Game development is not easy. It gets harder the more you try because of so much knowledge overflowing that you need to know. The key to finish games is called experience, and if you’re lacking it, you won’t finish a single game (at least not entirely or with missing features you wished it to have).
Index
- Why is experience essential to finish games?
- Dunning–Kruger effect
- Game Development Phases
- So, what do I do?
- Multi-tasking, myth, or fact?
- Wait, but can’t I get “experience” by developing projects?
If you can’t understand the topic, just think of each category as an issue you may be facing, it should make more sense.
Why is experience essential to finish games?
You’ll probably have great ideas for every project you start, and to make these ideas a reality, you’ll need the skills to do so. For some cases, this may not be true because you can always hire someone to help you with the skills you’re lacking, but there are many problems with it.
Some problems would consist of:
- You don’t have enough budget to hire/pay developers.
- Scammers. There are lots of scammers out there that are willing to steal your assets, projects, money, and most importantly your time.
- Most developers do not have enough experience (they are young or recently started). If they do, they are expensive, which leads to the 1st problem, and now you have to deal with 1 more problem.
- Project Management. You probably have no clue how to manage a team nor a project, which might lead to slow progress or team conflicts. Some games take years to release (it should take 1-5 months for an experienced developer, depending on the game).
Dunning–Kruger effect
The Dunning–Kruger effect states that people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. - Wikipedia
Why is planning essential for game development?
Planning a game will help you realize the complexity of your project, which roles you’ll need, maintain the development team organized, and choose the right decisions.
You should definitely read Game Design Documents.
Game Development Phases
You’ll face a total of three phases, which are:
- Pre-production
- Production
- Post-production
Pre-production is where your imagination will overflow. You’ll store all the crazy ideas you think of for your game and start planning.
Production is where the development begins. You wrote your ideas, and now you gotta implement them.
Post-production is a stressful phase. You’ll have to deal with positive and negative feedbacks, fix game bugs/glitches, start planning future updates, etc.
So, what do I do?
Easier said than done, right? yup
What you should do is spend more time learning the necessary to start developing projects. In my opinion, you should definitely learn not just one role but a lot of development roles, like Programming, Modeling or Building, and Animations. If you can become good at doing these 4 pillars, you’ll be finishing game after game.
bUt OnL tAlEnTeD pEoPlE cAn BeCoMe gOoD aT dIfFRenT sKiLlS…
Wrong, everyone with a growth mindset can become whatever they want if they go for it, it’s all about trying, failing, and repeating to become good. It’s a matter of time, if you don’t want to try it at least once you’ll never know.
Check out growth mindset: The Most Powerful Mindset for Success - YouTube
Multi-tasking, myth, or fact?
Not sure about you, but where I came from, it’s a myth. What you are really doing is Switching tasks which lead to deconcentration. You should only stay with a single assignment till it’s finished.
Wait, but can’t I get “experience” by developing projects?
Yes, but…
You’ll be learning new things whenever you start a new project, but you might not finish them because of so much stuff to know, hence the point of this topic.
If you still can’t finish games, you’re probably lacking self-control or general personal development.
tl;dr: become an all-around developer or just make friends with different skills.