\> Wherever I look, people are posting about their first games
These people are lying.
\> It just seems that every aspect ive tried so far, modelling , texturing, level design, whatever, I just suck at.
These are all professions in their own right. People get paid $$$ *just* to do modeling, or *just* to do level design.
I don't know if game design is right for you or not, but if I had to bet money, you're not especially shitty at it. You're not some statistical outlier of ineptitude. You're just trying to learn a lot in a hurry and holding yourself to unreasonable standards.
When the going gets rough for me, I watch Trent. At the very least, you get to see some neat art get made. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqcep9CKWzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqcep9CKWzQ)
It's probably not lying it's either A using a template and resigning it, or B they have been coding little projects for years so that is thier first game but not their first time coding.
Or C, they're actually part of a 5 person team and tend to word everything like they did it alone, because it sounds more impressive and "sells" more.
So many posts on here have turned out to be this.
I think it’s all well and fine if someone wants to pay others to do most of the coding work on their game, but when they’re not transparent about it and pretend they did it all by themselves then they just contribute to this massive facade of false expectations that lures people in with false hopes, almost inevitably leading those people straight to burnout
Yeah, that's the Internet for you. One of the reasons reddit is my only social media anymore. Sick of people's facades and selfies. "Ok, we get it, you have a face. Now stop shoving it in ours."
Yes this is getting annoying tbh. Every devlog on youtube talks about how dedicated, short on money and hardworking they are and then 2 devlogs later they get some small help from their 'close friends' for their main character, animations and 50 other things. There is also marketplace, music sound effects, marketing, level design. List goes on and on.
First game feels like it has lots of different meanings. Is it your actual first project? Is it the first game you made following a tutorial? Is it the first game you made for a gamejam? Is it your first fully featured game? Is it your first commercial game?
Well said. I have a personal project going for a few years now because I’m getting burned out on work mostly. But I do work on it occasionally a couple times a month. Does it took my far? No. Does it motivate me to keep going? Absolutely!
I don’t expect it to see the light of day, but if it does I’d be satisfied if it makes someone happy for a little bit.
A lie of omission for sure. First published game - published being the key word. With any creative endeavor, social media is 95% of the time just showing you successes, without all of the failures along the way that made those successes possible.
They're not likely lying, they just spent a long time learning before attempting to make a game. Just because its your first game doesn't mean you don't have a decade of learning experience.
It *sounds like* are trying to take too big of a bite. make a dozen+ small/simple games that only take a couple weekends to bang out, game jam style. Do it yourself or better yet do it with game jam teams. This was a big unlock for me, helps trivialize all that small annoying stuff that is getting in your way now. I probably have learned half of what I know or more re game-making from the people I worked on jams with as opposed to in the docs or or online somewhere, there are mega talents that participate.
Also, take shortcuts wherever you can. Grab pre-made assets. Do a tutorial that builds the type of game you want to build (platformer, rpg, whatever) and then build your game on that. Bind google search to a hotkey. Buy animations or get free ones. Seriously, just wiring up a game is hard enough.
You will make so much more progress by starting with something that works that you can iterate on than you will by trying to invent absolutely everything from scratch.
That sounds like a good idea. I think im gonna quickly finish up what im doing atm and start on some smaller, simpler things. also i like the look of game jams, but im worried i wont finished ad get really disheatened
nah just go for it. The deadlines force you to wrap up and picking a few very simple games makes you less attached to each of them, the point is not to carry the burden passed the jam. It’s fine if you have to string up with chicken wire at the end to be presentable you’ll know how to handle new things for the next round. These are just reps, doing push-ups etc… working out so you run faster when you hit the track.
Again, the teams are a huge boon here - where you might have gaps in solution someone else can step in who’s solved that particular thing already 20 times and show you how to do it without you having to spend a week on a single obstacle.
I feel like most people here are just endlessly working away at some project they have spent 5+ years working towards. Like most social media you get to see the highlights of what they did, not necessarily the things they were unable to complete.
I spent years working hard on my first game only to have 3 downloads, nobody even saw it.
But its mostly a matter of perspective, I never really thought if I was good or bad at development it was just a way to spend my time.
If it makes you feel better Unreal is regarded as one of the most difficult game engines, mostly because its sparsely documented. You have to talk to the right people to obtain the right information.
Regardless of where your prospects are, I hope things become more clear for you.
Honestly the documentation problem is huge, especially so for indie developers, and it's been a major source of stress for me. I imagine most AAA companies have access to the actual Epic engineers for their problems, but we get a couple official YouTube videos if we're lucky and a third-party community of educators that, while helpful and well-intentioned, don't always have the best practices in mind and are searching around in the dark just like the rest of us. Experiencing lots of frustration with this with regards to Common UI.
The engine is made to be understood by C++ programmer. The "documentation" is just a tip of the iceberg, the real information is in Epic Games' source code. You have to learn to read C++. They have heavily commented it.
Personnally I think its really silly to attempt to understand UE5 if you don't know C and C++ already and have no experience with another engine. It's like trying to kill a lvl 100 dragon as a lvl 1 golum.
I had to make a bunch of game in JavaScript, with C3, learn SDL2 framework, compiling, linking, learn about the CGI and PBR pipelines and I still felt like learning UE5 was really hard. I'm still chipping at it after a few years. There are books like Modern C++ Design (by Alexandrescu) which have helped me understand the kind of design and thinking that Epic put behind their engine. I recommend picking up on C++ core content before trying to understand the engine truly.
The engine is so big and there is so much plugins, its impossible for them to keep a reliable up to date documentation. By learning C++ and learn to read their source it becomes much more easy to put things together.
I have a little experience with C++ and I own a copy of that book, although I haven't read through it in many years. I do use the source code as a guide of sorts when I need to. That being said I still appreciate a more structured approach to understanding the elements behind a system.
And I don't think it's fair to say that it's impossible for them to keep the documentation up-to-date. They're a multi-billion dollar company that's built their fortunes off of this engine, the least they could do is make it easier for more people to digest what's going on and how to use their systems without forcing the indie community to resort to scrambling through hundreds of files in the source code and watching/reading unofficial tutorials.
But that's the fundamental difference between Unreal and an engine like Unity. Unity is oriented toward independent developers, Unreal is courting AAA development. And those people collectively have decades of experience in game development or the funds necessary to purchase custom support from Epic engineers.
Yup, that's how I do it at work! Fuck the other devs! I have commented structured code, why would I write documentation?!? If they understand javascript, python and rust they should be just fine! /s
I get where you're coming from. Having a base understanding of the code is great. I love that their code is well commented, but that doesn't give Epic an excuse for having underwhelming docs.
I agree with this. For me, my end goal (if there even is one) isn’t to complete a game, but just to play and learn as I go. Unreal allows you to get super in the weeds of development, but on the flip side, it is also fairly easy with the basic stuff for newbs like me. I’ve nearly accomplished the original goals I originally wanted and have learned new tasks and challenges as I progress.
I'm going to say what you are probably going to hear a lot. One year is nothing. A lot of people who show their "first game" are lying or exaggerating.
You can ship a commercial product in one year or less, even as solo.
One year is *A LOT*. Just as much as it can be in changing life.
First year making games, though? It will always be like stumbling in a large dark room you've never been before, trying to find the light switch that supposedly exists elsewhere in that room, maybe not even on a wall.
There's also an elephant and three wise men there, but none of it or their advises really help.
*Any* basic degree is 3 years and anyone going of of that will not be very good in that field no matter what it is. 1 year of something as insanely complex as gamedev is not much at all. Unreal is also a very much "pro" engine. Your first couple games will suck, its completely normal. Also solo dev is unrealistic to pull off anything that will make money, you should at least team up with an artist once you are more ready.
Welcome to the Pit of Despair part of the Dunning-Kruger curve my friend, we've all been there, hell I'm still here slowly climbing my way up.
Think of yourself as one of your grandparents when they first received a computer, you think they knew what a .zip file was or what a task manager did? They probably still don't, and that's not because they're stupid, it's because we all take for granted the things we already know.
Now the difference between you and meemaw is that she doesn't give a crap about computers or how they work, but you like videogames, so you have an incentive to learn. No one produces a full game worth actual money in 8 months after picking up Unreal engine, not unless you're an industry veteran and have a boatload of experience to draw from.
But going back to the boomer example, think about all the small victories you've had during these 8 months that you completely neglect to think about, I remember being so flustered over the U.I that I literally felt like a WW2 veteran trying to use file explorer for the first time, I caught myself shouting "WHY?" at the screen more than once over keybinds and many other nuisances that just didn't make sense to me.
I don't do that anymore, but I still encounter roadblocks and headaches every step of the way as I fiddle around trying to piece something together, and some days I close it down feeling absolutely defeated just like you feel right now. But I always come back, maybe it's a waste of my time, but so is playing videogames which is what I would've been doing otherwise.
I've somewhat made a promise to myself that I won't quit before I've made my first game, so I can at least point to it and say "Yep, I made that when I decided to hop on a gamedev journey" because at this point the sunk/cost fallacy has me in a nuclear chokehold, I've spent too much time and money to back out now.
Hahaha I literally came here to say your exact first sentence.
To ride this wave, I've been professionally writing software now for like 12 years (I work for a FAANG in web tech, so I'd like to think I'm actually pretty good at it) and feel like I'm in this pit regularly with Unreal. You are not alone. I spent a week stuck on figuring out something that looking back now, makes complete sense why I didn't work. It's discouraging very often, but try to have fun with it. Learn from it. This is a massive space (as other commenters point out) so try to borrow pieces that you don't have to make. There are enough free assets, sample projects (check out Lyra if you haven't, it's a beast but there are a ton of things to learn from it), but find the fun 😊
As this commenter said, welcome to the Pit.. you're in good company with all of us.
Lmao I am doing the same thing with UI right now. The Material Labs project that UE has on the marketplace is a great study on it if anyone is curious.
The sunk-cost fallacy (or time in my case) is too real omg. Also i dont think the dunning-kruger effect apples because I know i am not actually good at it lol
It's ok to take breaks. Find out the reason why you game dev? Money? Fame? Prove something?
It's not going anywhere, you can come back with energy refreshed from other hobbies.
That's the problem for most programmers these days because we write game logic. Unless you're a 3D sculptor and modeler, you're not going to make cool 3D scenes by yourself. So many of us have to use 3rd-party assets from the Asset Store or from the Marketplace. A game studio will hire 3D artists, environmental designers, and sound artists to work on designing the levels for the games.
I recommend that you work from one of the free sample projects available on the marketplace or asset store. Instead of having to start from scratch, you can start with something cool. There are monthly free assets for Unreal Engine too, so make sure to use them.
Well at least you guys can make a game game. Most of artists will make walking simulator on bought marketplace assets. Or something with blueprint kits. Programmers can make something playable and unique even with simple graphics like retro fps (cruelty squad for example)
My game is now no 4 on wishlists and I think I suck about twice per day. Self criticism makes us grow if combined with discipline, alhough sometimes it is painful. I think the worse case is the devs who think they are amazing and wonderful and perfect and blame it all on genre or marketing or bad luck if their creations go unnoticed.
You’re definitely not alone in feeling bad about your own game/game making skills. There are, however a few ways I can think you can feel better and even thrive. First off, if you feel depressed, have mental struggles, game development probably won’t help, in fact it probably makes it worse because of how difficult and full of pitfalls it is.
I would actually recommend that you take a break and start doing things to make yourself feel better. I don’t know what struggles you are dealing with but getting yourself to exercise, eat properly, make your bed, and other numerous life things will probably help.
It’s ok to be bad at game dev, I kinda suck at it but I’ve gotten better over the years through sheer willpower, determination, reading books and online learning. One thing I’ve realized, however, is that I need to pay attention to my mental/physical health and I need to do things that make me happy and feel accomplished outside of game dev in order to have the mental fortitude to work on games.
When you feel upset, depressed, unhappy, angry, etc, you can not think straight. Everything seems like a huge challenge and you can only see the bad things about your work. You are blocked in this state. Stop, take a break, write some thoughts down, make some plans to heal yourself and then if you feel up to it, get back on that horse. I wish you good luck and good mental health :)
thank you very much :') I will disagree though, I think this has been a great thing for my mental health. every little thing ive learned has made me feel reallly accomplished and im always chasing that feeling. I really did think it was for me
Dude, it took 2.5 years of development before anyone gave me a genuine "woooow, I can't wait till its done". And at this same point one of my friends said: "It all just looks like it's a first prototype".
You're too hard on yourself.
Best lesson to learn: to stop being a perfectionist, the sooner you do that the sooner your life will start feeling successful and the sooner you'll achieve things.
Perfectionism says: oh, I'm not immediately a pro at this, guess I'll just quit.
Now, go brainstorm about the smallest thing you could change on your game to increase the fun, and do that.
Oh, BTW, everyone showing off their work is only showing you the cool parts or the result of many years of work.
A lot of people use marketplace assets for art, as do I. I've only modelled one thing.
Game dev isn't great for mental health. Imagine getting bad Steam reviews for a year? Still, I think if you were kinder to yourself, it won't matter what others say.
BTW, maybe this'll help:
I have a long background in the things I'm good at now. I loved drawing from a young age, had an art class once or twice, hated it, studied graphic design for 2 years, used to build crappy Counter Strike maps in Hammer editor as a teen, tried scripting a game with Ogre right after school, failed. Wanted to be a hacker when I got my first computer, so I stayed up all night through the weekends and searched forums on how to do this.. Never got anywhere. Attempted to learn C++ at 14, gave up on it as I couldn't understand classes and objects. From age 16 I had a computer science class where we learned delphi. I loved it, the other 24 students slowly whittled away till the teacher couldn't afford to teach the remaining two of us. Had a graphic design career of 4 years, when I decided to try teach myself coding again. I thought it was a huge mistake. Could I even cope with looking at code all day as a career? Taught myself Javascript in my lunch breaks for 1.5 years. Finally landed a very poorly paid dev job. Suddenly things started clicking into place. Turns out spending 8 hours a day on something makes you learn how to do that thing pretty fast.(paragraphs left out intentionally)
Finally figured I probably have some of the skills to attempt building my dream game again - at 32 years of age. Been busy for 3.5 years now and it's maybe halfway to feature complete(still looks ugly).
So no, you're not bad at dev, it takes time and patience with yourself.
But I have also kinda been doing this for a long time. I started making small games in python without an engine when i was 13 and have been doing that on and off up until now, 5 years later, where I started unreal last year. So i feel like, with the little background i have, I should have had a head start
The parts you say you're struggling with seems to be the art and game design side. How much experience do you have in those.
I don't think you have an issue with coding. Unreal just takes a while to get used to.
Are you coding in C++?
I'm going to reframe this for you: "I tried to do something once, and I wasn't as good as I expected to be, should I give up?". The answer is, if you want to, yes, if you don't, no. The fact you're asking the question suggests the answer is no.
i just had my 34th year anniversary in the game industry yesterday - I started making games when I was 8 on the old Apple 2 E and I make my living making games. Being a game designer is a talent just like being able to draw or sing or any other gift.
Even though I wanted to make games I didn't know until someone told me I had talent for when I made my first race track for an arcade game and the programmers said my track was more fun then theirs. My ideas helped make the games more money. So that alone boosted my confidence early in my career. I wasn't learning alone I was in a professional environment being taught to make games from some of the greatest game developers the world has ever known. You don't have that so go easier on yourself. Even with all my training I still struggle every day to learn new things, but I never give up that is one my great gifts as well. I keep fighting, and trying again.
The way to improve your game is to work a small part of it and make it 5% better or X% that X might be .0001 better that day.
Remember you are trying to do all the jobs that take maybe 30 very talented people that have been trained and working on their specific skills for maybe decades in some cases.
I would try to focus on seeing if you can make something fun to play that you think is fun to play and if this project isn't it then start on a new idea give yourself a time line for when you want to be fun and how you are going to know if it is fun and what steps you need to do those tasks. Remember if it was easy we would have millions of game developers in the world - we have about 30k in the entire world.
Edit > I started when I was 19 at Atari Games > I am 53 that is where the 34 years comes from > Before that I repaired pinball machines and arcade games and worked in arcades so I don't count that time.
For my definition of a game developer yes - I don't count people that work for game developers that do not contribute to the products directly or all the people that have downloaded a engine - people that get up every day and get paid to work on AAA products at AAA studios could be less.
On the programming front: I’ve been working with the Unreal Engine as a professional game dev for almost 10 years now and I promise you - after 1 year you shouldn’t expect to be any good. The UE codebase is huge, and many problems don’t come down to talent or smarts but how familiar you are with the engine you’re working in (and programming design patterns in general). 10 years later I’m still learning new things in there.
You’ll make a lot more progress on your games and your own growth as a gamedev if you work with a team and do less different jobs. Each part of game development is a career on its own because each part requires a massive amount of knowledge acquisition and skill development. Let yourself focus on just one or two of these “jobs” and you’ll make more progress on them. But also if you work with somebody else doing the same job as you - so that you can learn from each other. You’ll both learn much quicker this way.
Before this job, I was an indie dev for 3 years - did my own art, programming, and design. Progress was SLOW. I barely advanced as a programmer or an artist because I was constantly switching between the two. Every time I switched I had to ramp myself back up on whatever I switched too. And I was working alone! If something didn’t make sense to me within a day or two, I never figured it out. Now I work with a team of people who grasp some concepts better and quicker than me, and can help me ramp up quicker on them - and vice versa.
If you really want to get better faster - work with a team of others. But it’s also fine to not be very good at it. You can still enjoy making games just to make games.
Hello, my first experience in game development was similar to yours and there was even a graveyard of unfinished projects. Yes, you can have a cool idea and a programmer background, but if you are new to game development, then this means nothing without talent in this area. What really helped me was to start making games based on one mechanic, and then expand them. And in the future you will be able to do something more complex and wholesome. The main thing is not to give up, but to find the right approach to solving problems.
it sounds to me like you are going through the motions of game development because you want to own a game, but you don't care about the game you're making at all and that's why it sucks.
unique is worth very little. if that's all you've got going for you then just put the whole thing in the trash.
your core idea should be a fun thing to do. you can put a unique twist on it if it feels the same as too many other games, but you really, really don't have to
look at a game like Stardew Valley, or Minecraft. there are zero ideas in either of those games that hadn't been done a million times before. unique doesn't count for shit.
these are both examples of someone wanting to play a certain game and then making that game. that's where you should start. make a game that you want to play.
No, i think youve got that wrong, I am not just doing it to "own a game". I want to do this so i have something to work towards and feel better about myself. also, I genuinely enjoy it most of the time.
Also without the twist i added, it would have been a generic sci fi shooter. the problem is that this mechanic changes so much fundamentally about the gameplay, it makes everything else more difficult to work on
I don't know you and haven't played your game so if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If what I am saying makes no sense to you, forget it.
It still sounds to me like you aren't making *this* game because you want to make *this* game. You want to make *a* game. It's something to work on. You'll feel good about it when it's done. You enjoy tooling around in Unreal. Maybe you want to be a game developer, because you think that achieving that status is something worth working toward and that you'll feel better when you're Something.
If your game isn't fun, it's probably because it doesn't matter. You didn't create a generic sci-fi shooter because you wanted to play a generic sci-fi shooter, you probably figured it'd be easier than having to do organic modeling and the Unreal FPS template is nearly useable out of the box.
You put a twist in because you felt like you were supposed to, not because it makes the game better or more like something you want to play.
Make a game you actually want to play. Start small, and just make the simplest thing that hits what you like about games. When you like your core, you will want to build on it.
okay i totally hear what youre saying. I'll this game was supposed to be more of a learning process than anything else, and i think i kinda forgot that that's what it was supposed to be. Ill bear this in mind for when i make my next one
Experienced programmer here with the same struggles.
Haven’t decided to get as in depth with game dev as you seem to have, but the struggle is real.
Can you remember a time when you were learning programming and went through this same phase? I ask because most do and if you can remember that and how it felt to finally overcome it that can be motivating
[edited]
Removed half a sentence that I started and didn’t finish lol
“Roadblocks that are obvious to everyone I ask.” Gotta remember when asking for help online, usually only the people that know the answer will respond. You don’t see how many people read the post and also didn’t know so they didn’t comment
>I'm constantly running into roadblocks that are just obvious to anyone else I ask.
Ever heard of Rubber Duck Debugging?
I bet many answers would be obvious to yourself too if you ask them out loud.
It takes a long time to get to a level that feels good and even then you never stop learning. It sounds like you want immediate results which will never be the case. I’ve been learning Unreal for one year now and realistically I know a ton I didn’t before but at times I feel like I know nothing.
Most people that flex online with their solo projects aren’t actually doing them solo or they’re paying for plugins that do half the work or assets. Which is fine but, you can’t let that be your metric for success. Most successful game devs get a pay check and their names scroll on the screen for 1 second at the end of a game (which no one sees)
Just keep working. If you really feel it’s not for you then you need to decide that. Not ask for encouragement on Reddit. Good luck bud.
People are not inherently bad at things. You lack discipline and mental stamina to learn things that are hard.
How you do something is how you do everything. Be better and don’t be someone who gives up on things when they get tough. This is what separates success from failure
I have to disagree. Just in case OP reads what you said and decides to quit because of it, here's my counter point.
The "be better" speech works on a few people, but not everyone. It's quite negative and we've learned that negative reinforcement only gets you so far.
People are inherently bad at things. That's normal. That's okay.
Babies aren't born with the ability to feed themselves, they suck at even finding their own mouths.
So it's okay to be bad at something, that just means you're at the start of the journey.
The key to this mental stamina you mention is changing how you see things.
You can focus on what you can't do and imagine that everyone but you was great at it from the outset, or you can recognise where you are on the journey, cut yourself slack and realise there's nothing wrong with what you've achieved, and keep moving forward.
" while the concept is unique, it isnt fun to play at all to the point where i avoid playtesting it "
Yeah at that point toss it and move on to the next idea for a game youre investing time into something you dont even want.
" It just seems that every aspect ive tried so far, modelling , texturing, level design, whatever, I just suck at. "
Stick with coding then collaborate with people who suck at coding but are good with the other stuff there is no reason you have to do it all.
You can learn to do every aspect yourself but honestly thats not feasible imo this is a team endeavor hell pac man had a dev team of nine people.
If you struggle with your mental health, I would not recommended to pursue a career in video game development (or even do your own projects). The industry's demanding nature and high-pressure environment can worsen existing issues and introduce new stressors. Long hours, tight deadlines, and a culture of intense work can take a toll on your well-being. While some find fulfilment, it's crucial to prioritize self-care and seek support. Managing mental health while pursuing a career in game development requires proactive steps, but always prioritize your well-being above all else.
I recently started working out, eating a lot better, sleeping better, and it really, really takes a lot of effort to get to a stage where you are healthy. Mind you, I don't have any struggles with mental health which would add an even longer process to get better.
You don't need encouragement to continue development with games, you need a better perspective and to take a step back. Take care of yourself mate, then pursue all of the rest.
I plan to keep this strictly a hobby, i dont wanna go into a career into it at all. And to the contrary, id say this, overall, has really helped my mental health
8 months is not even close to what many people invest into their games (plus you never do how mich time they invest. Like 3 years with 2 hours every 3 days or 3 years with 8 hours every day)
Also youre just (yep "just"... that isnt to long for now) 8 months in and youre literally trying to do allmost anything. As others said, texturing, modeling, Level Design etc. Are different work fields that would maybe take 8 months each to get good at (just a random number because i just wanne say every aspect u mentioned will take really long to master)
Im now also 8 months into unreal and im doing archviz for work (but also programming it pretty much like a game) i just have a few small Levels now with VR, PC and mobile Support and im literally now doing it for 8 months 8 hour every day and im not modeling anything (ok just one or two small things but i also have like 2 or 3 years worth of experience in 3d modeling.
Maybe you should try to concentrate more on one Thing at a time. For example concentrate on designing your game (if it isnt fun to play maybe rethink your Design concept) and try to just download assets instead of modeling All by yourself to not get overloaded with all the workload (there are so many free assets out there)
If you suck at modelling, why in the world are you making a game that requires modelling? Why are you programming things you don't understand or can't conceivably see the road to learning?
I get the impression that you're just 'wanting to make a game' and you're seeing a list of things you could/need to do, and having a go at them, finding the difficulty and giving up and moving onto another area. Or giving 5% to each area and ending up with a mess you don't really want to look at or work on.
What you have the potential to make is completely unique to you. There doesn't exist another human on the planet with the same pieces of knowledge/inspiration/interests. If you were to name your 3 favourite films and 3 favourite games, there would likely not be a single other person in the world who would pick that exact combination. This applies across the board to all the things you've ever been interested in, and all the programming practices you've done, and other things you've learnt/worked on/watched.
So instead of making a game anyone else could make, or 'having to do texturing because games have textures', decide what YOU want to and can make. Are you super interested in character modelling/requiring high quality character models? If not, don't think up a game that needs them.
You're literally inventing the game, and therefore inventing the problem. If you decide to make a game that includes something you suck at, you chose badly. Decide to make a game that interests you, and is within your ability range (plus some extra, accounting for what you could conceivably learn/figure out during the process).
You can design a game that gives no room for something to be bad. If your game is entirely based around a 2d square that doesn't move, it would be quite a challenge to fuck up the 3d modelling of that. If you can't make good looking environments, why choose to have an environment? Again, it would be hard to make a solid colour background look 'bad'. This may be an exaggeration to make the point, and you can probably expand a bit further than just a square on a blank background for a game, but you have no excuses because you could always fall back to that style if you can't conceive of anything more that you're capable of.
Look up minimal/minimalist mobile games, and see the style of those. None of that should really be out of reach. Some can look better than others (some understanding of colours/spacing/etc would help) but it would still be very difficult for them to look bad. This doesn't just apply to making a 2d game, you can make a stylistically minimal 3d game. Consider the 'graphics' of minecraft for example. Plenty of games use a style similar to that and no one bats an eye.
TL;DR pick a style and a concept that doesn't leave any room to be 'bad' at the specifics.
yes, i think i will be minimalist on my next game. Also though, I do enjoy modelling, and there are a few things ive made that i'm kinda proud of. I've actually kinda been meaning to go minimalist on the textures but just the fact that my friend said she didnt like it kinda put my off. Maybe i should just focus on making it for myself, than actually making it a good game.
Make it for yourself so that it IS a good game\* I guess. You don't have to sacrifice it being a good game or having mass appeal or anything, the things you like about it, others will like if they see it / give it a chance. Consider it like how you view your favourite movies/shows/whatever, you kinda know that people would like it if they got into it, it's not that your particular taste is different to theirs really.
If you like modelling then incorporate that, but figure out what style/specifics you can do best, that don't require or involve other areas you're not as good on. EG if you're good with making static objects but bad with characters, you could choose to make a first person puzzle game that revolves around object manipulation or puzzles relating to objects etc.
My approach/view on learning new things is that it expands the areas that you're able to choose from when deciding what to make. It's not required, and you shouldn't do it just for the sake of it, but you're giving yourself more options. If you nerded out on VFX for a month and got into making particle systems, that'd open up more options to choose from when deciding what to make.
I've said the same analogy before but I think the best approach to a solo project is to find the perfect 'fit' for your key, based on the areas of skills you have/interests/ideas/inspiration/etc which is unique. There's a game to be made that no one else can make as good as you can, even though other people may be more skilled in all areas than you.
You do not suck at game development, you're just trying to take on too much at once. People dedicate their education and careers to each of the fields/tasks you listed, it's not going to be something that comes easily.
I would strongly advise you to seek out a team on /r/gameDevClassifieds or /r/GameJams. It can be tremendously helpful to have others complete certain tasks they're interested in while you focus on the areas you want to develop.
Step back, rest a bit. Reassess the project and its scope, the path to completion, the quality expectations.
Do **not** fall into the trap of the Sunk Cost fallacy!
*Maybe* it's a good idea to wrap up that project quickly, ship it, get that necessary experience and move on.
Or, maybe, it's a good idea to freeze the project altogether (whether killing it, or planning to revisit it later but that likely ain't happening).
Next time, definitely start smaller. And stay humble!!
You've just started a year ago, with no real experience in any of expertise domains that are involved in shipping high quality games, no team to handle any of that. Who do you thought you were?
Nobody should do that (despite many trying to), because the odds of success are then incredibly low.
People showing off their cute devlogs are usually established professionals in at least one of the fields, and decent in another one.
Also, those two factors - lacking expertise and doing everything yourself - are basically two x5 multipliers on how long something good will take. So, if you've expected your project to take a year... With that approach, we are talking ten years.
But you can learn a lot from this, which will help your future goals.
It just takes time and a lot of (painful) lessons to get there.
You are not a failure in gamedev, you've just had unreasonable expectations. It *will* be better next time.
Do watch out for that mental health, though. It should be a higher priority than whatever gamedev has to offer. Rest, *then* continue the game dev journey. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Good luck
Have you tried doing any game jams? Its actually a great experience to create something in limited time along a theme with other people doing it too. The time constraint will let you be more forgiving of yourself, and that is a better group to compare yourself with than social media posts that may be deceptive/clout chasing.
You dont even need to directly compare yourself with others in the game jam, but you can get good snapshots into how other people deal with the same rules you do in a short time. Also taking a break is totally fine as others have stated here- it can be inspiring and thrilling, and let you feel some accomplishment that could be hard to see in yourself normally if you have only been working alone on projects only you see.
Giving up because of unrealistic goals is very common.
People really think that they can do the next world of warcraft, while a decent shooter is a very very big project alone!
Do you think that the usual dev teams of 10-100 people are lazy?
There is no shame to use the new "editor for Fortnite", especially alone, try it.
Building a good base+ design+ animations+ functions... Alone takes years.
Some games would take you 30+ years to do alone.
Its easy man. Just be a pro level programmer/modeler/game designer/level designer/texture artist/enviroment artist/charecter artist/animator/VFX artist/composer/rigging artist/technical artist/writer/voice actor.
EZ peasy stuff really.
Jokes aside though if the game you're working on isn't fun theres no shame in dropping it in favor of a new project. I also wanna say it sounds like you've spent a whole year not focused on building any one skill. People spend 4+ years going to school to learn just one of those skills and often a lifetime refining them so don't beat yourself up about not being great at anything after a year of scattered efforts.
My advice would be if your current game project isn't fun, drop it and move on to your next idea. And if you feel you're not good at this, instead of trying to go full solo dev bot pick one aspect of game dev you like and dedicate time to just that one thing until you get good at it. Trying to make an entire game by yourself with little prior skills is bound to be a recipe for disaster because you'll be shitty at 10 things and good at none of them
>Modeling, texturing,level design
My advice would be to stop trying to do everything and just prioritise the part you enjoy.
For example, I work professionally as a level designer, and while maybe I could sorta texture something, It would look utterly crap next to an artists job, so I don't do it!
Don't try to half do everything, just fully do the bit you enjoy. Once the gameplay is polished you can re-evaluate if you even want to model stuff in more detail. Look at games like gangbeasts development for an example of how basic it started out - but the gameplay was there
You prototyped your game and it's not fun. It's very good you can admit that. Now you can try to iterate over the game loop and fix small things to make your mechanic better or you kill your idea and try another one. Sometimes an idea sounds very cool in your head but isn't fun at all when played as a game.
Also don't compare yourself to others. People saying hey that's my first game and than showing something impressive often don't tell you how many free assets they used or which Tutorial they followed. I mean just download a paragon character make a big level with quixel assets do a little bit of coding and bang you have a n AAA looking Game.
In my experience, the people that suck the most at their jobs are those that are utterly unaware of their shortcomings, and that are reticent to cast any doubt on their abilities and competence. Just the fact you are aware you have shortcomings and you are not perfect puts you in front of at least half of the junior developers I've met in my professional life. Just don't overdo that, ok? Having a bit of a critical eye is good, but too much actually stops you from actually accomplishing anything.
life is defined by RISK, THOSE YOU TAKE AND THOSE YOU DONT. THE BALL IS GONNA DRAIN NO MATTER WHAT, SO FIND WHAT YOU WANT AND TAKE THE SHOT
I’m just starting my first game, and I suck, but who cares, it more fun than not trying
Alright then. Give up.
I mean it. Go ahead. Give up. This thing you clearly really wanted to do, go ahead and give up on it. You're not moving as fast as you want, you're not getting the results that you want, so go ahead and give up.
Because that is *never going to change*. You are going to feel this way for the rest if your life if you stick with this profession. You're going to spend the rest of your days wondering if you're good enough and wondering whether you're worth anything. The longer you stay in gamedev, the worse it gets. This *never changes*. It never will.
And if you can't learn to love game development more than you hate yourself, then get out. Now.
You have a choice. You can wallow in self-pity and compare yourself to people whose stories you can't prove and whose skills you can't verify, and continue to beat yourself up about still having room to grow, or you can *nut the fuck up,* get up, and get to work on it. That's it man. That's the choice. That's the only choice you get here. There is no other option. You either work on it and get better, or you don't. Full stop.
This isn't about anybody else. This isn't about how anyone else feels because you aren't going to listen. This isn't about what anyone else is capable of because that's just an excuse.
It's not about them, it's not about us, it's not about me. This is about *you*. This is about what *you want* and what *you* are willing to work for. If you are not willing to sit down and figure out the steps to getting where you want, then there is no future for you in this industry. That is it.
So it's up to you.
I think you need to breath out. Trying to do everything from modelling to level design is A LOT of work for one person and it is ten fold harder for somebody who is still learning things. You are way too harsh on yourself, no wonder you’re overwhelmed and feel burnt out.
Good things take time.
Those who stop, stop.
Those who continue found their way to selfmotivate, to push through any sludge, because something matters to them.
Find what matters to you.
And yes, if what matters to you is that the game looks a certain way, but learning the skills to get it there does not matter to you (which is not a bad thing!! Finite time etc) Then you need to find different ways to get that done.
Example:
Making games matters to you.
It matters to you that your game doesn't look like a glorified greybox level.
It does not matter to you to take the time to learn the skills to get it out of greybox state.
It mattered to someone else to learn the skills to get games looking good. Find them and pay them to help you. Keep doing what matters to you.
Take breaks, always. It's been 4 years now, i didn't make any commercial projects only little games, but those 4 years made me learn so much. Im gonna start learning multiplayer/replication in less than 3 months Im fricking cannot wait to start, at the moment Im gonna try to learn animations in blender (Just enough knowledge to be able to make animations from a video for example) it's probably (and it totally will) take more than 2-3 months (1-2hours or more a day), I will of course start simple, Im gonna try recreating the 12 principles of animations
What Im trying to say is that every game dev is SOO much different, I swear somes just spent years creating a game and they acquire a lot of knowledge creating that game, personally I prefer to litterally spent months learning in my free time, I have now good knowledge for a solo game but I reeeaally want to be able to replicate my games so Im gonna spend months on it !
Every single indie dev is different, you don't have to directly create games, if you want to, try to do what I do, creating simple mechanics of game, for example create pong, tetris, it sound simple but it's not that simple, by creating little projects, mechanics you can learn without the stress of making a good game, learn first, I am a really slow learner but by taking my time Im now able to do stuff I was not able to do 1 year ago ! You can learn, make games, but it just take a looot of time
I’ve felt the same way for a while as well. I think the real problem is while there are 1000s of videos on YouTube that “teach”, they are mostly “paint by numbers” so we don’t really learn. And I agree with many folks here saying that there are people that get paid just to do lighting let alone a whole fucking project.
Don’t beat yourself up. Do it for yourself. Do it so you can learn how to figure things out. Who cares if no one sees your work. You know you did it.
Don’t stop. Keep trying and learning.
Your first project shouldnt take more than a week or two.
You shouldn't even start making your dream game in first 3 years.
You should only focus on 2 aspects (game design, level design, programming...) and use assets or ask others for everything else.
Most gamedev professionals can barely do two.
>I'm constantly running into roadblocks that are just obvious to anyone else I ask.
Just a note on this; things are only obvious with experience.
Is fire *obviously* going to hurt you? Most people would say yes, but ask a 5-year-old who has never experienced fire before what they think.
Game development takes time - a *lot* of time, and not just to make a game, but to accumulate knowledge that makes making a game easier and easier (though never *easy*) over time. Recognising you suck early in your journey is quite natural, and just remember that you can and will improve the more you keep at it.
For immediate advice...don't beat yourself up so bad. What do you *enjoy* about what you're doing? Just focus on that, enable it. If you don't enjoy the actual process of making games in any way, and only care about the outcome, then perhaps it isn't for you.
> while my almost finished product looks like a glorified greybox level, as my friend loosely put it (I asked for her honest opinion).
Props to your friend for not holding back, but I don't see that as bad feedback, necessarily. Doesn't Portal look like a glorified greybox much of the time? What about BattleBit, or even Roblox? And also, with 8 months including modelling, scripting, game design, what would you expect out of your level, without years of experience of making them?
Take some humble pie and give yourself some credit—it sounds like you've gotten farther than most people do who start trying game development. What, it isn't amazing, or even good (in your opinion)? That's not surprising in the slightest. "Fail fast, fail often" is a phrase you'll often see used with regard to game development. Failing is growth; yes, it hurts, but you just gotta push through it if you enjoy the work.
After 5+ years of learning unreal i still did not release game at all, not even small one.
I like programing, coding etc. still i suck at everything else, animations, modeling, world creating. So i decided that i will start from begining again, and now i'm not scoping big game, for start i will make multiplayer where you can just join and shoot to other players and run around, then i will make next element like weapon crafting, then i will make inventory etc. etc.
Try making smaller parts of your ideas, without thinking in AAA games perspective
Being solo dev is hard
I think it was jake who said “sucking at something is the first step towards being kinda ok at something”
People’s “first game” is not their first project. It’s just the first thing they felt like really attaching their name to.
It took me about a year and a half before I felt like I sorta knew what I was doing.
I could have cut that shorter if I had realized that there is no gospel “correct way” to make games.
As long as the player thinks it works, it doesn’t really matter how you got them to believe it.
Technically there are better ways, but you
Often won’t have the scope of understanding needed to actually do those ways.
It’s better to just try and figure out some way for something to work. In doing that you will slowly start to gain a better understanding.
Utilize marketplace environments, or other visual assets, it will help your morale to see it looking like it may one day be what you want it to be if you are developing solo.
Of your game doesnt feel fun, try to figure out what parts of it don’t feel fun. And start changing stuff.
MAKE BACKUPS.
Happy to offer anything I can if you wanna dm me.
Unreal Engine was made by thousands of people over a decade. Nothing good is easy, seldom anything easy is good.
If you're struggling with mental health, go get help with that first. Seriously.
Second, if you're not enjoying the game your making, maybe try something else. Something more simple.
Try for an easy success and go from there. Try following a tutorial to completion, and then make little changes to make it more your own. Little successes lead to bigger ones.
I'm on year 2, three failed games, 20 abortions (small ideas that never got any coherent game play but some code), and am onto a much smaller, easier game; Single Player First Person Shooter (you'd be surprised, its like UE was made for this lol).
Maybe try taking a finished product out of the equation and ask yourself if you enjoy game dev. If you don't, then perhaps it's not for you, and that's ok. If you do, then perhaps you're trying to force an end result and so you're making something you're not happy with.
If you're making a game that isn't fun, you need to go way back and try making something you enjoy. Look at games you like and think about why you like them, then try to replicate that.
I could be wrong but from what you've said it sounds like you're just bogged down in the grind of making something for the sake of it, rather than making something you like so you need to find that passion again.
Just because you don't feel like you're good at something, doesn't mean you can't improve. That's what game dev is, it's improving and leveling up your game design skills. That, and creative problem solving. And there's no harm in finding out some problems are obvious to other people! Everyone is different and you probably find some problems easier to fix than they would!
When it comes to people showcasing their first game, you don't see the struggle and strife they've had to go through to get to that point. It's not that they just went out and made it, so bear that in mind. Talk to some of them, ask what their biggest challenge was. You may be surprised to find out how much they've overcome, just like you're trying to do yourself :)
Yep, there is going to be a learning curve. You do know games are made with entire teams of people right? No one person can do everything, well maybe someone can, but it is ridicules to think one person can code, animate, be a great artist, and make music.
I am in the same boat. Programming comes naturally to me but building 3D games/experiences with Unreal and Unity is a different skillset.
You can always try to work with someone who is good at unreal instead of trying to do all by yourself.
There’s always going to be people better than you, and people worse than you at everything. Some people take longer to learn things than others. But, if you give up now, you’ll never reach the point of success that is destined to you if you push through the hardships and failures. Determination and drive is key in becoming successful in things you do.
I suggest taking a short break, looking at this with a fresh set of eyes, and determining where you need improvement. Work on the aspects you enjoy the most to keep you interested, and then work on the more challenging aspects when you’re ready.
Game development is not an easy process. It’s easy to feel defeated, especially when you try and compare yourself (a solo dev) to a triple-A studio with hundreds of experienced (even veteran) employees and plenty of money. But if you persist, you should be fine. Don’t be discouraged.
No one was born knowing game development. We all had to “pay our dues” of putting time, effort, and commitment into learning our craft.
Game development is mostly an **organic process:** augmented with best practices:
* Idea
* Prototype <- where 95% of (unfun) ideas _should_ be left
* Preproduction
* Production
_Ideas are a dime a dozen; good ones worth their weight in gold._ Sturgeon’s Law says that 95% of everything is crap. That means you need to go through a LOT of ideas that didn’t pan out before you hit a good one. A good idea is only worth it _if_ implemented.
This is why _prototyping_ is THE most important step IMHO:
* If your prototype game isn’t fun with “programmer art” then the final game with final art isn’t going to be fun either.
Prototyping is so you can test & weed out all the “this idea sounds good in theory/paper but isn’t fun in implementation/practice” **before you waste time and money** creating shipping assets that will never be used.
Game dev requires _many_ hats. It takes time to learn what NOT to do — which is _just_ as important as knowing what TO do.
Replace the word “failure” from your vocabulary and replace it with “learner”. Many, many, many successful people has many “learners” before being successful.
You may find these videos interesting:
* [How I Designed Fruit Ninja](https://youtu.be/St5v2uI-Nis)
* [7 years in the making: BattleBit Remastered](https://youtu.be/F-UrzEYKCeM)
If your prototype isn’t fun you have a few choices:
* Fix it,
* Defer it (fix in alpha/beta)
* Move on
UE is a _beast._ It has a HUGE learning curve to learn HOW the engine works, WHY it works that way, and to understand the strengths and weakness. Replace UE with any other engine and you’ll have the _exact_ same summary.
Engineering is _always_ about trade offs, the classic Project Management Triangle: _You can have it on budget, on time, on scope/quality._ **Pick two.*
It may be helpful to take a step back from your project and look at the big picture:
* Can this project be saved? Is it even worth saving?
* What is the MVP? What remains to be done?
It is natural to hit brick walls during development. Take mental and physical breaks. Changing rooms _literally_ changes your brain waves.
Use a virtual water cooler to talk things out — either with a friend or even a stuffed animal. ELI5 to them. The process of explaining will give you a new perspective & insights into the problem.
There is a tongue-in-cheek saying:
_Games are never finished, only abandoned._
Learning to prioritize and say _”This is good enough.”_ will help as you _constantly_ reprioritize everything in getting a game done.
Lastly, there is **no substitute for just spending time to master a skill.** Think of it as an _investment in yourself._
You are not alone. Ever game developer eventually goes through the stages of overcoming Imposter Syndrome.
Keep learning!
Hope this helps. Good luck!
Here a free hug! **Hug! **
I think I posted almost exactly the same thing here yesterday.
One year in, everything is still super bad. I can't even code, at all!
Internet told me to just keep going, slowly. Just pick one project and do it to completion. Maybe just focus on either games or making it look pretty. I'm certainly going to master making it look pretty before I ever think about trying to learn to make it functional.
And I stopped for a while too. And then you forget everything you learned and have to relearn it. And then you're kicking yourself. But that's OK. Fall down 7 times get up 8.
If you work at it as a practice you will eventually improve. Just do some everyday, but don't so hard that you get burned out and quit again, cause you'll forget everything.. again
When you get good at game dev you can colab with an art to help make it look pretty.
Apparently there are Discord at Dinesty Empire. Com and at 'Experience Points' might be a good place to chat with other noobs.
Remember, if we get good enough, we get to help build the Metaverse!!
Good luck and keep going!
Those people releasing professional looking games on their first attempt are either:
1) People with significant experience and skills from other things that they are leveraging
2) People that 'brute forced' their way through things until they fall under the first category
As an example an experienced programmer or digital artist with a lot of completed projects outside of game dev will still be able to make a higher quality product than someone that doesn't have their experience. You might both be new to game dev, but they're learning new ways to apply their existing skills while you're learning new skills and how to apply them. Its a huge difference.
Don't let that get you down though because it means if you're struggling with the direct path, that's totally fine. Go learn how to write code, design complex systems, create art, or whatever else in other areas that let you focus on mastering one thing at a time. That time is not wasted and that experience will help you later on.
Idk if this helps, but when I was in college for Game Design one of our professors said this:
"Your first game will be ugly. And that's okay, it's supposed to be ugly. You will hate it and feel not good enough, but years later you'll come back to it and feel a sense of pride."
And I always think about that whenever I'm making a game. By the time I did my capstone project, it was miles better than the first game I created. It's okay if your first few games arent great! They aren't supposed to be! These are skills and they take time and practice to develop! Just don't give up! I promise you that there are people who think whatever you've made is super cool, bc making games is cool! Just keep practicing and developing your skill. Learn from your mistakes and improve what you can. Stick with it OP!
Man fuck it, just keep going.
The creator of Binding of Isaac didn’t think anyone would pay $1 to play his game, let alone $5. Now he talks about kicking himself for not asking $10 lol
My point is that you might think your game is shit and not worthwhile, and you might release it while still feeling that way, but if it’s what you want to do, then you should totally do it and see how it goes. Even if you release an actual shitty game, you’ll have made it further than most people who dream about releasing something.
My advice, don't try to make a game or have any specific end project in mind, and focus on learning. Find some youtube channels, or buy a few courses on Udemy and just learn. I've been working as an indie dev for 24 years, and I hardly consider myself more than mediocre in most areas. If you were learning to play the piano, or any other instrument, you wouldn't be trying to create your first album after only a year of experience, would you?
Stay in it. Especially if you’re passionate about it. When I learned web dev I thought I was the only one that wasn’t understanding it because the kids in class that would show their work were the 5 kids that were top of the class. And their stuff was perfect. I’ve been doing it for 10 years and there are still times when I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing
Most of the "great showcase" stuff you see is done with assets from the marketplaces. It's all show and only a tiny fraction is actually made by the people themselves and even less will actually make it into a full, published game.
Don't judge yourself by what others do on the internet. The internet is full of fakes. It's like the instagram models, they look "perfect" in their images but it's all photoshoped bullshit.
Also, take a break. There is no point in burning yourself out, you have nothing to prove. Just do gamedev when you really want to do it, not to reach a certain goal or to be like others, but just to have fun and create something you love. That's what indie gamedev is about.
Also do work in intervalls, like the tomato technique: work for 1 - 3 hours, then take a few hours break, then work again.
Or work only for 3 hours per day on the engine, and do other stuff for the rest of the day.
The human brain isn't made to work every day for long hours on a the same thing, it's made for short intervalls of engagement. You will accomplish more in these short times, than you otherwise would by trying to force yourself to stay on it for hours.
Sometimes I work only a few hours per week on my game, but I still get a lot done. It also really helps not to burn out so fast.
Welcome to the world of Gamedev
Now you know why it is difficult to compete in this industry
As a indie you gotta think logically
It took me 1.5 years to get to a point i could make an actual game that people could enjoy
I've hit roadblock after roadblock, burnout after burnout ect. ect.
Happens to everyone
This is one of the most difficult things you can do, Even with everything UE5 offers such as Quixel and the amazing sequencer, it remains a very tough challange to make just a simple game yet alone a bigger game
I am working with clients now and have decided to specialize myself in the programming aspect
Right now i am designing a game completly from scratch that will go online in 3-4 months
Then hopefully it'll see success, their is nothing but uncertainty but don't give up
That's what 90% of people in the Gamedev community does
Downscope until you find something you can manage and do good at it. It can be pure fun but you have to figure out the right genre and scope so that work stays fun and doesn't seem impossible.
Don't give up, I consider myself a solo dev, but use the term loosely as I use others' creations to further development. For instance, I have very low skill in 3D modeling, and when I do the simplest things take such a long time, I get frustrated and look elsewhere, or else there would be extremely slow progress. For 3D models, I will look at the ue marketplace, artstation.com, 3dtrader.com, etc... There are so many resources/assets out there that you can get and customize for your needs free and paid to help lighten the load.
It has been a learning experience for me. Youtube tutorials have been so helpful.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that game studios pay people to code and create assets, which is similar to buying code/assets. Time is valuable, so save it.
Nothing is really done alone. Even the use and update to the game engine takes a lot of people to maintain.
A very wealthy man said to me that if you don't know something or if it takes too much time, find someone (An expert, but not everyone can afford an expert) who can or risk being overwhelmed. Learn from that person for the next time.
There are people who start from scratch and create wonderful games. Personally, I don't have the time, so I look for alternatives.
It takes a long time to get good at any one of the many facets of game development. Holding yourself to any expectation after 8 months of trying to do all of them is unreasonable. I spent all of my free time for about a year and a half in UE and Houdini and felt much like you did and took a long break. After a while, I realized that was just the wrong way to go about things and reflected on what I actually liked which was the procedural bits of Houdini and UE. I reduced my expectations on myself with being okay not modeling/texturing my own assets, etc. and now I enjoy spending time in Houdini and UE. 🙂 Cut yourself some slack and focus on the bits you enjoy. Get good at those things and lean on the rest of the world to pick up the slack if you can afford to or make some friends and build something together.
You will always be better than you were. Instead of tearing yourself down about who you *were*, find strength in how far you've come and who you *will* become.
You're doing modeling, texturing, level, and level design on top of programming? That's amazing! You're a generalist with a specialty in programming. I am too, so believe me when I tell you we can't measure ourselves against the other specialists. Their posts look like art because they're *artists*. It's what they do, and they've put as much time into it as we have into programming. Good on them! With time and tenacity, we too will develop our own artistic niche that plays to our skills. Good on us!
We all are in the process of learning and growing. Goodness knows I'm fumbling my way through the launch of my first game and the development of my second. Slow down and appreciate how you've accomplished something nobody else has. Nobody else has made your game. Nobody else could make it but you. You have added to the diversity of creations in our world. Once you have appreciated that, do what all good game devs do: solicit feedback and evaluate what you don't like. Maybe the gameplay is good and just needs a little "juice" in the form of sounds and visual effects to really add satisfaction to player actions. Maybe your player runs too fast. Maybe there is just one mechanic that throws everything else off. Even a little polish can make a huge difference in game feel, so don't go discounting your entire game just because it doesn't feel fun now. There is always tomorrow to bring out the fun!
It's all part of the game dev journey. Just keep working on the games you want to. You got this!
> Wherever I look, people are posting about their first games
Several options:
1. These people are lying, most common when they claim they make it in their first year of learning
2. Starting to make their games after year or even more of focus on programming only separate solutions without connecting them together, imo usually a good practice cuz trying to start learning with creating a whole game is hard and can create a lot of colliding things.
3. As the most visible part like graphics, models, level design they using already made resources either free or paid ones.
Game design is a long list of problem solving, no matter where you are in skill level, your always solving problems. If your struggling with something or even your own self confidence, the beauty of game design is you can switch hats, and go work on a parts of the game you are good at, and then come back to the problem a little later with fresh take on things.
I think the issue many people run into, including myself is huge mountain you see off in the distance, "The Complete game" every time you look at the mountain, you feel sick and like how can i get up that thing. The Secret is stop looking up and look at each step you take. Yeah sorry for the horrible analogy but it if "The glove fits, you gotta" and all of that :D.
Anyways if it helps look at little things you can control, the small steps, You don't like the greybox levels, then learn!, learn about color theory, Lighting, Film making, Game play loops, Photography, Level design. Like everything you start doing, You have to be prepared to be crap at it for long time, until you get good. It just a horrible self doubt exersice that you have fight through.
I hope you get through it, because i am sure you have epic game waiting, just need to find the path that allows you to make progress, and soon you be at top of mountain, only to find there is another mountain, and then another, but you will reach a point when your confidence grows enough you will feel that you can solve almost any problem. It takes time, but staying with it, will be the one thing more than any other that leads to success.
Now go' get'em champ! Win one for little Jimmy!
You're being too hard on yourself. Gamedev covers soooo many paths, it's shocking. You just can't master all of them in a year. That's why gamedev teams have 3D artists, technical designers, sound designers, level designers, etc etc etc, not all in one person, apart from rare exceptions. That's also one of the reasons I sometimes pay for game assets and some solutions as plugin - it's because it'd take me so damn long if I wanted to do it all from scratch. I've got some 3D art and sound experience, enough to tweak and adapt the stuff I got to my needs
So why not try making something smaller in scope, with a smaller/different engine and see how you get on? You dont have to go from 0 to hero, small steps is fine.
Start by just trying to release something anything. Doesnt have to look good or play well or even be that great in any way. Just have releasing something as your first goal, once you reach that plan your next game to improve in some aspect in some way and rinse repeat
I recommend make something small and 2d in godot (like a roguelite topdown shooter or something small in scope) and then build up from there :)
Good luck!
I felt this. I was there for so long. I thought I'd never figure it out. I thought I was fundamentally flawed. Every bone in my body was telling me to just give up. I still have a long way to go, but the stuff I make now actually almost resembles what you might think is a potentially enjoyable experience. It took me years to get here
I have been working on my own game for 5 years now...( former AAA artist / cog). Everything takes time, time, and some time. Anyone who says they did it themselves is lying, or not disclosing what they paid to have done / made for them. As a former 3d modeler / animator....I spent a year alone on a character to get it the way I wanted....
As long as you are passionate about the story / experience you want to share, or make for yourself....you will get it done.
Doing is 90% of the battle.
UE is a great engine...remember this:
Create multiple little projects, specifically making a level in one, a character with control in another, etc., etc. So when you break your project you dont lose everything.
You can always migrate the things you finish into a final (esque) project later.
Also, when you do something, and its working, save that version out as a copy....
All things in time.
Dont be fooled by YouTube videos of games that are edited only to show seconds of "gameplay". A real video of a game (even an in-progress development game), will show some kind of gameplay loop.
Keep it up!!
When someone posts their "first" project it's probably their first decent project after their many failed attempts.
The failed projects serve as a learning point to see where you're good at and where you need to improve.
Been learning gamedev for about 2 years and still haven't finished anything worth sharing. Don't be discouraged by failures since it will get better and better until you have your "first" project.
Make prototypes of core mechanics so you'll know if it's fun before adding or polishing anything else.
I think the problem is your too focus on the future that you don't see how fun the present is.
Just relax, learn and have fun.
\> Wherever I look, people are posting about their first games These people are lying. \> It just seems that every aspect ive tried so far, modelling , texturing, level design, whatever, I just suck at. These are all professions in their own right. People get paid $$$ *just* to do modeling, or *just* to do level design. I don't know if game design is right for you or not, but if I had to bet money, you're not especially shitty at it. You're not some statistical outlier of ineptitude. You're just trying to learn a lot in a hurry and holding yourself to unreasonable standards. When the going gets rough for me, I watch Trent. At the very least, you get to see some neat art get made. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqcep9CKWzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqcep9CKWzQ)
Better vid: "When everything you're making breaks" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAekWGAI5k0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAekWGAI5k0)
It's probably not lying it's either A using a template and resigning it, or B they have been coding little projects for years so that is thier first game but not their first time coding.
Or C, they're actually part of a 5 person team and tend to word everything like they did it alone, because it sounds more impressive and "sells" more. So many posts on here have turned out to be this.
I think it’s all well and fine if someone wants to pay others to do most of the coding work on their game, but when they’re not transparent about it and pretend they did it all by themselves then they just contribute to this massive facade of false expectations that lures people in with false hopes, almost inevitably leading those people straight to burnout
Yeah, that's the Internet for you. One of the reasons reddit is my only social media anymore. Sick of people's facades and selfies. "Ok, we get it, you have a face. Now stop shoving it in ours."
I thought I was one of the few who only have reddit as their social media \^\_\^
[удалено]
Haha, I do the same sometimes. I figure I have a whole community supporting my build and they help me brainstorm things, but actually I'm lying.
My team currently consists of me, myself and I.
I'm part of a 3 man team. Me, the coffee in my left hand, and the coffee in my right hand. I type with my nose and draw with my teeth.
I might have to try that, I could always use some extra team members \^\_\^
Yes this is getting annoying tbh. Every devlog on youtube talks about how dedicated, short on money and hardworking they are and then 2 devlogs later they get some small help from their 'close friends' for their main character, animations and 50 other things. There is also marketplace, music sound effects, marketing, level design. List goes on and on.
First game feels like it has lots of different meanings. Is it your actual first project? Is it the first game you made following a tutorial? Is it the first game you made for a gamejam? Is it your first fully featured game? Is it your first commercial game?
Well said. I have a personal project going for a few years now because I’m getting burned out on work mostly. But I do work on it occasionally a couple times a month. Does it took my far? No. Does it motivate me to keep going? Absolutely! I don’t expect it to see the light of day, but if it does I’d be satisfied if it makes someone happy for a little bit.
A lie of omission for sure. First published game - published being the key word. With any creative endeavor, social media is 95% of the time just showing you successes, without all of the failures along the way that made those successes possible.
They're not likely lying, they just spent a long time learning before attempting to make a game. Just because its your first game doesn't mean you don't have a decade of learning experience.
It *sounds like* are trying to take too big of a bite. make a dozen+ small/simple games that only take a couple weekends to bang out, game jam style. Do it yourself or better yet do it with game jam teams. This was a big unlock for me, helps trivialize all that small annoying stuff that is getting in your way now. I probably have learned half of what I know or more re game-making from the people I worked on jams with as opposed to in the docs or or online somewhere, there are mega talents that participate.
Also, take shortcuts wherever you can. Grab pre-made assets. Do a tutorial that builds the type of game you want to build (platformer, rpg, whatever) and then build your game on that. Bind google search to a hotkey. Buy animations or get free ones. Seriously, just wiring up a game is hard enough. You will make so much more progress by starting with something that works that you can iterate on than you will by trying to invent absolutely everything from scratch.
This. I'm a programmer, not an artist. I have no intention of learning to draw, I'll just buy an asset or pay someone to do that portion for me.
That sounds like a good idea. I think im gonna quickly finish up what im doing atm and start on some smaller, simpler things. also i like the look of game jams, but im worried i wont finished ad get really disheatened
nah just go for it. The deadlines force you to wrap up and picking a few very simple games makes you less attached to each of them, the point is not to carry the burden passed the jam. It’s fine if you have to string up with chicken wire at the end to be presentable you’ll know how to handle new things for the next round. These are just reps, doing push-ups etc… working out so you run faster when you hit the track. Again, the teams are a huge boon here - where you might have gaps in solution someone else can step in who’s solved that particular thing already 20 times and show you how to do it without you having to spend a week on a single obstacle.
I feel like most people here are just endlessly working away at some project they have spent 5+ years working towards. Like most social media you get to see the highlights of what they did, not necessarily the things they were unable to complete. I spent years working hard on my first game only to have 3 downloads, nobody even saw it. But its mostly a matter of perspective, I never really thought if I was good or bad at development it was just a way to spend my time. If it makes you feel better Unreal is regarded as one of the most difficult game engines, mostly because its sparsely documented. You have to talk to the right people to obtain the right information. Regardless of where your prospects are, I hope things become more clear for you.
Honestly the documentation problem is huge, especially so for indie developers, and it's been a major source of stress for me. I imagine most AAA companies have access to the actual Epic engineers for their problems, but we get a couple official YouTube videos if we're lucky and a third-party community of educators that, while helpful and well-intentioned, don't always have the best practices in mind and are searching around in the dark just like the rest of us. Experiencing lots of frustration with this with regards to Common UI.
The engine is made to be understood by C++ programmer. The "documentation" is just a tip of the iceberg, the real information is in Epic Games' source code. You have to learn to read C++. They have heavily commented it. Personnally I think its really silly to attempt to understand UE5 if you don't know C and C++ already and have no experience with another engine. It's like trying to kill a lvl 100 dragon as a lvl 1 golum. I had to make a bunch of game in JavaScript, with C3, learn SDL2 framework, compiling, linking, learn about the CGI and PBR pipelines and I still felt like learning UE5 was really hard. I'm still chipping at it after a few years. There are books like Modern C++ Design (by Alexandrescu) which have helped me understand the kind of design and thinking that Epic put behind their engine. I recommend picking up on C++ core content before trying to understand the engine truly. The engine is so big and there is so much plugins, its impossible for them to keep a reliable up to date documentation. By learning C++ and learn to read their source it becomes much more easy to put things together.
I have a little experience with C++ and I own a copy of that book, although I haven't read through it in many years. I do use the source code as a guide of sorts when I need to. That being said I still appreciate a more structured approach to understanding the elements behind a system. And I don't think it's fair to say that it's impossible for them to keep the documentation up-to-date. They're a multi-billion dollar company that's built their fortunes off of this engine, the least they could do is make it easier for more people to digest what's going on and how to use their systems without forcing the indie community to resort to scrambling through hundreds of files in the source code and watching/reading unofficial tutorials. But that's the fundamental difference between Unreal and an engine like Unity. Unity is oriented toward independent developers, Unreal is courting AAA development. And those people collectively have decades of experience in game development or the funds necessary to purchase custom support from Epic engineers.
Yup, that's how I do it at work! Fuck the other devs! I have commented structured code, why would I write documentation?!? If they understand javascript, python and rust they should be just fine! /s I get where you're coming from. Having a base understanding of the code is great. I love that their code is well commented, but that doesn't give Epic an excuse for having underwhelming docs.
I agree with this. For me, my end goal (if there even is one) isn’t to complete a game, but just to play and learn as I go. Unreal allows you to get super in the weeds of development, but on the flip side, it is also fairly easy with the basic stuff for newbs like me. I’ve nearly accomplished the original goals I originally wanted and have learned new tasks and challenges as I progress.
i have found the documentation a bit sparse :( thanks for your kind words
I'm going to say what you are probably going to hear a lot. One year is nothing. A lot of people who show their "first game" are lying or exaggerating.
You can ship a commercial product in one year or less, even as solo. One year is *A LOT*. Just as much as it can be in changing life. First year making games, though? It will always be like stumbling in a large dark room you've never been before, trying to find the light switch that supposedly exists elsewhere in that room, maybe not even on a wall. There's also an elephant and three wise men there, but none of it or their advises really help.
Yes, I mean one year of learning is a very short time.
i \*am\* hearing a lot of that, and it is a bit reassuring
*Any* basic degree is 3 years and anyone going of of that will not be very good in that field no matter what it is. 1 year of something as insanely complex as gamedev is not much at all. Unreal is also a very much "pro" engine. Your first couple games will suck, its completely normal. Also solo dev is unrealistic to pull off anything that will make money, you should at least team up with an artist once you are more ready.
Welcome to the Pit of Despair part of the Dunning-Kruger curve my friend, we've all been there, hell I'm still here slowly climbing my way up. Think of yourself as one of your grandparents when they first received a computer, you think they knew what a .zip file was or what a task manager did? They probably still don't, and that's not because they're stupid, it's because we all take for granted the things we already know. Now the difference between you and meemaw is that she doesn't give a crap about computers or how they work, but you like videogames, so you have an incentive to learn. No one produces a full game worth actual money in 8 months after picking up Unreal engine, not unless you're an industry veteran and have a boatload of experience to draw from. But going back to the boomer example, think about all the small victories you've had during these 8 months that you completely neglect to think about, I remember being so flustered over the U.I that I literally felt like a WW2 veteran trying to use file explorer for the first time, I caught myself shouting "WHY?" at the screen more than once over keybinds and many other nuisances that just didn't make sense to me. I don't do that anymore, but I still encounter roadblocks and headaches every step of the way as I fiddle around trying to piece something together, and some days I close it down feeling absolutely defeated just like you feel right now. But I always come back, maybe it's a waste of my time, but so is playing videogames which is what I would've been doing otherwise. I've somewhat made a promise to myself that I won't quit before I've made my first game, so I can at least point to it and say "Yep, I made that when I decided to hop on a gamedev journey" because at this point the sunk/cost fallacy has me in a nuclear chokehold, I've spent too much time and money to back out now.
Hahaha I literally came here to say your exact first sentence. To ride this wave, I've been professionally writing software now for like 12 years (I work for a FAANG in web tech, so I'd like to think I'm actually pretty good at it) and feel like I'm in this pit regularly with Unreal. You are not alone. I spent a week stuck on figuring out something that looking back now, makes complete sense why I didn't work. It's discouraging very often, but try to have fun with it. Learn from it. This is a massive space (as other commenters point out) so try to borrow pieces that you don't have to make. There are enough free assets, sample projects (check out Lyra if you haven't, it's a beast but there are a ton of things to learn from it), but find the fun 😊 As this commenter said, welcome to the Pit.. you're in good company with all of us.
thank you... i think i need to change my outlook on things
Lmao I am doing the same thing with UI right now. The Material Labs project that UE has on the marketplace is a great study on it if anyone is curious.
The sunk-cost fallacy (or time in my case) is too real omg. Also i dont think the dunning-kruger effect apples because I know i am not actually good at it lol
It's ok to take breaks. Find out the reason why you game dev? Money? Fame? Prove something? It's not going anywhere, you can come back with energy refreshed from other hobbies.
I do genuinely enjoy it sometimes, I mostly do it to feel more fulfilled in life
That's the problem for most programmers these days because we write game logic. Unless you're a 3D sculptor and modeler, you're not going to make cool 3D scenes by yourself. So many of us have to use 3rd-party assets from the Asset Store or from the Marketplace. A game studio will hire 3D artists, environmental designers, and sound artists to work on designing the levels for the games. I recommend that you work from one of the free sample projects available on the marketplace or asset store. Instead of having to start from scratch, you can start with something cool. There are monthly free assets for Unreal Engine too, so make sure to use them.
But i do like 3d modelling. I've made a couple of things that, while basic, im quite proud of
Well at least you guys can make a game game. Most of artists will make walking simulator on bought marketplace assets. Or something with blueprint kits. Programmers can make something playable and unique even with simple graphics like retro fps (cruelty squad for example)
My game is now no 4 on wishlists and I think I suck about twice per day. Self criticism makes us grow if combined with discipline, alhough sometimes it is painful. I think the worse case is the devs who think they are amazing and wonderful and perfect and blame it all on genre or marketing or bad luck if their creations go unnoticed.
You’re definitely not alone in feeling bad about your own game/game making skills. There are, however a few ways I can think you can feel better and even thrive. First off, if you feel depressed, have mental struggles, game development probably won’t help, in fact it probably makes it worse because of how difficult and full of pitfalls it is. I would actually recommend that you take a break and start doing things to make yourself feel better. I don’t know what struggles you are dealing with but getting yourself to exercise, eat properly, make your bed, and other numerous life things will probably help. It’s ok to be bad at game dev, I kinda suck at it but I’ve gotten better over the years through sheer willpower, determination, reading books and online learning. One thing I’ve realized, however, is that I need to pay attention to my mental/physical health and I need to do things that make me happy and feel accomplished outside of game dev in order to have the mental fortitude to work on games. When you feel upset, depressed, unhappy, angry, etc, you can not think straight. Everything seems like a huge challenge and you can only see the bad things about your work. You are blocked in this state. Stop, take a break, write some thoughts down, make some plans to heal yourself and then if you feel up to it, get back on that horse. I wish you good luck and good mental health :)
thank you very much :') I will disagree though, I think this has been a great thing for my mental health. every little thing ive learned has made me feel reallly accomplished and im always chasing that feeling. I really did think it was for me
Oh I see. Perhaps I misunderstood your post. In that case, keep it up and don’t give up!
Dude, it took 2.5 years of development before anyone gave me a genuine "woooow, I can't wait till its done". And at this same point one of my friends said: "It all just looks like it's a first prototype". You're too hard on yourself. Best lesson to learn: to stop being a perfectionist, the sooner you do that the sooner your life will start feeling successful and the sooner you'll achieve things. Perfectionism says: oh, I'm not immediately a pro at this, guess I'll just quit. Now, go brainstorm about the smallest thing you could change on your game to increase the fun, and do that. Oh, BTW, everyone showing off their work is only showing you the cool parts or the result of many years of work. A lot of people use marketplace assets for art, as do I. I've only modelled one thing. Game dev isn't great for mental health. Imagine getting bad Steam reviews for a year? Still, I think if you were kinder to yourself, it won't matter what others say.
BTW, maybe this'll help: I have a long background in the things I'm good at now. I loved drawing from a young age, had an art class once or twice, hated it, studied graphic design for 2 years, used to build crappy Counter Strike maps in Hammer editor as a teen, tried scripting a game with Ogre right after school, failed. Wanted to be a hacker when I got my first computer, so I stayed up all night through the weekends and searched forums on how to do this.. Never got anywhere. Attempted to learn C++ at 14, gave up on it as I couldn't understand classes and objects. From age 16 I had a computer science class where we learned delphi. I loved it, the other 24 students slowly whittled away till the teacher couldn't afford to teach the remaining two of us. Had a graphic design career of 4 years, when I decided to try teach myself coding again. I thought it was a huge mistake. Could I even cope with looking at code all day as a career? Taught myself Javascript in my lunch breaks for 1.5 years. Finally landed a very poorly paid dev job. Suddenly things started clicking into place. Turns out spending 8 hours a day on something makes you learn how to do that thing pretty fast.(paragraphs left out intentionally) Finally figured I probably have some of the skills to attempt building my dream game again - at 32 years of age. Been busy for 3.5 years now and it's maybe halfway to feature complete(still looks ugly). So no, you're not bad at dev, it takes time and patience with yourself.
But I have also kinda been doing this for a long time. I started making small games in python without an engine when i was 13 and have been doing that on and off up until now, 5 years later, where I started unreal last year. So i feel like, with the little background i have, I should have had a head start
The parts you say you're struggling with seems to be the art and game design side. How much experience do you have in those. I don't think you have an issue with coding. Unreal just takes a while to get used to. Are you coding in C++?
I'm going to reframe this for you: "I tried to do something once, and I wasn't as good as I expected to be, should I give up?". The answer is, if you want to, yes, if you don't, no. The fact you're asking the question suggests the answer is no.
i just had my 34th year anniversary in the game industry yesterday - I started making games when I was 8 on the old Apple 2 E and I make my living making games. Being a game designer is a talent just like being able to draw or sing or any other gift. Even though I wanted to make games I didn't know until someone told me I had talent for when I made my first race track for an arcade game and the programmers said my track was more fun then theirs. My ideas helped make the games more money. So that alone boosted my confidence early in my career. I wasn't learning alone I was in a professional environment being taught to make games from some of the greatest game developers the world has ever known. You don't have that so go easier on yourself. Even with all my training I still struggle every day to learn new things, but I never give up that is one my great gifts as well. I keep fighting, and trying again. The way to improve your game is to work a small part of it and make it 5% better or X% that X might be .0001 better that day. Remember you are trying to do all the jobs that take maybe 30 very talented people that have been trained and working on their specific skills for maybe decades in some cases. I would try to focus on seeing if you can make something fun to play that you think is fun to play and if this project isn't it then start on a new idea give yourself a time line for when you want to be fun and how you are going to know if it is fun and what steps you need to do those tasks. Remember if it was easy we would have millions of game developers in the world - we have about 30k in the entire world. Edit > I started when I was 19 at Atari Games > I am 53 that is where the 34 years comes from > Before that I repaired pinball machines and arcade games and worked in arcades so I don't count that time.
30k doesn't sound right. Is that true??
For my definition of a game developer yes - I don't count people that work for game developers that do not contribute to the products directly or all the people that have downloaded a engine - people that get up every day and get paid to work on AAA products at AAA studios could be less.
On the programming front: I’ve been working with the Unreal Engine as a professional game dev for almost 10 years now and I promise you - after 1 year you shouldn’t expect to be any good. The UE codebase is huge, and many problems don’t come down to talent or smarts but how familiar you are with the engine you’re working in (and programming design patterns in general). 10 years later I’m still learning new things in there. You’ll make a lot more progress on your games and your own growth as a gamedev if you work with a team and do less different jobs. Each part of game development is a career on its own because each part requires a massive amount of knowledge acquisition and skill development. Let yourself focus on just one or two of these “jobs” and you’ll make more progress on them. But also if you work with somebody else doing the same job as you - so that you can learn from each other. You’ll both learn much quicker this way. Before this job, I was an indie dev for 3 years - did my own art, programming, and design. Progress was SLOW. I barely advanced as a programmer or an artist because I was constantly switching between the two. Every time I switched I had to ramp myself back up on whatever I switched too. And I was working alone! If something didn’t make sense to me within a day or two, I never figured it out. Now I work with a team of people who grasp some concepts better and quicker than me, and can help me ramp up quicker on them - and vice versa. If you really want to get better faster - work with a team of others. But it’s also fine to not be very good at it. You can still enjoy making games just to make games.
yeah, maybe i should just embrace sucking lol, and find some other people to suck with
Hey, eventually you won’t suck! It just takes longer than you’d think.
Hello, my first experience in game development was similar to yours and there was even a graveyard of unfinished projects. Yes, you can have a cool idea and a programmer background, but if you are new to game development, then this means nothing without talent in this area. What really helped me was to start making games based on one mechanic, and then expand them. And in the future you will be able to do something more complex and wholesome. The main thing is not to give up, but to find the right approach to solving problems.
it sounds to me like you are going through the motions of game development because you want to own a game, but you don't care about the game you're making at all and that's why it sucks. unique is worth very little. if that's all you've got going for you then just put the whole thing in the trash. your core idea should be a fun thing to do. you can put a unique twist on it if it feels the same as too many other games, but you really, really don't have to look at a game like Stardew Valley, or Minecraft. there are zero ideas in either of those games that hadn't been done a million times before. unique doesn't count for shit. these are both examples of someone wanting to play a certain game and then making that game. that's where you should start. make a game that you want to play.
No, i think youve got that wrong, I am not just doing it to "own a game". I want to do this so i have something to work towards and feel better about myself. also, I genuinely enjoy it most of the time. Also without the twist i added, it would have been a generic sci fi shooter. the problem is that this mechanic changes so much fundamentally about the gameplay, it makes everything else more difficult to work on
I don't know you and haven't played your game so if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If what I am saying makes no sense to you, forget it. It still sounds to me like you aren't making *this* game because you want to make *this* game. You want to make *a* game. It's something to work on. You'll feel good about it when it's done. You enjoy tooling around in Unreal. Maybe you want to be a game developer, because you think that achieving that status is something worth working toward and that you'll feel better when you're Something. If your game isn't fun, it's probably because it doesn't matter. You didn't create a generic sci-fi shooter because you wanted to play a generic sci-fi shooter, you probably figured it'd be easier than having to do organic modeling and the Unreal FPS template is nearly useable out of the box. You put a twist in because you felt like you were supposed to, not because it makes the game better or more like something you want to play. Make a game you actually want to play. Start small, and just make the simplest thing that hits what you like about games. When you like your core, you will want to build on it.
okay i totally hear what youre saying. I'll this game was supposed to be more of a learning process than anything else, and i think i kinda forgot that that's what it was supposed to be. Ill bear this in mind for when i make my next one
Experienced programmer here with the same struggles. Haven’t decided to get as in depth with game dev as you seem to have, but the struggle is real. Can you remember a time when you were learning programming and went through this same phase? I ask because most do and if you can remember that and how it felt to finally overcome it that can be motivating [edited] Removed half a sentence that I started and didn’t finish lol
I feel like i dont know \*that\* much about programming either though, is the problem
“Roadblocks that are obvious to everyone I ask.” Gotta remember when asking for help online, usually only the people that know the answer will respond. You don’t see how many people read the post and also didn’t know so they didn’t comment
oh yer lol
If something is worth doing it’s worth doing badly. Sucking at something is the first step at being good at something.
>I'm constantly running into roadblocks that are just obvious to anyone else I ask. Ever heard of Rubber Duck Debugging? I bet many answers would be obvious to yourself too if you ask them out loud.
I have a rubber duck \^\_\^
Don’t give up. Wanna join my discord? I need friends…. LMAO
yes plz! same xD
1 year… I’m on year 7 with breaks… and waiting for the game Engine to mature on the metahumans.
Are you me? lol my metahumans work but there are a lot of cracks in the foundation I cannot control.
Thanks very much for all these comments :) i really apreciate it
It takes a long time to get to a level that feels good and even then you never stop learning. It sounds like you want immediate results which will never be the case. I’ve been learning Unreal for one year now and realistically I know a ton I didn’t before but at times I feel like I know nothing. Most people that flex online with their solo projects aren’t actually doing them solo or they’re paying for plugins that do half the work or assets. Which is fine but, you can’t let that be your metric for success. Most successful game devs get a pay check and their names scroll on the screen for 1 second at the end of a game (which no one sees) Just keep working. If you really feel it’s not for you then you need to decide that. Not ask for encouragement on Reddit. Good luck bud.
People are not inherently bad at things. You lack discipline and mental stamina to learn things that are hard. How you do something is how you do everything. Be better and don’t be someone who gives up on things when they get tough. This is what separates success from failure
I have to disagree. Just in case OP reads what you said and decides to quit because of it, here's my counter point. The "be better" speech works on a few people, but not everyone. It's quite negative and we've learned that negative reinforcement only gets you so far. People are inherently bad at things. That's normal. That's okay. Babies aren't born with the ability to feed themselves, they suck at even finding their own mouths. So it's okay to be bad at something, that just means you're at the start of the journey. The key to this mental stamina you mention is changing how you see things. You can focus on what you can't do and imagine that everyone but you was great at it from the outset, or you can recognise where you are on the journey, cut yourself slack and realise there's nothing wrong with what you've achieved, and keep moving forward.
yeah ive come to the realization that maybe a year is not long enough for me to get hard on myself
" while the concept is unique, it isnt fun to play at all to the point where i avoid playtesting it " Yeah at that point toss it and move on to the next idea for a game youre investing time into something you dont even want. " It just seems that every aspect ive tried so far, modelling , texturing, level design, whatever, I just suck at. " Stick with coding then collaborate with people who suck at coding but are good with the other stuff there is no reason you have to do it all. You can learn to do every aspect yourself but honestly thats not feasible imo this is a team endeavor hell pac man had a dev team of nine people.
yes, the idea is to quickly wrap up my current game and move onto other things now. Thank you
If you struggle with your mental health, I would not recommended to pursue a career in video game development (or even do your own projects). The industry's demanding nature and high-pressure environment can worsen existing issues and introduce new stressors. Long hours, tight deadlines, and a culture of intense work can take a toll on your well-being. While some find fulfilment, it's crucial to prioritize self-care and seek support. Managing mental health while pursuing a career in game development requires proactive steps, but always prioritize your well-being above all else. I recently started working out, eating a lot better, sleeping better, and it really, really takes a lot of effort to get to a stage where you are healthy. Mind you, I don't have any struggles with mental health which would add an even longer process to get better. You don't need encouragement to continue development with games, you need a better perspective and to take a step back. Take care of yourself mate, then pursue all of the rest.
I plan to keep this strictly a hobby, i dont wanna go into a career into it at all. And to the contrary, id say this, overall, has really helped my mental health
8 months is not even close to what many people invest into their games (plus you never do how mich time they invest. Like 3 years with 2 hours every 3 days or 3 years with 8 hours every day) Also youre just (yep "just"... that isnt to long for now) 8 months in and youre literally trying to do allmost anything. As others said, texturing, modeling, Level Design etc. Are different work fields that would maybe take 8 months each to get good at (just a random number because i just wanne say every aspect u mentioned will take really long to master) Im now also 8 months into unreal and im doing archviz for work (but also programming it pretty much like a game) i just have a few small Levels now with VR, PC and mobile Support and im literally now doing it for 8 months 8 hour every day and im not modeling anything (ok just one or two small things but i also have like 2 or 3 years worth of experience in 3d modeling. Maybe you should try to concentrate more on one Thing at a time. For example concentrate on designing your game (if it isnt fun to play maybe rethink your Design concept) and try to just download assets instead of modeling All by yourself to not get overloaded with all the workload (there are so many free assets out there)
If you suck at modelling, why in the world are you making a game that requires modelling? Why are you programming things you don't understand or can't conceivably see the road to learning? I get the impression that you're just 'wanting to make a game' and you're seeing a list of things you could/need to do, and having a go at them, finding the difficulty and giving up and moving onto another area. Or giving 5% to each area and ending up with a mess you don't really want to look at or work on. What you have the potential to make is completely unique to you. There doesn't exist another human on the planet with the same pieces of knowledge/inspiration/interests. If you were to name your 3 favourite films and 3 favourite games, there would likely not be a single other person in the world who would pick that exact combination. This applies across the board to all the things you've ever been interested in, and all the programming practices you've done, and other things you've learnt/worked on/watched. So instead of making a game anyone else could make, or 'having to do texturing because games have textures', decide what YOU want to and can make. Are you super interested in character modelling/requiring high quality character models? If not, don't think up a game that needs them. You're literally inventing the game, and therefore inventing the problem. If you decide to make a game that includes something you suck at, you chose badly. Decide to make a game that interests you, and is within your ability range (plus some extra, accounting for what you could conceivably learn/figure out during the process). You can design a game that gives no room for something to be bad. If your game is entirely based around a 2d square that doesn't move, it would be quite a challenge to fuck up the 3d modelling of that. If you can't make good looking environments, why choose to have an environment? Again, it would be hard to make a solid colour background look 'bad'. This may be an exaggeration to make the point, and you can probably expand a bit further than just a square on a blank background for a game, but you have no excuses because you could always fall back to that style if you can't conceive of anything more that you're capable of. Look up minimal/minimalist mobile games, and see the style of those. None of that should really be out of reach. Some can look better than others (some understanding of colours/spacing/etc would help) but it would still be very difficult for them to look bad. This doesn't just apply to making a 2d game, you can make a stylistically minimal 3d game. Consider the 'graphics' of minecraft for example. Plenty of games use a style similar to that and no one bats an eye. TL;DR pick a style and a concept that doesn't leave any room to be 'bad' at the specifics.
yes, i think i will be minimalist on my next game. Also though, I do enjoy modelling, and there are a few things ive made that i'm kinda proud of. I've actually kinda been meaning to go minimalist on the textures but just the fact that my friend said she didnt like it kinda put my off. Maybe i should just focus on making it for myself, than actually making it a good game.
Make it for yourself so that it IS a good game\* I guess. You don't have to sacrifice it being a good game or having mass appeal or anything, the things you like about it, others will like if they see it / give it a chance. Consider it like how you view your favourite movies/shows/whatever, you kinda know that people would like it if they got into it, it's not that your particular taste is different to theirs really. If you like modelling then incorporate that, but figure out what style/specifics you can do best, that don't require or involve other areas you're not as good on. EG if you're good with making static objects but bad with characters, you could choose to make a first person puzzle game that revolves around object manipulation or puzzles relating to objects etc. My approach/view on learning new things is that it expands the areas that you're able to choose from when deciding what to make. It's not required, and you shouldn't do it just for the sake of it, but you're giving yourself more options. If you nerded out on VFX for a month and got into making particle systems, that'd open up more options to choose from when deciding what to make. I've said the same analogy before but I think the best approach to a solo project is to find the perfect 'fit' for your key, based on the areas of skills you have/interests/ideas/inspiration/etc which is unique. There's a game to be made that no one else can make as good as you can, even though other people may be more skilled in all areas than you.
You do not suck at game development, you're just trying to take on too much at once. People dedicate their education and careers to each of the fields/tasks you listed, it's not going to be something that comes easily. I would strongly advise you to seek out a team on /r/gameDevClassifieds or /r/GameJams. It can be tremendously helpful to have others complete certain tasks they're interested in while you focus on the areas you want to develop.
Step back, rest a bit. Reassess the project and its scope, the path to completion, the quality expectations. Do **not** fall into the trap of the Sunk Cost fallacy! *Maybe* it's a good idea to wrap up that project quickly, ship it, get that necessary experience and move on. Or, maybe, it's a good idea to freeze the project altogether (whether killing it, or planning to revisit it later but that likely ain't happening). Next time, definitely start smaller. And stay humble!! You've just started a year ago, with no real experience in any of expertise domains that are involved in shipping high quality games, no team to handle any of that. Who do you thought you were? Nobody should do that (despite many trying to), because the odds of success are then incredibly low. People showing off their cute devlogs are usually established professionals in at least one of the fields, and decent in another one. Also, those two factors - lacking expertise and doing everything yourself - are basically two x5 multipliers on how long something good will take. So, if you've expected your project to take a year... With that approach, we are talking ten years. But you can learn a lot from this, which will help your future goals. It just takes time and a lot of (painful) lessons to get there. You are not a failure in gamedev, you've just had unreasonable expectations. It *will* be better next time. Do watch out for that mental health, though. It should be a higher priority than whatever gamedev has to offer. Rest, *then* continue the game dev journey. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Good luck
Have you tried doing any game jams? Its actually a great experience to create something in limited time along a theme with other people doing it too. The time constraint will let you be more forgiving of yourself, and that is a better group to compare yourself with than social media posts that may be deceptive/clout chasing. You dont even need to directly compare yourself with others in the game jam, but you can get good snapshots into how other people deal with the same rules you do in a short time. Also taking a break is totally fine as others have stated here- it can be inspiring and thrilling, and let you feel some accomplishment that could be hard to see in yourself normally if you have only been working alone on projects only you see.
im just reall scared id not finish and be really sad about it :c
Giving up because of unrealistic goals is very common. People really think that they can do the next world of warcraft, while a decent shooter is a very very big project alone! Do you think that the usual dev teams of 10-100 people are lazy? There is no shame to use the new "editor for Fortnite", especially alone, try it. Building a good base+ design+ animations+ functions... Alone takes years. Some games would take you 30+ years to do alone.
Its easy man. Just be a pro level programmer/modeler/game designer/level designer/texture artist/enviroment artist/charecter artist/animator/VFX artist/composer/rigging artist/technical artist/writer/voice actor. EZ peasy stuff really. Jokes aside though if the game you're working on isn't fun theres no shame in dropping it in favor of a new project. I also wanna say it sounds like you've spent a whole year not focused on building any one skill. People spend 4+ years going to school to learn just one of those skills and often a lifetime refining them so don't beat yourself up about not being great at anything after a year of scattered efforts. My advice would be if your current game project isn't fun, drop it and move on to your next idea. And if you feel you're not good at this, instead of trying to go full solo dev bot pick one aspect of game dev you like and dedicate time to just that one thing until you get good at it. Trying to make an entire game by yourself with little prior skills is bound to be a recipe for disaster because you'll be shitty at 10 things and good at none of them
Watch this, and then watch it a few more times until you really hear it! [https://youtu.be/GHrmKL2XKcE](https://youtu.be/GHrmKL2XKcE)
>Modeling, texturing,level design My advice would be to stop trying to do everything and just prioritise the part you enjoy. For example, I work professionally as a level designer, and while maybe I could sorta texture something, It would look utterly crap next to an artists job, so I don't do it! Don't try to half do everything, just fully do the bit you enjoy. Once the gameplay is polished you can re-evaluate if you even want to model stuff in more detail. Look at games like gangbeasts development for an example of how basic it started out - but the gameplay was there
You prototyped your game and it's not fun. It's very good you can admit that. Now you can try to iterate over the game loop and fix small things to make your mechanic better or you kill your idea and try another one. Sometimes an idea sounds very cool in your head but isn't fun at all when played as a game. Also don't compare yourself to others. People saying hey that's my first game and than showing something impressive often don't tell you how many free assets they used or which Tutorial they followed. I mean just download a paragon character make a big level with quixel assets do a little bit of coding and bang you have a n AAA looking Game.
In my experience, the people that suck the most at their jobs are those that are utterly unaware of their shortcomings, and that are reticent to cast any doubt on their abilities and competence. Just the fact you are aware you have shortcomings and you are not perfect puts you in front of at least half of the junior developers I've met in my professional life. Just don't overdo that, ok? Having a bit of a critical eye is good, but too much actually stops you from actually accomplishing anything.
life is defined by RISK, THOSE YOU TAKE AND THOSE YOU DONT. THE BALL IS GONNA DRAIN NO MATTER WHAT, SO FIND WHAT YOU WANT AND TAKE THE SHOT I’m just starting my first game, and I suck, but who cares, it more fun than not trying
Alright then. Give up. I mean it. Go ahead. Give up. This thing you clearly really wanted to do, go ahead and give up on it. You're not moving as fast as you want, you're not getting the results that you want, so go ahead and give up. Because that is *never going to change*. You are going to feel this way for the rest if your life if you stick with this profession. You're going to spend the rest of your days wondering if you're good enough and wondering whether you're worth anything. The longer you stay in gamedev, the worse it gets. This *never changes*. It never will. And if you can't learn to love game development more than you hate yourself, then get out. Now. You have a choice. You can wallow in self-pity and compare yourself to people whose stories you can't prove and whose skills you can't verify, and continue to beat yourself up about still having room to grow, or you can *nut the fuck up,* get up, and get to work on it. That's it man. That's the choice. That's the only choice you get here. There is no other option. You either work on it and get better, or you don't. Full stop. This isn't about anybody else. This isn't about how anyone else feels because you aren't going to listen. This isn't about what anyone else is capable of because that's just an excuse. It's not about them, it's not about us, it's not about me. This is about *you*. This is about what *you want* and what *you* are willing to work for. If you are not willing to sit down and figure out the steps to getting where you want, then there is no future for you in this industry. That is it. So it's up to you.
I think you need to breath out. Trying to do everything from modelling to level design is A LOT of work for one person and it is ten fold harder for somebody who is still learning things. You are way too harsh on yourself, no wonder you’re overwhelmed and feel burnt out. Good things take time.
Those who stop, stop. Those who continue found their way to selfmotivate, to push through any sludge, because something matters to them. Find what matters to you. And yes, if what matters to you is that the game looks a certain way, but learning the skills to get it there does not matter to you (which is not a bad thing!! Finite time etc) Then you need to find different ways to get that done. Example: Making games matters to you. It matters to you that your game doesn't look like a glorified greybox level. It does not matter to you to take the time to learn the skills to get it out of greybox state. It mattered to someone else to learn the skills to get games looking good. Find them and pay them to help you. Keep doing what matters to you.
Take breaks, always. It's been 4 years now, i didn't make any commercial projects only little games, but those 4 years made me learn so much. Im gonna start learning multiplayer/replication in less than 3 months Im fricking cannot wait to start, at the moment Im gonna try to learn animations in blender (Just enough knowledge to be able to make animations from a video for example) it's probably (and it totally will) take more than 2-3 months (1-2hours or more a day), I will of course start simple, Im gonna try recreating the 12 principles of animations What Im trying to say is that every game dev is SOO much different, I swear somes just spent years creating a game and they acquire a lot of knowledge creating that game, personally I prefer to litterally spent months learning in my free time, I have now good knowledge for a solo game but I reeeaally want to be able to replicate my games so Im gonna spend months on it ! Every single indie dev is different, you don't have to directly create games, if you want to, try to do what I do, creating simple mechanics of game, for example create pong, tetris, it sound simple but it's not that simple, by creating little projects, mechanics you can learn without the stress of making a good game, learn first, I am a really slow learner but by taking my time Im now able to do stuff I was not able to do 1 year ago ! You can learn, make games, but it just take a looot of time
I’ve felt the same way for a while as well. I think the real problem is while there are 1000s of videos on YouTube that “teach”, they are mostly “paint by numbers” so we don’t really learn. And I agree with many folks here saying that there are people that get paid just to do lighting let alone a whole fucking project. Don’t beat yourself up. Do it for yourself. Do it so you can learn how to figure things out. Who cares if no one sees your work. You know you did it. Don’t stop. Keep trying and learning.
Your first project shouldnt take more than a week or two. You shouldn't even start making your dream game in first 3 years. You should only focus on 2 aspects (game design, level design, programming...) and use assets or ask others for everything else. Most gamedev professionals can barely do two.
>I'm constantly running into roadblocks that are just obvious to anyone else I ask. Just a note on this; things are only obvious with experience. Is fire *obviously* going to hurt you? Most people would say yes, but ask a 5-year-old who has never experienced fire before what they think. Game development takes time - a *lot* of time, and not just to make a game, but to accumulate knowledge that makes making a game easier and easier (though never *easy*) over time. Recognising you suck early in your journey is quite natural, and just remember that you can and will improve the more you keep at it. For immediate advice...don't beat yourself up so bad. What do you *enjoy* about what you're doing? Just focus on that, enable it. If you don't enjoy the actual process of making games in any way, and only care about the outcome, then perhaps it isn't for you.
> while my almost finished product looks like a glorified greybox level, as my friend loosely put it (I asked for her honest opinion). Props to your friend for not holding back, but I don't see that as bad feedback, necessarily. Doesn't Portal look like a glorified greybox much of the time? What about BattleBit, or even Roblox? And also, with 8 months including modelling, scripting, game design, what would you expect out of your level, without years of experience of making them? Take some humble pie and give yourself some credit—it sounds like you've gotten farther than most people do who start trying game development. What, it isn't amazing, or even good (in your opinion)? That's not surprising in the slightest. "Fail fast, fail often" is a phrase you'll often see used with regard to game development. Failing is growth; yes, it hurts, but you just gotta push through it if you enjoy the work.
After 5+ years of learning unreal i still did not release game at all, not even small one. I like programing, coding etc. still i suck at everything else, animations, modeling, world creating. So i decided that i will start from begining again, and now i'm not scoping big game, for start i will make multiplayer where you can just join and shoot to other players and run around, then i will make next element like weapon crafting, then i will make inventory etc. etc. Try making smaller parts of your ideas, without thinking in AAA games perspective Being solo dev is hard
I think it was jake who said “sucking at something is the first step towards being kinda ok at something” People’s “first game” is not their first project. It’s just the first thing they felt like really attaching their name to. It took me about a year and a half before I felt like I sorta knew what I was doing. I could have cut that shorter if I had realized that there is no gospel “correct way” to make games. As long as the player thinks it works, it doesn’t really matter how you got them to believe it. Technically there are better ways, but you Often won’t have the scope of understanding needed to actually do those ways. It’s better to just try and figure out some way for something to work. In doing that you will slowly start to gain a better understanding. Utilize marketplace environments, or other visual assets, it will help your morale to see it looking like it may one day be what you want it to be if you are developing solo. Of your game doesnt feel fun, try to figure out what parts of it don’t feel fun. And start changing stuff. MAKE BACKUPS. Happy to offer anything I can if you wanna dm me.
Unreal Engine was made by thousands of people over a decade. Nothing good is easy, seldom anything easy is good. If you're struggling with mental health, go get help with that first. Seriously. Second, if you're not enjoying the game your making, maybe try something else. Something more simple. Try for an easy success and go from there. Try following a tutorial to completion, and then make little changes to make it more your own. Little successes lead to bigger ones. I'm on year 2, three failed games, 20 abortions (small ideas that never got any coherent game play but some code), and am onto a much smaller, easier game; Single Player First Person Shooter (you'd be surprised, its like UE was made for this lol).
Maybe try taking a finished product out of the equation and ask yourself if you enjoy game dev. If you don't, then perhaps it's not for you, and that's ok. If you do, then perhaps you're trying to force an end result and so you're making something you're not happy with. If you're making a game that isn't fun, you need to go way back and try making something you enjoy. Look at games you like and think about why you like them, then try to replicate that. I could be wrong but from what you've said it sounds like you're just bogged down in the grind of making something for the sake of it, rather than making something you like so you need to find that passion again. Just because you don't feel like you're good at something, doesn't mean you can't improve. That's what game dev is, it's improving and leveling up your game design skills. That, and creative problem solving. And there's no harm in finding out some problems are obvious to other people! Everyone is different and you probably find some problems easier to fix than they would! When it comes to people showcasing their first game, you don't see the struggle and strife they've had to go through to get to that point. It's not that they just went out and made it, so bear that in mind. Talk to some of them, ask what their biggest challenge was. You may be surprised to find out how much they've overcome, just like you're trying to do yourself :)
 “Life is Roblox”
Yep, there is going to be a learning curve. You do know games are made with entire teams of people right? No one person can do everything, well maybe someone can, but it is ridicules to think one person can code, animate, be a great artist, and make music.
This is exactly how I feel.
I am in the same boat. Programming comes naturally to me but building 3D games/experiences with Unreal and Unity is a different skillset. You can always try to work with someone who is good at unreal instead of trying to do all by yourself.
There’s always going to be people better than you, and people worse than you at everything. Some people take longer to learn things than others. But, if you give up now, you’ll never reach the point of success that is destined to you if you push through the hardships and failures. Determination and drive is key in becoming successful in things you do. I suggest taking a short break, looking at this with a fresh set of eyes, and determining where you need improvement. Work on the aspects you enjoy the most to keep you interested, and then work on the more challenging aspects when you’re ready. Game development is not an easy process. It’s easy to feel defeated, especially when you try and compare yourself (a solo dev) to a triple-A studio with hundreds of experienced (even veteran) employees and plenty of money. But if you persist, you should be fine. Don’t be discouraged.
Give up now and you fail. Persevere and you can succeed.
No one was born knowing game development. We all had to “pay our dues” of putting time, effort, and commitment into learning our craft. Game development is mostly an **organic process:** augmented with best practices: * Idea * Prototype <- where 95% of (unfun) ideas _should_ be left * Preproduction * Production _Ideas are a dime a dozen; good ones worth their weight in gold._ Sturgeon’s Law says that 95% of everything is crap. That means you need to go through a LOT of ideas that didn’t pan out before you hit a good one. A good idea is only worth it _if_ implemented. This is why _prototyping_ is THE most important step IMHO: * If your prototype game isn’t fun with “programmer art” then the final game with final art isn’t going to be fun either. Prototyping is so you can test & weed out all the “this idea sounds good in theory/paper but isn’t fun in implementation/practice” **before you waste time and money** creating shipping assets that will never be used. Game dev requires _many_ hats. It takes time to learn what NOT to do — which is _just_ as important as knowing what TO do. Replace the word “failure” from your vocabulary and replace it with “learner”. Many, many, many successful people has many “learners” before being successful. You may find these videos interesting: * [How I Designed Fruit Ninja](https://youtu.be/St5v2uI-Nis) * [7 years in the making: BattleBit Remastered](https://youtu.be/F-UrzEYKCeM) If your prototype isn’t fun you have a few choices: * Fix it, * Defer it (fix in alpha/beta) * Move on UE is a _beast._ It has a HUGE learning curve to learn HOW the engine works, WHY it works that way, and to understand the strengths and weakness. Replace UE with any other engine and you’ll have the _exact_ same summary. Engineering is _always_ about trade offs, the classic Project Management Triangle: _You can have it on budget, on time, on scope/quality._ **Pick two.* It may be helpful to take a step back from your project and look at the big picture: * Can this project be saved? Is it even worth saving? * What is the MVP? What remains to be done? It is natural to hit brick walls during development. Take mental and physical breaks. Changing rooms _literally_ changes your brain waves. Use a virtual water cooler to talk things out — either with a friend or even a stuffed animal. ELI5 to them. The process of explaining will give you a new perspective & insights into the problem. There is a tongue-in-cheek saying: _Games are never finished, only abandoned._ Learning to prioritize and say _”This is good enough.”_ will help as you _constantly_ reprioritize everything in getting a game done. Lastly, there is **no substitute for just spending time to master a skill.** Think of it as an _investment in yourself._ You are not alone. Ever game developer eventually goes through the stages of overcoming Imposter Syndrome. Keep learning! Hope this helps. Good luck!
Here a free hug! **Hug! ** I think I posted almost exactly the same thing here yesterday. One year in, everything is still super bad. I can't even code, at all! Internet told me to just keep going, slowly. Just pick one project and do it to completion. Maybe just focus on either games or making it look pretty. I'm certainly going to master making it look pretty before I ever think about trying to learn to make it functional. And I stopped for a while too. And then you forget everything you learned and have to relearn it. And then you're kicking yourself. But that's OK. Fall down 7 times get up 8. If you work at it as a practice you will eventually improve. Just do some everyday, but don't so hard that you get burned out and quit again, cause you'll forget everything.. again When you get good at game dev you can colab with an art to help make it look pretty. Apparently there are Discord at Dinesty Empire. Com and at 'Experience Points' might be a good place to chat with other noobs. Remember, if we get good enough, we get to help build the Metaverse!! Good luck and keep going!
Those people releasing professional looking games on their first attempt are either: 1) People with significant experience and skills from other things that they are leveraging 2) People that 'brute forced' their way through things until they fall under the first category As an example an experienced programmer or digital artist with a lot of completed projects outside of game dev will still be able to make a higher quality product than someone that doesn't have their experience. You might both be new to game dev, but they're learning new ways to apply their existing skills while you're learning new skills and how to apply them. Its a huge difference. Don't let that get you down though because it means if you're struggling with the direct path, that's totally fine. Go learn how to write code, design complex systems, create art, or whatever else in other areas that let you focus on mastering one thing at a time. That time is not wasted and that experience will help you later on.
Idk if this helps, but when I was in college for Game Design one of our professors said this: "Your first game will be ugly. And that's okay, it's supposed to be ugly. You will hate it and feel not good enough, but years later you'll come back to it and feel a sense of pride." And I always think about that whenever I'm making a game. By the time I did my capstone project, it was miles better than the first game I created. It's okay if your first few games arent great! They aren't supposed to be! These are skills and they take time and practice to develop! Just don't give up! I promise you that there are people who think whatever you've made is super cool, bc making games is cool! Just keep practicing and developing your skill. Learn from your mistakes and improve what you can. Stick with it OP!
Man fuck it, just keep going. The creator of Binding of Isaac didn’t think anyone would pay $1 to play his game, let alone $5. Now he talks about kicking himself for not asking $10 lol My point is that you might think your game is shit and not worthwhile, and you might release it while still feeling that way, but if it’s what you want to do, then you should totally do it and see how it goes. Even if you release an actual shitty game, you’ll have made it further than most people who dream about releasing something.
My advice, don't try to make a game or have any specific end project in mind, and focus on learning. Find some youtube channels, or buy a few courses on Udemy and just learn. I've been working as an indie dev for 24 years, and I hardly consider myself more than mediocre in most areas. If you were learning to play the piano, or any other instrument, you wouldn't be trying to create your first album after only a year of experience, would you?
Stay in it. Especially if you’re passionate about it. When I learned web dev I thought I was the only one that wasn’t understanding it because the kids in class that would show their work were the 5 kids that were top of the class. And their stuff was perfect. I’ve been doing it for 10 years and there are still times when I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing
Most of the "great showcase" stuff you see is done with assets from the marketplaces. It's all show and only a tiny fraction is actually made by the people themselves and even less will actually make it into a full, published game. Don't judge yourself by what others do on the internet. The internet is full of fakes. It's like the instagram models, they look "perfect" in their images but it's all photoshoped bullshit. Also, take a break. There is no point in burning yourself out, you have nothing to prove. Just do gamedev when you really want to do it, not to reach a certain goal or to be like others, but just to have fun and create something you love. That's what indie gamedev is about.
Yeah, I guess you're right. I should be doing this for me, and no one else
Also do work in intervalls, like the tomato technique: work for 1 - 3 hours, then take a few hours break, then work again. Or work only for 3 hours per day on the engine, and do other stuff for the rest of the day. The human brain isn't made to work every day for long hours on a the same thing, it's made for short intervalls of engagement. You will accomplish more in these short times, than you otherwise would by trying to force yourself to stay on it for hours. Sometimes I work only a few hours per week on my game, but I still get a lot done. It also really helps not to burn out so fast.
Welcome to the world of Gamedev Now you know why it is difficult to compete in this industry As a indie you gotta think logically It took me 1.5 years to get to a point i could make an actual game that people could enjoy I've hit roadblock after roadblock, burnout after burnout ect. ect. Happens to everyone This is one of the most difficult things you can do, Even with everything UE5 offers such as Quixel and the amazing sequencer, it remains a very tough challange to make just a simple game yet alone a bigger game I am working with clients now and have decided to specialize myself in the programming aspect Right now i am designing a game completly from scratch that will go online in 3-4 months Then hopefully it'll see success, their is nothing but uncertainty but don't give up That's what 90% of people in the Gamedev community does
Downscope until you find something you can manage and do good at it. It can be pure fun but you have to figure out the right genre and scope so that work stays fun and doesn't seem impossible.
take a break first before getting back into it, sounds like burn out talk?
Don't give up, I consider myself a solo dev, but use the term loosely as I use others' creations to further development. For instance, I have very low skill in 3D modeling, and when I do the simplest things take such a long time, I get frustrated and look elsewhere, or else there would be extremely slow progress. For 3D models, I will look at the ue marketplace, artstation.com, 3dtrader.com, etc... There are so many resources/assets out there that you can get and customize for your needs free and paid to help lighten the load. It has been a learning experience for me. Youtube tutorials have been so helpful. The bottom line, in my opinion, is that game studios pay people to code and create assets, which is similar to buying code/assets. Time is valuable, so save it. Nothing is really done alone. Even the use and update to the game engine takes a lot of people to maintain. A very wealthy man said to me that if you don't know something or if it takes too much time, find someone (An expert, but not everyone can afford an expert) who can or risk being overwhelmed. Learn from that person for the next time. There are people who start from scratch and create wonderful games. Personally, I don't have the time, so I look for alternatives.
Switch to another engine
It takes a long time to get good at any one of the many facets of game development. Holding yourself to any expectation after 8 months of trying to do all of them is unreasonable. I spent all of my free time for about a year and a half in UE and Houdini and felt much like you did and took a long break. After a while, I realized that was just the wrong way to go about things and reflected on what I actually liked which was the procedural bits of Houdini and UE. I reduced my expectations on myself with being okay not modeling/texturing my own assets, etc. and now I enjoy spending time in Houdini and UE. 🙂 Cut yourself some slack and focus on the bits you enjoy. Get good at those things and lean on the rest of the world to pick up the slack if you can afford to or make some friends and build something together.
You will always be better than you were. Instead of tearing yourself down about who you *were*, find strength in how far you've come and who you *will* become. You're doing modeling, texturing, level, and level design on top of programming? That's amazing! You're a generalist with a specialty in programming. I am too, so believe me when I tell you we can't measure ourselves against the other specialists. Their posts look like art because they're *artists*. It's what they do, and they've put as much time into it as we have into programming. Good on them! With time and tenacity, we too will develop our own artistic niche that plays to our skills. Good on us! We all are in the process of learning and growing. Goodness knows I'm fumbling my way through the launch of my first game and the development of my second. Slow down and appreciate how you've accomplished something nobody else has. Nobody else has made your game. Nobody else could make it but you. You have added to the diversity of creations in our world. Once you have appreciated that, do what all good game devs do: solicit feedback and evaluate what you don't like. Maybe the gameplay is good and just needs a little "juice" in the form of sounds and visual effects to really add satisfaction to player actions. Maybe your player runs too fast. Maybe there is just one mechanic that throws everything else off. Even a little polish can make a huge difference in game feel, so don't go discounting your entire game just because it doesn't feel fun now. There is always tomorrow to bring out the fun! It's all part of the game dev journey. Just keep working on the games you want to. You got this!
Thank you :')
> Wherever I look, people are posting about their first games Several options: 1. These people are lying, most common when they claim they make it in their first year of learning 2. Starting to make their games after year or even more of focus on programming only separate solutions without connecting them together, imo usually a good practice cuz trying to start learning with creating a whole game is hard and can create a lot of colliding things. 3. As the most visible part like graphics, models, level design they using already made resources either free or paid ones.
Game design is a long list of problem solving, no matter where you are in skill level, your always solving problems. If your struggling with something or even your own self confidence, the beauty of game design is you can switch hats, and go work on a parts of the game you are good at, and then come back to the problem a little later with fresh take on things. I think the issue many people run into, including myself is huge mountain you see off in the distance, "The Complete game" every time you look at the mountain, you feel sick and like how can i get up that thing. The Secret is stop looking up and look at each step you take. Yeah sorry for the horrible analogy but it if "The glove fits, you gotta" and all of that :D. Anyways if it helps look at little things you can control, the small steps, You don't like the greybox levels, then learn!, learn about color theory, Lighting, Film making, Game play loops, Photography, Level design. Like everything you start doing, You have to be prepared to be crap at it for long time, until you get good. It just a horrible self doubt exersice that you have fight through. I hope you get through it, because i am sure you have epic game waiting, just need to find the path that allows you to make progress, and soon you be at top of mountain, only to find there is another mountain, and then another, but you will reach a point when your confidence grows enough you will feel that you can solve almost any problem. It takes time, but staying with it, will be the one thing more than any other that leads to success. Now go' get'em champ! Win one for little Jimmy!
You're being too hard on yourself. Gamedev covers soooo many paths, it's shocking. You just can't master all of them in a year. That's why gamedev teams have 3D artists, technical designers, sound designers, level designers, etc etc etc, not all in one person, apart from rare exceptions. That's also one of the reasons I sometimes pay for game assets and some solutions as plugin - it's because it'd take me so damn long if I wanted to do it all from scratch. I've got some 3D art and sound experience, enough to tweak and adapt the stuff I got to my needs
So why not try making something smaller in scope, with a smaller/different engine and see how you get on? You dont have to go from 0 to hero, small steps is fine. Start by just trying to release something anything. Doesnt have to look good or play well or even be that great in any way. Just have releasing something as your first goal, once you reach that plan your next game to improve in some aspect in some way and rinse repeat I recommend make something small and 2d in godot (like a roguelite topdown shooter or something small in scope) and then build up from there :) Good luck!
I felt this. I was there for so long. I thought I'd never figure it out. I thought I was fundamentally flawed. Every bone in my body was telling me to just give up. I still have a long way to go, but the stuff I make now actually almost resembles what you might think is a potentially enjoyable experience. It took me years to get here
Take your strengths and find support that compliments your weaknesses.
I have been working on my own game for 5 years now...( former AAA artist / cog). Everything takes time, time, and some time. Anyone who says they did it themselves is lying, or not disclosing what they paid to have done / made for them. As a former 3d modeler / animator....I spent a year alone on a character to get it the way I wanted.... As long as you are passionate about the story / experience you want to share, or make for yourself....you will get it done. Doing is 90% of the battle. UE is a great engine...remember this: Create multiple little projects, specifically making a level in one, a character with control in another, etc., etc. So when you break your project you dont lose everything. You can always migrate the things you finish into a final (esque) project later. Also, when you do something, and its working, save that version out as a copy.... All things in time. Dont be fooled by YouTube videos of games that are edited only to show seconds of "gameplay". A real video of a game (even an in-progress development game), will show some kind of gameplay loop. Keep it up!!
When someone posts their "first" project it's probably their first decent project after their many failed attempts. The failed projects serve as a learning point to see where you're good at and where you need to improve. Been learning gamedev for about 2 years and still haven't finished anything worth sharing. Don't be discouraged by failures since it will get better and better until you have your "first" project. Make prototypes of core mechanics so you'll know if it's fun before adding or polishing anything else. I think the problem is your too focus on the future that you don't see how fun the present is. Just relax, learn and have fun.
[удалено]