself I can’t help it 😅
This video actually made sense to me. I wish I could make an RPG, but I despise the creation of inventory systems and menus as they lack the physical feedback when testing. It does feel good when something works the first time you program it though.
For sure, I hope this doesn't discourage you from your dreams, just make sure you are creating something you enjoy. Sometimes finding teammates can be the answer to helping you bring that dream game to life without hating the project during development 😅
This video is just to help potentially guide some folks that may be misguided. By no means it this a rulebook to follow, keep progressing and create a path YOU want to continue down 🙂
The game looks great, but to be completely honest, i feel the art is inconsistent. Some assets have an outline, while others, like the player character, do not at all. It seems like they were pulled from different sources or something
Yeah i highly disagree with you there. The factor he hasnt added outline to the characters gives it a nice warm feel to it. Not to mention the items without outline as opposed to the ones with outline is a smart way to indicate usable vs non usable/interactable equipment.
Haha, yeah on point - been working on my first one for over a year now - I’m focusing on just trying to finish now - personally my favorite part is making the music
I have a Dream Game (passion project). I need a full team that I trust before making it. It will take 5+ years. Not gonna work on mine until I have a few games under my belt.
Hey just a heads up, you DO NOT need a leveling system in your game. BUT MACHINATIONS WORKS WITH GODOT!!! HOLY POOP!!! You are essentially making a lesser version of the game I'm wanting to make. The next thing I would love to see you focus on is mechanical skills on characters.
I've had a dream game idea since 2019, it's also an "open-world" game.. but in the sense like it's still going to be a little linear to make sense (and to lessen the weight on myself since it's just me). Right now I'm self learning 3d so I can get to work and I'm kind of in over my head, but I'm also stoked to at least try to make it. This year is when I want to start actually creating it now that I don't have college in the way
i haven't come close to making anything and i haven't been motivated at all to work on my project lately, it can be very emotionally draining and when you realize how little you've done, or rather, how much you have left to go, it feels discouraging to say the least haven't watched many dev vids in a while this just kind of popped up, and i'm sure i'll get my inspiration back sometime tho
As a MINOR nobody youtuber, I can actually help those who might be interested, I teach game development on youtube in hope I can at least aid the next stardew dev :) One thing this video doesn't touch on is audience interaction, for me the best thing about youtube is meeting like minded people, maybe it's difference for me but I don't know many coders in real life, as a result i've met some awesome coders that made me want to quit because I realised I'd never get close to their ability... but ego aside... here we go. 1) Make a discord channel, it's great to get feedback in youtube comments, but in discord you can properly talk. 2) Keep videos short as you can, while providing as much information in that short time period. 3)... ignore me i got lost on the way back home :(
~"what is it that you like to do as a developer? Focus on that." Good advice. Sometimes games we enjoy making might be very different from the games we enjoy developing.
@@ReeceGeofroy I know this from experience. I enjoy developing code-heavy complex games, while I enjoy playing "casual" and/or multiplayer games the most. Tho, earlier I really loved actually playing complex management and/or strategy games, nowadays they are too much to me.
Making your dream game as your first project is definitely a bad idea. It's more excusable if you're an industry veteran and it's your first indie project, but especially those getting into game development for the first time their dream game is likely much bigger than their current abilities can handle. That's why I have a solid idea of what I want to do for my first project, and I've put some pretty strict limits on it (namely, using only one button) that should help keep the project manageable, even for a first-timer like myself. Now if only I'd get off my lazy butt and actually start making the darn thing... That's also some great insight that you should make the games you like making, rather than the ones you like playing.
For me it's not even the development itself, in-fact, I absolutely love problem solving, my issue is that no matter what I do, it takes so much willpower to start something, but once I do, I'm on an absolute roll to finish it That being said, last time I tried my hand at game development, I was at best a complete beginner programmer with an understanding of variables as well as arrays, but that wasn't even the biggest issue. I got stuck into a blender loop and that absolutely killed any vibe I had for completing the project because I absolutely am not artistic so 3D art is even worse. That was a year ago. I've now spent the better half of a few months mulling the ideas for my game over, the basics and everything and right now I'm just waiting to finish my uni exams to start working on the project.
Good luck with the project! Also any skill will take time, so if you like 3D modeling keep trying, but if it's not fun always try and adapt to something better suited for you!
@@ReeceGeofroy That's true, however, it's not the skill itself that tripped me up, it's the fact that it took me 2 months of daily work to get to a point where i'd consider myself decent, at which point I hadn't touched the game part of the game at all, meaning that I came back to a codebase of absolute what the fuckery and no motivation to untangle it :D
You start off with the basic premise that you wanted to "pop off on youtube" and because of that you decide your job isn't to actually create an awesome game, it's the process of making a game. That's a very "I want to be a content creator" specific issue and has nothing at all to do with what an indie game dev does. You happen to want to make content that is about indie gamedev so your path will be different, but an indie gamedev who isn't trying to first and foremost be a youtuber DOES aim to make the game they want to see out there and it's not all about the journey. Because you don't get paid to make this thing, you get paid for the product you end up with. It just always means you have to keep an eye on the scope. That's the big dream game problem, the "It's my first game and it will be the one thing I always wanted to make and it will be perfect" idea generally doesn't work. Being a youtuber about indie gamedev and being an indie gamedev are two separate things, lumping them together doesn't really work.
The game looks absolutely stunning, especially the character animations. Machinations seems a really interesting and well thought of tool. It's too bad that I missed the funding period, I would've liked to help. Do you mix freelancing jobs with your game development? How do you mix the two?
Thanks so much Amit! I did mix freelance work for a while when getting started, but at this point I mainly make revenue through funding campaigns, ad revenue, donations, sponsorships, and other collaboration projects with my art / courses
@@ReeceGeofroy thank you so much! Right now I’m just having fun in godot and bingeing devlog videos so it’s going very well. You’re awesome for making these and especially being open about mistakes ♥️
Developing a game is not always fun, especially when you are up against hurdles but you certainly shouldn't stop enjoying your game. Add everything you wanted in your dream games. It may seem like a pain to do now but a year after you've released the game when you play it you'll be able to actually enjoy the game yourself. I've made games in the past and they weren't as great in my eyes but when I came back to them later after I released them I actually realised how fun the game was I created when the developing wasn't on my mind anymore.
as indie you are not "getting paid" to make a game you make a product, and you have to sell it, you don't deserve money, you earn it by gaining new customers that buys your final product
I'm making the game of my dreams, without having so many resources I don't spend so much time either and I don't care if it doesn't sell much because I can play it with my friends and cousins and I'm also studying I don't plan to dedicate myself to video games.
My word of advice for your game is to get rid of the flippy animation when your character turns from up to down and instead go for a traditional either 4 way or 8 way movement animation even though thats more time consuming, it will make the player feel more like they are actually in the world where as I get a sort of paper mario type feel from how it currently is now and its kind of jarring.
my best advice, find a compromise between them. Let's take the Pokémon example which you loved as a kid but you hate creating turn based or top down movement, sprites etc. Instead you love the process of making platformers...well then combine those two. Make a monster catching platformer.
I disagre and counter with... why not both? You can make your dream game and take years while also making games for game jams and smaller title to make money... Even AAA studios do this Pokemon gen 9 and Legends Arcus are a great exemple of this... You can also make in blocks or Early access even... Where the base game the MVP you make then build on it in an ever elusive Ultimate game which very few games are and man have came close to but abandoned for no reason.
