Great games don’t get done within a day or two, it is a marathon. Don’t rush it, instead go at your own pace until you reach that goal.
Video game development is relatively new and does not have as many resources as there are for writers or artists, so that is why I’m creating this guide.
Why have I not made any notable games in 3+ years? I attribute my failure to 4 things.
1- I often do not know what I want my final product to be.
Answer
DON’T START! Get out your trusty pen and notebook and start writing a lot ( I have about 20 pages of ideas and gameplay concepts before I came across something great, so do not expect this to be a quick process). You know when you come across a great idea when it
- Sticks to your head and you cannot get it out
- Is easy to explain
- Gets you excited
- Here’s the big one — it gets others very excited as well. Getting feedback from other people that have similar interests to you are a great support to your development.
If you want a more flexible way of organizing your ideas and current progress, I highly recommend using Trello. It is essentially a board with flashcards that you can add to it with great features.
Here is an example of what my current Trello board looks like.
If you do get stuck and do not have any ideas, play old and new games, read or watch fiction and non-fiction, and generally expand your imagination. Not everything can be described in 0s and 1s.
2- I get too many ideas for features and my game becomes a mess.
Answer
Answer- I won’t spend much time discussing here as there are many great resources about feature and scope creep on the internet and YouTube. In short, stick to your core focus(es) of your game and don’t add anything that doesn’t add to the fun or goals of your game. Players enjoy quality over quantity and you can see examples of this everywhere.
3- I am not excited about my game idea when thinking about it.
Answer
Almost no one will be excited throughout the whole game development experience. You are only human and too much of one thing is bad for your life, so try other things or pursue other interests that you have. Do not force yourself into a rabbit hole of not achieving your expectations. Refer to question 1 for more details.
4- I get stuck on technical / art skills.
Answer
There are many resources out there, but some problems and goals will just take too much time to solve at your current expertise. You can either set it aside for later or design around it . For example, I am creating a pirate game focused on exploration and wealth. Early in development, I decided to create realistic water and spent weeks on trying to get it right until I burnt out. Even though the game didn’t go anywhere and I knew almost nothing about 3D math, it gave me experience that I use on my future games. Focus on what will make the game fun, not impressive.*
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You don’t always need to be in your game engine to continue on your game. Sometimes doing concept art, writing a game design document, or even writing lore to your game can help a lot in the long-term ( remember, this is probably a large project that will take awhile). Breaks away from your game isn’t bad, but NECESSARY to completion!
- Never touched a game engine
- Just finished a game that you are proud of
- Only ever experimented / learn on a game engine
- Quit game development
- Are in a cycle of creating and dumping prototypes
- Dedicated to developing your new current game
0 voters
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I will continue to update this post and increase its quality in the future. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please reply to this post as I want it to become a valuable resource to all developers. I also may not have been on Roblox for 3+ years, but I have used other popular and not so popular engines in the past.
It really caught my eye, and heck I hope I could organise my stuff properly.