5 Solo Game Dev Mistakes You MUST Avoid (My Experience!)

I spent five years of my life making a game completely solo and I'm not complaining it was it was great I mean it paid off but it was tough it was really really challenging and there are five mistakes that I made as a solo developer that I really want to share with you so that you don't make those mistakes yourself these these are a lot of them are emotional mistakes that you can make as a solo developer and believe it or not emotional mistakes are always way more challenging and way more detrimental than maybe a technical mistake that you're gonna make oh by the way my name is Thomas brush let's get started [Music] before we talk about these five mistakes that I made as a solo developer I want to tell you about something that I really do love I really do love this sponsor and that's Skillshare it's a great place for you guys to learn how to

do all of the millions of things that you would need to learn to be a solo developer it's great because you don't have to spend all your time digging around on Google looking for the right answers you could take courses that are tailor-made for you to learn specific things about being a solo dev whether it's illustration animation sound designs storytelling coding unity unreal whatever it is that you need is a solo developer you can learn it on Skillshare so if that seems like something you're interested in you can get two free months by clicking the link below the first mistake that solo developers are likely going to make is they're not going to trust their gut now this might be a weird thing to bring up especially for the first point but I found that making a game for five years solo I found it really difficult to just go for it and trust my gut with a lot of decisions sometimes you really shouldn't trust your gut and we're gonna talk

about that in the second point but here is one really good tip for when you should trust your gut and that is when you are extremely passionate about something and there is something that you've been thinking about for a long time so a good example of this is when I was starting production of my current game once upon a coma there was one core idea that I could not get away from it wasn't something that was incredibly profound in unique that wasn't in the game industry it was a simple idea that I wanted to be able to explore a world as a child that's what I wanted the game to feel like I wanted to be about that and that was the idea that I couldn't get out of my head a lot of people may have said Thomas that's not very unique that's not going to sell and they might be right it might not sell but it's just something that I can't get out of my system and it's what drove me to finish to the game after - I think it's two and a half years of production that core concept that one

idea of being able to be a child in a big strange world that's what drove me to finish the game so I'm really glad that I trusted my gut there because that meant that I was going to finish the game see a lot of times trusting your gut is just going to let you finish the game that's like the hardest thing to do as a game developer especially a solo developer is finishing your game and trusting your gut gets you there now the second thing that a solo developer is going to struggle with a mistake that they might make and I made this is that you trust your gut in the wrong times okay the wrong time to trust your gut is when you're frustrated when you're angry when you're worried or you're anxious a lot of times this has to do with just the time of the day for me I've learned my gut should not be trusted when it's early in the morning if I get up at 6 7 8 o'clock in the morning start working I'm grumpy I'm not a morning person so I know this is not a good time to make some crazy decision and trust my gut I

know that my gut should be trusted when it's maybe after the gym or after lunch when I'm in a good mood when I've had some food or after a cup of coffee and I also know that I shouldn't be trusting my gut about things that I'm not necessarily passionate about so a good example of this is when you have feature creep in your game when you feel insecure about your game and you have lots of features slowly creeping into your game because you're insecure and you start adding features here adding features there adding features here this is the last time you should be trusting your gut because feature creep is often because you are feeling insecure you're afraid of your game you're afraid it won't be successful that it will be commercially viable this is the last time you should be trusting your gut and what I've also learned is it's really good to have a group of advisors people who you trust people who you respect who have wisdom a group of advisers to tell you when you should be trusting your gut and when you

shouldn't be trusting your gut don't listen to just somebody who tells you don't trust your gut you need to be listening to people who you really really trust people who you know deep down want to see you succeed and for me that's my family that's my dad that's my wife these are people who I trust I trust their opinion and you know oftentimes it's not necessarily they understand what a good game is they understand you people who understand you who understand how you tick they're gonna tell you Thomas that's not a good idea see your gut should be trusted when it comes from a pure artistic place and a lot of times you don't even know when that's happening but people around you who are close to you they do the third problem that solo developers make is they take funding way too early and the reason why solo developers take funding too early and what I mean by funding is like working with a publisher we're getting investment why do you think the solo developers will take funding a little

too early what do you think well it's probably cuz they're scared right or they're running out of money or they they need some support or they feel lonely and they're just wanting something to validate their project please please please please be careful don't take funding too early don't take funding too early I know it's tempting because the publisher they waive 30 to $100,000 in front of your face and they say hey we'll give you this money if you give us X percentage of your game it's really tempting to take that money especially when you're solo it can get lonely it can get really really lonely but you need to have faith in your project and see I know a lot of you are thinking holy 30-thousand $100,000 that's so much money it's not that much money it's not that much money when you think about the time invested in your game think more accurately of yourselves how valuable your time is when I first got out of college I was making thirty eight thousand dollars a year and I was speaking to someone who is older than me

and wiser than me and they said Thomas that is not a lot of money that is not a good amount of money and I said I just got out of college this is great you should be proud of me and this per what they said they said no you're worth seventy thousand dollars a year you're seventy thousand or more and what this person was actually doing was they were doing something that was actually very flattering they were telling me that I was worth way more than what I had accepted see a lot of times we take a lowball because we are afraid of the future or we don't value ourselves you're worth way more than you think you are and a lot of these companies and I I would never say this about my current publishers but I know this happens and I have a lot of friends where this happens a lot people take a price that they should not take you should be upping the price so I would recommend obviously reading a lot of negotiation books try and figure out how to negotiate a better deal and I'm certainly learning how to

do that overall don't take funding too early the best thing you can do is to run out of money making something incredible and then when you run out of money when you run out of steam or time or energy or creative output when you run out that's when you start looking for money you don't need to do it early okay and the reason why another reason why is because simply put when you run out of steam that's when probably the product is that it's highest value that you can start pitching it to publishers you don't want to pitch it to a publisher when all you have is a trailer you want to pitch it to a publisher an investor when you have a really solid demo so that they can offer the highest price point the fourth mistake that solo developers make is let's flip it on its head they wait too long for funding see when I was working on pinstripe I waited four years before I looked for funding this was terrible this was not a

good idea and the reason why is because I don't know what the law is called it's some kind of law or rule or theory or something where it's like basically I had put so much effort and time into this game early mornings working through lunch working through the evening working like sneakily at my desk job to get this game perfect I had done so much effort that it was like okay you need to find money you need to find a publisher so that you can work full-time on this thing there's only so much you can get done part-time and you're probably never gonna finish your game if you don't get some money to be able to work full time in your game so it's really a balance right you don't want to wait too long you don't want to go too early you want to hit it just right so the thing is is a lot of you have been working on a game for a while or maybe you've been working on a game for a short period of time and the idea of getting funding and getting investment is is nowhere in your mind you don't even think about it because it sounds like a dream right you're

thinking I will never sign a deal for $100,000 I'm not like Thomas I'm not like those other developers I'm not talented enough yes you are yes you are think positively about yourself think highly of yourself and start thinking about when it is time to get funding get a really solid demo together a great demo and start pitching that game to publishers now again you want to be careful is it time it's kind of like Goldilocks right you don't want to go too early you don't want to go too late try and feel out when you feel like it's perfect time the best time is when you run out of energy and you run out of money and you run out of that time and effort and you feel like you can't keep going that's when you start looking for a publisher number five you work in a panic so low developers tend to work in a panic you look at their office see my

office looks clean right now doesn't it I've got my puppy I've got my screensaver clean oh wow Thomas your life is so clean how are do you how do you do it if I turn to the camera around it's a mess it's a mess and see the thing is is you want to make sure don't be like me do as I say not as I do keep your lifestyle in your office clean don't work in an in a frenzy don't work in a panic have a schedule have a clean list of things that you need to do because the thing is is when you work with a team you kind of motivate each other right one person says we should be doing this we should let's like we should be more task oriented for example and you say oh that's a good idea and then you say we should be more our creative output kind of suffers we should do fun things together we should go see movies or we should play games together so that our creative output is more inspired and they say oh that's cool so you build each other up but when your solo dev it's really hard to build

yourself up so what happens is you typically go into a death spiral where you're constantly trying to have good output but you're in a frenzy doing it you're kind of like I've talked about this before you're kind of like a squirrel trying to gather nuts as fast as you can for the winter and that's what I do I try and get a game done as quick as I can before I run out of money or before I run out of funding this is a terrible way to be creative because you can't be creative when you're constantly frustrated or in a frenzy the solution to this is to not necessarily stop being a solo dev its surrounding yourself with people with a team that maybe they don't have stakes in the game right but they're with you and they're there to support you and they're there to advise you and again this comes down to having a group of advisers people who you trust who know you as a person maybe they don't know a lot about the industry but they know you as a person and they tell you when you need to slow down when you need to speed

up when they feel like you're you need a break or you maybe you don't need a break maybe you need to work harder it's good to have people to help you gauge how crazy you are I tend to get into a frenzy when I don't need to get into a frenzy and sometimes I sleep in a little too late I take too many breaks I've kind of random and I need somebody to help me do that and my wet my wife definitely helps me sort of temper things when I need to or pick it up kick it up a notch when I need to alright guys those are five solo dev mistakes that I've made and I hope you really enjoyed those those are for me those are really the biggest hurdles that I had you would think that it would be technical or financial but really it's it's a lot of emotional hurdles that you've gotta cross when being a solo developer if you guys like this video please hit subscribe hit the like button and leave a comment I'll try and answer as best as I can it really really means a lot you guys support me thank you so much talk to you later bye

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