5 Secrets To FINISH Your Game!

hey guys my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called once upon a coma and I've been making games for about 10 years so I want to share with you how I got through that for the most part I always finished the games that I started now today is going to be a special video because I'm actually partnering up with Rick Davidson who is a game career coach and we're going to tag team and help you guys figure out how you can finish your game with five Secrets before we get started I want to remind you that you can subscribe to Rick Davidson's Channel by clicking the link in the description let's get started all right one of the most important ways for you to actually finish your game is something called visualization some of you have probably heard of this but let me just start with a quote to explain it probably the best way that I think we can the quote is it is the mind that really creates the game it is the mind that really makes you work four to 5 hours a day it is the mind that visualizes what the game is to look like as a finished product okay this quote is actually from game developer Arnold Schwarzenegger no he's not a game developer but he's a

bodybuilder right so I actually replac the word body with game here so it is our mind that makes the game and it's the mind that's going to make us work four to five hours on our game to actually finish it so let me explain exactly how this works so visualization really for me is is sitting down in the quiet sitting maybe in a closet or in my bedroom nice and quiet turn out the lights close my eyes and really think almost daydream about what you want to achieve what is it that you're going to work your butt off for what is it you're going to finish okay so a a good way to do this is first to imagine what you want to create what is it that you're making and then think about what you want to achieve with what you created but maybe you could even talk about what you want to create what you want to achieve with someone you respect so for me maybe I respect Abe Lincoln right I could talk with Abe Lincoln this is I know it sounds weird but this is actually a trick that I learned from a book called Think and Grow Rich which is one of the top um self-help

entrepreneurship books out there so you can actually take this trick and talk to the person you respect and the reason why this is important is because it crafts what you're visualizing out of your mouth what you're saying it crafts how you say it to someone maybe you respect it's basically you're pitching your future to someone you respect and it's crazy how that changes your mind and how you think about your game so here's an example of visualization so at the end of 2019 for me I want to have released my game Once Upon a coma which I'm working on right now I'd like to have released that game um on Nintendo switch and steam those are the most important platforms for me I also want to release on Xbox and PS4 if I can um I want that game to make a million dollars at least gross um I want to spend that money on making another game um building up uh my studio maybe hiring some remote workers to help me with the day-to-day tasks I want to spend some of that money maybe paying off a house um spent some

of that money paying off some debt maybe you have some school debt or maybe you have some car payments or something like that credit card payments that you want to pay off really visualize the specific things maybe you want to pay off with money earned from your game but I would recommend that you don't make it only financial what are some social reasons you want to finish your game so for example um maybe visualize calling up your dad and saying Dad I just want to let you know that I released my game on Nintendo switch I'd love for you to check it out um maybe this is really important to you because maybe your dad maybe he didn't appreciate your your creativity or maybe he did appreciate it and you want to share that with him so that he's proud of you or maybe you want to share it with your your close group of friends maybe you've U Been someone who seems to always quit things maybe lets people down a lot maybe you want to prove them wrong maybe at the end of 2019 or whatever year you're watching this video and uh realize that you want to actually prove someone wrong that's a way to visualize imagine pulling out the

Nintendo switch or whatever platform you have and showing your friends and saying look at this look at this game I made um and seeing in their face like that they're impressed and that maybe they even respect you this is visualization so for me my visualization has already been made I made sure that I thought about exactly what I wanted to achieve at the end of this year and the reason why visualization is so important and I apologize that I'm spending so much time on this point but it's really crucial for you to finish your game and the reason Reon why it is crucial is because basically what you're doing is you're manifesting the future into the palm of your hand you're almost tangibly creating the future and what I mean there is it's almost as real to you as this video is as your computer or your phone that you're looking at right now is when you think and dream up something that's so tangible so real I'm talking about specifics close your eyes and think about all of the specifics where are you what's the season how do you feel what's your surroundings basically your manif testing your future the

reason why this is important is because it's really hard to let go of that future in your hands of that diamond that you've suddenly created with your mind it's really hard to let that go and so that means that you're much less likely to quit your game and more likely to finish it because you've tasted it you've you've tasted a little bit of what the future can be for you don't worry you don't need to light any candles or incense and and do a mantra or anything like that I know this sounds weird all you really need to do is Daydream specifics about what you want to achieve when it comes to games you can get really distracted by oh wouldn't it be great if I had this and wouldn't that feature be nice and oh I played this game and had that thing I want to do this and this and that and that don't get distracted by adding features into your game if you find that your game's not good enough yet you're not digging it people aren't enjoying it they're giving you feedback that it needs to be better whatever it might be solve that problem with tuning not with features what do I mean by that well say you've got a character that runs along and jumps and it's all kind kind of nice and

cool and you got enemies coming in you might get there and say hm I need a different ability maybe the maybe my my character should fly yeah that's it and then flying you're going to have to implement a whole bunch of maybe different physics and you're going have to implement different rules for Collision different controls tutorials for the player on how to do it maybe there's a lot of additional content that's going to take your project it's going to drag it out and make it go longer so rather than saying I need flying look to say how can I make running jumping shooting and enemies more engaging what can I do in there how can I make it faster or slower or or create the same content but have a different a different skin to it or a different flavor instead of shooting and having the enemies go back a little bit they shoot sometimes and they explode off the screen so those are things that you can do more quickly you can do that in days rather than doing it in weeks cuz as you know each feature is going to take you two weeks to a month it's going to drag everything out so solve the problem with tuning rather than with features another secret for you to finish your game is to stay organized I

can't emphasize this enough and the reason why you want to stay organized is because maybe things are really easy starting out you're really passionate you're just throwing stuff together you're excited about your game doesn't matter what things look like just as long as when you play your game you're excited about it it's fun and it's coming together but what happens is a year down the road when you're still working on this game and you probably resent it by now you're looking at the folder structure everything is thrown hap ha hap what's the word haphazardly about everything is crazy the naming conventions don't make sense some things are lowercased some things are uppercase some things are spaced out some things are underscored your tabs and indents and your files and your scripts are all messed up nothing makes sense you're much more likely to quit because it's so overwhelming imagine um a dirty car right you have this car and it runs okay it's an old car it doesn't look great and it's dirty and there's trash in it McDonald's bags and wrappers there's goo

some kind of Goo is on the steering wheel and dusts everywhere and you drive up to a dealership and there's a nice shiny car right next to you it's not that different but it's shiny and clean right you're much more likely to be willing to trade in your old crappy car and take on a tremendous amount of debt to get this new car when you have a game that you're working on and it's a mess you're much more likely and going to be willing to give it up and just take on a brand new project with all the weight of a new project you'd rather take that on than keep working on the current game so keep your game clean keep the folders clean and I would recommend keeping your office space clean as well if everything is clean if everything is in place and you have a system in place you can deal with the stress and the anxiety because I promise it's going to come you're going to feel anxious you're going to be feel stressed about your game so ensure that you have everything cleaned up so that there's only one focal point of stress and that focal point is actually finishing the game one of the greatest things I've found for people I've

coached and for myself is to have an accountability buddy what does that mean well it's someone that's a friend of yours or someone you know from one of the communities that you're in that's up to something in their life doesn't have to be the same as you where you can have a weekly conversation you can do it more you can do it less if that works for you but I recommend weekly where you get there and say okay buddy this week I am doing one 2 three I'm promising to get those things done and the other person does the same now I want to say be really really clear in here that your accountability buddy could be a friend you went to school with could be your best mate could be your brother or sister whoever it is they don't have to set the same commitments they don't have to be taking on something huge like you they don't have to be finishing a game but you want to make sure they have something so they participate but in terms of what you do you're committing something to them and to make this work Here's the Clincher here's the thing to make this actually work you have to have some sort of outcome if you don't keep your commitment what I mean by that well

I've had accountability buddies where we've said here is $100 if I don't do what I said I was going to do I want you to take my $100 and go out and just waste it on whatever you want go buy yourself something go on a an eating and drinking spree and the thought of my friend going and having a good time with my money I didn't like that at all so that's a commitment I've also had other people that I've worked with and their commitments have been along the lines of okay if I don't get my thing done I will come to your place and I will clean your hockey gear to talking about ice hockey I don't know if you've played ice hockey I've played ice hockey for a few years the gear stinks it's just it's gross stuff sweaty and anyway so it's cleaning someone else's hockey gear disgusting someone else I know had the whole I'll come to your house and clean your entire bathroom with my toothbrush so these are the things you don't actually want to have to do this punishment you want to have that as a fun game that you're playing but also something meaningful that says oh I got to I'm got to focus on this here I got a reason to do my work so accountability weekly meetings make sure you commit to

something each week this is what I'll do make sure you hold the other person accountable with having some sort of outcome if either of you don't do the thing that you promis to do another secret to finishing your game is keeping it simple this again is really important because when you're a oneman studio or maybe you've got three people on your team and maybe you're all unpaid right you're going to feel anxious and depressed if you've got this monster of a game that you've got to complete don't forget how expensive AAA games are I have a lot of people reach out to me and say Thomas I have this dream of making a game just like breath of the wild or I really want to make a game that's very similar to Fallout and I'm thinking don't approach it that way those games are millions and millions of dollars with a huge team one person working on the trees another person working on the rocks and another person working on one single enemy type you have these salaried positions working on very specific specific things and you're

sitting there thinking I want to make a game and I want to do it all if you're going to make a game Solo or even with a small team or I guess just an indie game be really careful and make sure you're keeping things small and simple what happens is you start your game really excited okay and let's say you start your game and you're saying I'm going to keep it simple I'm going to keep it small when you're a year into the game you actually get a temptation to complicate your game and the reason why is because suddenly you've put all this effort and energy into your game and you're thinking well if I'm going to release this game to an audience I want to make sure that it's perfect I want to make sure I can release every member of the audience including people who want things a little bit more complex so maybe I'll throw some RPG elements in there and then you're thinking well what about people who really like um voice over or voice acting in the game so I'm going to throw in some voice acting here and so what happens is you have all these unfinished strands in this giant tapestry so it turns into this big mess when you back up and you look at it you

realize there is a ton of content that you actually haven't finished yet and this is where you have to decide whether you want to finish your game or whether you want to quit it and the Temptation is to just quit so keep everything simple and small I like to think of Indie Games as small little diamonds okay these are extremely valuable um especially to like people like my wife when I gave her an engagement ring even though it was Tiny it was incredibly valuable your audience should be people who love small games meaningful games games um and that Find value in art because that is probably your best approach so instead of trying to please everyone you can please that small sliver of an audience which let's be honest that small sliver is very profitable so think about your game as a small diamond don't over complicate things and I think you will actually finish your game one of the big things for me is distractions in my life I'm sure you have distractions distractions when you sit down to work distractions when you're walking around distractions that pop into your mind distractions are the things that make us procr inate distractions are the things that say h

wouldn't it be more fun to watch Netflix than to work on your game oh wouldn't it be better to uh do some research on Reddit and to talk to other redditors than to implement this new feature you're working on so it's really important that you kill your distractions how do you do that well two tips for you here on how to do this and I do the first one all the time is to find what it is that you do a lot of the thing that's taking you away from your work what is it for you is it is it watching YouTube is it commenting on Reddit is it spending hours on Facebook is it playing games so think about first of all find what it is and then for me it's it's playing video games and and so many times in my life I'm like hang on a minute I'm playing this game too much most recently it's been rocket League before that fortnite before that pubg games that I just play and I really get into what I have to do to kill my distraction is uninstall that game and make it a Comm commitment not to play it for 30 days not just to say I'm going to

play it a little bit less or uh I'm going to you know try not to use it or whatever you have to uninstall it you have to actually get it away so that in that moment of weakness where you come across something difficult that you're working on or you've got a bug after bug or you're wrestling with something you can't figure it out the Temptation is get there and say might just play a quick game but if playing a quick game involves a 20 minute download and then an install and messing around you've got a barri to doing that and the other thing in terms of killing your distractions is have two browsers for example uh Chrome and Firefox and on one of those browsers you do your goofing around you're hanging out your hobby your whatever it is that's the the nonwork browser and on the other browser you have your work stuff cuz your browser is your enemy when it comes to distractions cuz you're going to type something in and maybe you're going to do some research on YouTube and here's all these other cool YouTube things that we think you should be watching or maybe you keep your tabs open when you work I

know a lot of people do that like oh here's my Facebook Tab and my Reddit tab because I don't want to have to go and open them again don't open that browser with those distractions so kill your distractions and it will Super improve your focus I promise you all right guys those are five secrets for you to actually finish your game if you like this video thought it was valuable Please Subscribe and hit the link below also hit the Bell icon if you want to see me do daily live streaming of me just making games and being an idiot and also just check out the videos and Vlogs that I post tutorials and motivational videos to help you continue making your game and make it great if you want to see your name in the credits of the next video head on over to patreon subscribe for $5 or more a month and you'll get your name in the credits of the next video also if you want to be coached by me one-on-one coaching via Skype or Discord I can help you make games I can help you learn how to make games or I can continue to keep you accountable to make your game and finish it head on over to patreon see if that's something for you and let me know thanks guys I'll see you later bye