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Thomas Brush28 Jun 2021

Before you make your DREAM INDIE GAME… WATCH THIS

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Apply the 80/20 principle to your development process, focusing on the 20% of your efforts that generate 80% of your success to identify your unique value proposition.
02
Publicly releasing games is a critical step for developing emotional resilience, helping you build the thick skin required to handle constructive criticism and inevitable negative feedback.
03
Avoid making your dream project your first commercial release to prevent burnout and ensure you have the necessary skills for long-term success.
04
Release small, low-stakes projects on platforms like itch.io to build technical proficiency and practice the essential cycle of finishing and publishing content.
05
Use early, smaller releases as a testing ground to gather community feedback and identify which specific elements, such as art style or atmosphere, resonate most with players.
06
Transitioning from a hobbyist to a professional requires an iterative process of creation and exposure rather than a single, high-pressure attempt at a dream game.

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Transcript

So, you should not start your indie game project, your indie game dream project right away. It should not be your first project. My name is Thomas Brush. I make indie games for a living. And ever since I was like 15, maybe 16 years old, I've been making indie games. I want to jump into my subreddit here and answer a question from the user Totally Just Magic. Totally Just Magic asks, "When should I start my indie game dream project?" We're going to take a look at this question here. I'm going to answer to the best of my abilities. All right, let's head on over to Reddit here and take a look at this question. When should I start development of my dream game? I always wanted to make my dream game. As a mistake and failure, I learned that it's not a good idea to make it your first game. I totally agree and we'll talk about that. The question goes on basically to ask when should I start my dream game. Most of you know that my dream game, my very first dream game was a game called Pinstripe. Okay, this is Pinstripe on Steam. Um, this was my first dream game, my first commercial release. Believe it or not, guys, this

was not my first game. Okay, also I made a game called Never Song. Okay, I released this last year. This was not my dream game. Okay, even though these games support my family, pay my mortgage, pay my bills, my first games were ones I created more than 10 years ago when I was just a teenager. And believe it or not, NeverSong is actually a remake of one of my very first crappy games. Guys, this is newgrounds.com. I think most of you in the audience know what Newgrounds.com is. Newgrounds.com was the probably the very first place that indie game developers got started. In comparison, I think it io is probably a similar place to be right now. The difference is newgrounds.com is for flash games. You can see if you look at my work here, I have music that I've uploaded here. I

don't even know what this is. Let's take a look. So, [laughter] so you can see I released a lot of different music here. So, there's a lot of songs that I released here, artwork that I worked on. Uh, you can see I released a lot of animations and a lot of games as well. Okay. My first game, my very, very, very first game was called Flash Geometry Wars. So, this is just me ripping off Geometry Wars. I made this when I was 16, I think. I could be wrong, but I think I was 16. I'm 30 now. So, you can see it's just junk. It's not the greatest game ever. Um, but I just released it. It's like a fiveminute game that you can play on newgrounds.com. The same is true with my first game, Coma. Again, you might think that the artwork is beautiful, but guys, this is a very short game. The code is crap. There's no mechanics that are special in this game, and I'm ashamed of a lot of the things in this game that I created. But my point here,

guys, is that I had a very large portfolio for a teenager, okay? I was releasing music. I was releasing some artwork here. Just a couple pieces of art. Um, I really spent a lot of time actually making animations here. Joe, Joe, I don't think I want to do this again. So, I just did voice acting, I did music, I did all of the work myself. My point is for me I had to release a bunch of content to figure out this is important to figure out my forte or another way of putting it is to figure out my 20%. A lot of you who hang out with me on my live streams you know that I'm really into the 8020 principle. The 8020 principle says that 20% of your input, so all the work you put into your projects, 20% of that is going to result in 80% of the output. What makes you effective? Okay? So that 20% is your

forte. Most of you probably don't know what your 20% is because, well, you haven't released enough games to figure out exactly what it is. Why do I know what my fores are? And I'm still learning, but I have a general idea of what my fores are. Why do I know what my forte are and why was I able to take advantage of those fores in games like Pinstripe, which is artwork and music and atmosphere. Those are my forte and Neverong. Okay. The way that I figured it out was I released content and then let's take a look here. I read the reviews. Okay. So, as a teenager, I would just scrub through hundreds of comments to figure out exactly what I was good at, what my forte was. And here's the second point. This one's a big one. I built a thick skin, guys. Building a thick skin around, well, it sounds bad, but building a thick skin around your heart when it comes to trolls, when it comes

to people who don't like your work, and also legitimate criticism, that is super important. I think a lot of you watching this video right now, you're so scared to release your big dream project because you don't know what it's like to get well insulted or get really bad comments and bad reviews. I've received some of the worst reviews not only from users on Steam, but also GameSpot. GameSpot gave Pinstripe a horrible review. This really did devastate me when I released my dream project, but I don't know if I would have handled this well. I probably would have quit had I not gotten bad reviews on Newgrounds. I got plenty of good reviews, but I got plenty of bad ones as well. The same is true for Skinny. I Skinny I got a lot more bad reviews than I did for Coma. But ultimately, guys, the point is I read a lot of reviews about what my forte was, but also what I was bad at. And that criticism, whether it was legitimate or not, it made me a stronger

person. Before you release your first dream project, I highly recommend you start putting crap out there. Just put crap out there and let the world judge you. Experience the judgment almost. It's kind of like a sauna. It's like getting really hot and uncomfortable, but it's good for you, right? The same is true for releasing your games. You need to learn to get stronger from those bad reviews. And when you read those reviews, you're going to figure out, okay, what am I good at here? What's resonating with people? Once you figure that out, that's your 20%. And it's important to know what that is because you can use that to ultimately sell games. A lot of you, your primary goal is, Thomas, I just want to go full-time. Like, I want to make indie games full-time. We can't really go full-time in this day and age without making money. So, I would highly recommend you figure out how to make money. You do that finding your 20%. What makes your

games special? So, release crap on H.IO. Okay, this is H.IO. There's plenty of awesome stuff on here, but there's also plenty of crap on Hio. Just start releasing games on H.IO. Honestly, guys, I've released games on H.IO um in like an hour, okay? You can find them. Here's one called Pong Pong Pong Extreme. This is actually a game that I made in 60 minutes and released in 60 minutes. I have a video on it. After you finish this video, open up Unity. Make a really crappy game about a square that you click and it changes colors. Something like that. Or maybe it shrinks. Upload it and call it crappy square game. You've just released your first crappy game. You got it over with. You ripped the band-aid off. Now you're one step closer to releasing your dream project. Okay, now guys, this is just my opinion. This is just what I has worked for me. Everybody's personalities are different and this really is a question about personality. I can imagine the majority

of you out there do have thin skins. You you get one piece of criticism. I got a piece of criticism today and it really kind of ripped me apart. I opened up my email and the first thing I saw was some guy insulting me and it it actually really hurt my feelings. Then I looked into it and I realized it's the same person over and over again. It's a troll. That's something that I've learned over time. I've learned to just go, "Ouch, that hurts." And then go, "Ah, it's not a big deal." Okay. And also on top of all of that, learning how to get hurt means you can also learn to, I guess, through the pain, learn who you are. It's really hard to grow. It's really hard to learn who you are when you haven't first gone through some pain. All right? You can figure out your 20%. You can this most people that I know who've really figured out their 20% of what makes them super special and ultimately what allows them to sell their games. Those people they're tough and they've

they weren't born tough right by default. Some of them were, most of them aren't. They became tough because they had the bravery to actually release something and suffer and suffer through the people making fun of them for doing it. That includes family, relatives, friends, but also just the internet internet community and social media. The people who can suffer through that are going to be stronger for it. I highly recommend you do it. This is just my opinion, though. If you guys want to check out my subreddit below and see other questions and maybe post a question as well and maybe I'll answer one in the future, feel free to do

Summary

Aspiring indie game developers should avoid making their dream project their first commercial release. Instead, the path to professional success involves a deliberate process of iterative creation, public feedback, and personal growth. By releasing smaller, less ambitious projects early in their careers, developers can build the necessary technical skills and emotional resilience required to handle the pressures of the industry.

The core argument centers on the 80/20 principle, which suggests that 20% of a developer’s efforts will generate 80% of their success. Early, smaller projects serve as a testing ground to identify these specific strengths—such as art style, atmosphere, or music—that resonate with audiences. By analyzing user reviews and community feedback on these initial releases, developers can refine their unique value proposition, which is essential for creating a commercially viable dream project later on.

Furthermore, the process of releasing games publicly is vital for developing a thick skin. Exposure to both constructive criticism and internet trolling is an inevitable part of the industry. Early experience with negative feedback helps developers build the emotional fortitude to persist despite harsh reviews or personal attacks. This resilience is a learned trait, cultivated through the bravery of putting work into the public domain.

To begin this process, developers are encouraged to release simple, low-stakes projects on platforms like itch.io. Whether a game takes an hour or a few days to create, the act of finishing and publishing content is the most important step in overcoming the fear of judgment. This iterative cycle of creation and exposure is the most effective way to transition from a hobbyist to a full-time professional.