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Jonas Tyroller29 Apr 2018

Becoming a Game Developer... (5 Days in 1 Video!)

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Professional game development requires a rigorous, multifaceted daily routine that balances academic coursework, independent project iteration, and content creation.
02
Developers must manage administrative and marketing responsibilities, including producing educational tutorials and maintaining a social media presence to build a professional portfolio.
03
Technical proficiency involves implementing dynamic systems, such as adaptive music and physics-based navigation, while simultaneously resolving core issues like collision detection and spawn logic.
04
Success in the industry relies on disciplined time management and the use of organizational tools to maintain productivity across multiple concurrent projects.
05
The development lifecycle is defined by a constant cycle of experimentation, where broad ideas are narrowed through iterative testing to identify viable prototypes.
06
Long-term success requires the technical stamina to sustain repetitive development cycles while balancing public community building with the protection of intellectual property.

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Transcript

hey this Jonah's making games with you and they just came in from university let's try something different today again we're still in experimentation phase I'm documenting the entire journey to becoming a game developer so I thought this week let's just do exactly that let's just document the journey to becoming a game developer that means I don't need to do anything super creative I just point the camera at what I'm doing anyways alright basically have all of my notebook stuff here and just bring the two and just bring book to university every day hey when somebody gotta watch the dishes again think it's my turn it's my turn that we did [Music] [Music]

if you sit in front of a screen the entire day moving abilities [Music] this is a pattern this is a pattern this is a pattern so it's a TPM no for the most part I just want to get to work again I want to work on this will you snail for a little bit get a little further so I've got something to show have I told you the funny story about the mold in my bathroom somehow water managed to sneak in so I told my landlord they could use my key if I'm not at home to fix that and then the next day at seven o'clock in the morning I hear weird noises from my bathroom that's when they decided was a good time to start fixing actually this is will

use now again I'm making at the moment and this is more or less what I managed to do on Monday I know the game looks a little crappy but that's 100% on purpose let's say 90% I implemented the music system a friend of mine came up with this full credit to Yen who made the music it starts off relatively nice like this and then the more you loose it gets crazier and crazier and more and more annoying like this and then in the end it just sounds like that right I don't know how much of that I can show you but at the moment it's relatively unproblematic we're just trying to decide for a prototype idea we started with a lot of different ideas we created a lot of different prototypes and then we narrowed it down to the two best ones one of them is this one it's about rafting [Applause] you drive down this Oh this river and

your job is to keep all the little guys on the boat on the boat yes victory so now John is this - so what is he going to eat he's gonna want to decide it all well of course I had to continue coding it's

[Music] [Music] colder and windier than yesterday [Music] all right and ready for productivity now this is my to-do list if you want to get organized write more to-do lists they're awesome first of all we'll use nails so this was mostly back fixing today spikes don't spawn in the air now I got the music's annoying spike stone spawn in the air mouth and as you can see they don't spawn on top of each other now oh yeah and when I don't move I don't get killed that's another fantastic extremes I'm so

proud of you what and this is the University prototype I created cue step a fill-in strategy game you have to place resource collector near the resources not a super refined system yet but that's what I worked on you don't get how it works also I got to do a bit of social media of course just uploaded a new one where is a cheer dish no will you snail yeah so we'll see how that goes I'll just upload the same will you do Instagram as well because why the hell not for uploading to Instagram I usually use a grambler do you know grambler I can only recall it a 1-hour tutorial for my German YouTube a new

tutorial because I haven't done that in a long time so it's really late now this is the game I made [Applause] just given the diversity and I'm really hungry now okay before yesterday and I came off like I'm kind of exhausted [Music] it was never make me feel bad I think I wanna make lasagna

[Music] [Music] [Music] I'll just start editing the video now not this video about the tutorial I recorded yesterday let's edit that who's on your Stan so let's check it out

real quick okay I want to continue editing while the lasagna cools down let's continue editing okay I finished editing the first five minutes of the video editing the beginning of the video is always the toughest part because that's where you potentially lose the most viewers that's where your retention drops the most if you mess up that's the beginning of the video so far I think I did a good job [Music] I think I'll continue editing the German tutorial for now so we'll completely mix it up today I'm not gonna go for a run right away no no we can't do the same thing every day no but something I do very frequently lately editing videos during my daily upload period I edited two to three videos every day which is insane this also just a really long video so work to do hey hello it's been a second you might be the madam

tutorial of stuff Oh finished editing the entire 50 minute video now look at this craziness now I'm gonna I'm gonna export this which will take a while so I can do something different I can eat I can read whatever I'll just take a break no next step I have to make the cutting for the German tutorial something anymore so one tone dead tone if I come back look at the cable though oh my god I hope it doesn't explode actually I can't find the time now so it's probably quicker if I create them again you okay I finished writing the

description and the tags suddenly it's already really late again why it's time always passing so quickly still need some more time to upload though I think I can show you the current state of the university project though unfortunately that's the last thing I can show you because it's starting to get more and more concrete and we want to hold some stuff back for the later marketing period I'll try to keep documenting all of this so I can show it to you after the fact as you can see we just added a couple more buildings to the game whether this is even the prototype we develop into a full game or not who knows yo yo get some more YouTube stuff your watching right now let's import the clips and start editing as well [Music] [Music]

one of my friends visited me at the weekend and we recorded these shots with his drone so means I actually had some plans for the weekend so guess what I did on Friday guess what everything needs to be done today I'm just editing this video sorry no more time to record anything else definitely felt a little weird for me to have the camera around all the time let me know how you like it I think it's a it's probably a very interesting one-time thing right but I don't know if we need that on a regular basis because my everyday life doesn't change up all that much anyway it's pretty much the same stuff every week anyway so cover you not to do it once amazing we make the world your playground soon next one peace

Summary

The pursuit of a career in game development requires a rigorous, multifaceted daily routine that balances academic coursework, independent project iteration, and content creation. Aspiring developers often navigate a demanding schedule that integrates university-level game design studies with the practical challenges of indie development, such as prototyping, bug fixing, and asset implementation. Success in this field relies heavily on disciplined time management, the ability to iterate rapidly on game mechanics, and the strategic use of organizational tools like to-do lists to maintain productivity across multiple concurrent projects.

Key technical activities involve transitioning from initial prototype concepts to functional builds. This process includes implementing dynamic systems, such as adaptive music that shifts in intensity based on player performance, and refining core gameplay loops, such as resource management or physics-based navigation. Developers must also address common technical hurdles, including collision detection, spawn logic, and performance optimization, while simultaneously managing the administrative and marketing aspects of the industry. The latter often involves producing educational tutorials, managing social media presence, and editing video content to maintain audience engagement and build a professional portfolio.

The development lifecycle is characterized by a constant cycle of experimentation and refinement. Projects often begin with a broad range of ideas that are narrowed down through iterative testing to identify the most viable prototypes for full-scale production. As projects mature, developers must balance the need for public documentation and community building with the necessity of protecting intellectual property for future marketing phases. Ultimately, the path to becoming a professional developer is defined by a persistent, repetitive workflow that demands both creative problem-solving and the technical stamina to sustain long-term development cycles.