How To Make Games Alone (And SHOULD YOU?)

how do you make games completely alone I really can't think of a better person to ask this question to than Greg lenov he's the creator of wandersong beasty ball and chakori Greg has essentially made games completely alone albeit with some help for Sound and Music while also enlisting a large team on bigger Indie projects so he's seen both worlds in this conversation Greg and I jump not only into how to make games completely alone but maybe why you might want to not do it it solo and instead work with a large team but before we get into the interview I want to thank this video sponsor milanote milanote is a tool for organizing all of your creative projects into free form visual boards which makes the creative process Dynamic and customizable and it meets your needs I find it especially great for the early and messy stages of a project as the tool is great for planning brainstorming and collaborating on ideas while keeping everything nice and structured it lets you add text video images sketches code

Snippets full task boards and so much more so you can easily keep track of your game's progress for example here's a project where I've structured several boards that cover different aspects of the development process such as a brainstorming board and a mood board so I can quickly start getting into the creative process all while staying organized and not really losing notes or ideas along the way on top of that milanote has over 100 pre-made templates to to make it even easier to get started or simply get inspiration on how to best structure your workflow once you're ready to share your work you can invite teammates and get feedback or collaborate with them in real time this kind of collaboration is so important I use it for my game Twisted Tower I know plenty of other My Game Dev buddies do the same thing on top of that they also have a great mobile app which ensures you never lose an idea even on the go the best thing is that Milano is available for free with no time limit so iin encourage you to sign up for free

and check it out below by simply using the link in the description I I I was studying your portfolio and it's like number one you worked with Publishers and sometimes you didn't Y and number two is it true that some of your games were solo projects uh I don't think yeah like like M I've always had at least music that I didn't make in the games and well I mean that's that's pretty standard for solo devs though so I feel like you can still be classified ASO you out the music so if if if you're saying music is separate then yes I've done I've done some games that were that were solo minus that um I've kind of worked at every scale so I did games that were like just me plus like public domain music and me like plus a musician me plus a sound designer and a musician me plus an artist and a sound designer me plus a programmer and you whatever all I've done a whole bunch of stuff so yeah I worked at a lot of scales and I like I did web games I did mobile games I did RPGs I did free games like freear

RPGs uh and now I do commercial games on Steam and console games and yeah so I've been all over the place so was coin Crypt Solo solo you uh I coin so coin Crypt was it was solo for a lot of it and then um I brought on an artist for the last like year of the project who like redid a lot of the art that was in the game um and made it made it cleaned up so the game that people know today uses um that artist art his name is Tyler okay and wanders song is that solo wanders song was me plus a sound designer and a [Music] musician um and and their contributions were significant like I really cannot I don't think you could say wander song like is wander song unless you like because it's it's a music game right so it's like and that's why they were on it too you when I start when I started making that game um I I had the intention of doing all of the sound effects and music by myself uh and they it was like not good like and I was like

this I'm like I'm like going to fail like I'm I'm going to fail the idea of this game if I don't if the Music and Sound doesn't land on it and that's why we had the kickstarter for it and that's why we hired people to do that stuff you know because it was like yeah this game is only going to work if this stuff is high quality and we worked closely you know they contributed like meaningfully to like the story and stuff too you know yeah chory and so chory was was like a five person you know like me sound designer musici I artist artists and like sound designer helping sometimes as well so um and like the two artists were like my roommates at the time and then and then yeah the same sound designer from from chory and then Lona rain doing music um who was the first time we had worked together yeah was the developer of celest involved in that game uh not directly like I'm I was probably more involved in Celeste than they've ever been in the games that I've worked on but we like we we're very close so like we we talk a lot uh we like if there's

like like if there's any like if there's I mean so a lot of developers in Vancouver like we all do hang out and and talk but of of all the studios in Vancouver like me and the Celeste like EXO team like are about as they're about the closest studio to me in terms of just like how often we we meet up and how closely linked like our careers are and and stuff like that yeah beasty ball was that Solo or or team team like capital T team that's this is definitely a team game okay big old Team game okay great so first question I have about this this I I want to ask this um because I know people listening they want to know most people listening right now are thinking I want to be a solo developer I want to go solo and it's because it seems simpler right how's it how does let's say the very simplistic almost solo coin Crypt and Water song Life how does that compare to this bigger team life um it it is different I mean so

I still feel on on beasty ball like I I'm calling a lot of the shots so I say team because um like the production quality for the art and the audio uh and and programming like all this stuff is and the design so like every aspect of the game has someone helping with it and they're erasing the bar on it but at the end of the day all those people are still answering to me you know like like I'm getting kind of getting the fin it doesn't really feel like um it doesn't like uh how do I say like I'm still directing everybody so like there's not like an art director who's separate from me's deciding what the game looks like like I decide what the game looks like or at least at least have like a huge huge hand in it um so I don't I I've never worked on like a like AAA scale right like really really big team or and I have like beastball is like you could say about 10 10 people working on it um which is not the you know so I so I guess I I can't speak to like bigger than that I guess is what I'm saying just to context it does feel different it does feel different um I like it because at least I I consider myself a

social person and I actually really like that I get to talk to people all the time and they inject like the people who work with me on beasty ball inject so much creativity and energy into it and that part's really exciting to me um because I I can actually start to really feel like a fan of of the game because not every part of it was done by me right like when someone does a really good animation on the game uh or like adds like you know like like designs like a really cool encounter like I can be like no I love that you know and and I can really feel that like in a way where when I do it all myself I don't get to appreciate so that energy I appreciate a lot I do and I but on the other hand yeah I I do sometimes Miss like the flexibility it's it's not really even the um it's it's not like it's like we have like creative battles because actually everyone on the team is like smarter than me at the stuff they do like they're they're making the game better like it's like and I don't I don't like there's no friction when it comes to that the only friction is is just that it's it's that the game is so big we couldn't make this game without all the people working on it um so like

I I don't regret having them or anything like that and what game is this by the way Greg oh be beasty ball okay beasty ball okay because I Know You released that was it November last year yes so are you still working on it yeah it's an early access so we're still actively yes still actively developing it yeah wait so you're willing to say that beasty ball was a mistake while it's not even done yet I I a game like a game whose development was in the genre of mistake genre it's like it's a game that should well I mean look I'm very proud of it I think we landed and like I'm I think it's amazing totally I I say this but it's just that it's it's the kind of development style that usually doesn't go well I AG or I agree in the sense that my game I'll sh I interrupted you but my game I I know what you're saying because I feel that way about my game right now it's like yeah this probably shouldn't have been made in this economical context it's a it's it's a linear first person game first person shooter it's like a Bioshock Style game and it's like wow in

2025 you really want to do this Thomas you know you want to spend 3 years doing that so so you start interrupt but I know I know what you're feeling yeah CU because I mean yeah a lot of games are in that yeah you know and I I feel like I I was I only allowed myself to make a swing like this because I've had I've made so many games um because I made so many games that did okay and we had enough kind of funding around that we could afford a little bit of a risk yeah um and that's the only reason why I took you know and this and this like beastall this is like this is like lifetime dream game like this is what I'm it's like a game I have always wanted to make that I never felt ready to do that I I couldn't do myself so and this is like and this is when I was like you know Now's the Time I have I have the resources I have the team you know I could finally make this game and like and again I'm I'm saying that it's it was hard and and there were a lot of things about it that like you know it wasn't like the smartest choice I don't regret it I'm really happy we did it and like I but also I would never do this again I think I don't know I to me again in like 3

years but like it's I feel like this this effort right now is worth it for this game and like but it's not like a smart like I wouldn't recommend it you know right well I mean as it pertains to a team you know do you do you feel like if they heard you say that right now because they'll probably listen to the podcast would they be would they be disappointed in you no or or are you guys honest about this with each other like you know yeah I hope they' understand yeah I mean because we we all come from like well we we're all well we're we're friends you know and we all come from the the the like we're all people who are multi-talented or have worked on smaller projects before and we all enjoy the creative process I me that's why we're it's even now like it's why our team is probably smaller than it should be because a lot of us just love wearing lots of hats and love being really involved with stuff yeah so I feel like everyone really understands the the desire to like um you know like make just just just like the raw creative ability just make stuff and produce things and and fun making things

and and and then release it and move on to something else like that's all part of the process and I feel like everyone can on the team could appreciate like wow this is a big project you know everything that everyone works on is tied to everyone else's thing and things go really slow and it can be frustrating for anybody on the team because like yeah like when it's when it's big right every everybody can feel that that friction right so I feel like we all we all can yeah hey and don't forget to check out today's sponsor milanote you can start organizing all your projects completely for free by creating a Millan note account using the link in the description