How To Start Making Games (The RIGHT Way)

I wish I watched this video when I first started making indie games and that's because when I first started making indie games my games took forever to make they got filled with a ton of bloat I didn't really have a schedule I really didn't know how to actually finish the project I had an incredible conversation with This brilliant developer named zier Nelson Jr perhaps you've heard of him he's the creator of a game called El Paso elsewhere I am your Beast a game called click holding he's a brilliant developer he makes Incredible games but the thing is his goal is not necessarily to make an incredible game his goal is to make a game that he could finish so if you want to start making Indie Games before you even start your game I need you to listen to this conversation I think it'll help you a ton I never want to start a game that I can't survive finishing uh a big part of this is because when I started my studio I had worked on something like 40 games and I would talk to friends who had made games that

literally changed the industry and they didn't look kindly upon those games because they're like ah yeah that game was great but you know it didn't make enough money to recoup so the team had to fall come apart and I was like man if a game makes pizza money I want to build the type of Studio where that's still a victory so we have games that have not performed as well as others but I built a structure where no matter how well a project performed commercially h for the most part we could still be happy we made that game so the way I make so you know an airport France can the run my dogs was made from the resources I had at that time space World organ training simulator was in that same space and as we've continued to make games we made 15 games in five years the phase I'm really excited about that we're starting this year is not just making the games that our resources allow for but like just going full in on

artificial constraints that's where click holding came from I was like what is an amount of money that as I'm making this joke with the Among Us developers at 3 a.m. is so laughable and small it makes this joke worth making H and I was like yeah 20 20,000 25,000 and so we made a game for 25,000 and if you make the at every that was click holding that was click holding and if you at every step you like well you have 3 weeks to make this game we will not choose a solution to any problem that makes it more than 3 weeks turns out you can ship that game in three weeks two months we we ended up having a two-month Dev cycle but it ended up becoming more like a month and a half one month because of some um uh because of some time we lost in the process of building the thing yeah uh but like this is the again the the brilliant potential of video games and the maddening part is

you can make a game in three days if you build the type of game you can make in three days I love that write that everyone to have the freedom as well as the personal precision as a Craftsman to make that game in three days three years three months oh man dude one of the most rewarding experiences of my life was when I stupidly I I stupidly told PewDiePie I could make a game for him in 14 days and I remember it was the I live streamed the whole thing and I it was cool because I got like 100,000 subscribers from his audience because they came over to my channel but yeah I emailed him and told him I could do it in 14 days and then once he said yes I was like oh cool PewDiePie said yes to me and then I realized oh wait I don't know if I think I don't think I can do that what am I thinking so I'm going to follow my face publicly in front of his audience

and I remember my I was working in my dad's basement at the time and he came home um from work and I think I was 12 days in and he was like are you going to be okay like he was like I think you may have bit off more than you could chew but what was crazy was I got it done and it was great and it was it was just this arbitrary hey let's do it in 14 days and that's that you know whereas with my current game Twisted Tower there is no deadline or or at least there wasn't uh now there is um but yeah that's what creates this threeyear long bloated mess if I'm being completely honest whereas I wish I would have just said no this is going to be like a 2 and a half hour long game it's going to have pixel graphics and we're going to make it for 100 grand and do it in a year you know so for you guys like like how do you know what uh parameters to give yourself with production is it just based on your

experience of okay I know these kind of games make this kind of money therefore I need to spend this much time on the next one I think a lot of it is at this point personal knowledge and this is another thing I I really advocate for for anyone really because we don't live in a culture that uh incentivizes or encourages it um I'd love to ask this question to you is like do you know at this point what you need from a game for that game to make you happy that you made it is it the amount of money makes is it the number of people like what do you need from a game I think because I have three kids it's money I think that's that's probably the primary and I don't know if I'm I I don't know if I'm ashamed to say it but there is a little shame in saying that but got three kids you know want them to get a good solid education and so in my head I'm like please God I hope this game makes enough money so that we can

live comfortably for the next three years while I make the next one so one of the big reasons I think it's also important to encourage people to make their first game small is do you actually like making games is what you like getting making gifts that get a bunch of likes on Twitter you can just you can just make those gifts you don't have to I've spoken to Art to musicians and they're like yeah I really want to make a like a Donkey Kong Country Style soundtrack so I spent four years making a 3D platform and I was like you could have just paid for a cool piece of art that looked like a fictional game and then built the world via a soundtrack and so like what I look for at strange scaffold is what's the constraint that excites me I was really excited at a game for me I know that being trapped in a room for some people this is heaven being trapped in a room with one game for five years that is my magnum opus would kill me it would drive me crazy what love is an

artificial interesting constraint that means I can build a really quality game for an audience out the other side while matching it I love hitting a deadline and hitting it well and then moving on to the next thing so I don't start three-year projects anymore I got you so to to answer your question now that I I fully understand what your question is that my answer isn't sufficient because the truth is well Thomas go be a lawyer or Thomas go go be a Salesman or go get into real estate you can make money there that's not one is you know you need to make games and that's a really important thing that a lot of people don't know about well right and so what I found was for me it's like I I have this CR this temptation to to try and make the games that are popular right now yeah I can't stand these games though the procedural generated or the Rog likee or um the crafting games these aren't they're not for me they're just not for me I can't play them

um I don't even know how to play them I suck at playing them I'd rather just play a really good atmospheric Story game that it has a really strong voice so to answer your question if I can make a great um if I could build wealth for my family and tell stories in my games that's it that's the metric that also defines a lot of things if like a publisher goes like well I'll take this game on but you have to take out the story you would never do that I know this is why you're here I know I know and I've had situations like that in the past with Publishers really they're like um we we had these people test it and they really want to include like more abilities and more skill trees and I'm just like I can't I don't even know if I can physic I don't even know if I can do that as a developer like that's just not my skill set my skill set is telling an emotional story and everything else is just a flourish the the the story is the goal and it's sad because you can sign a

deal with a publisher and they know that that's your skill set and they sign you for that they're like great we need a Story game for our portfolio but then as it takes a long time and two years later with new leadership or whatever or let's say they they they get a new team then suddenly they're like actually we want Doom 2016 instead of a story game you know and so they try and pigeon hole like retrofit you um retroactively put you into that category when you signed for the initial thing that's the big Pro problem I found with Publishers is that it's not the same person you had a relationship when you signed the deal it changes because the leadership structure changes over time especially lately but for you go ahead go ahead I was say to be honest like that's also something that this is a little spicy but this is also I think the root of so many indie horror stories about Publishers that they came into a room

and they said this is the type of game we want to make and the publisher said well we would like this version of the game you want to make and the person hears that and goes well you got money let's sign and then tries to make the first thing yeah and it's kind of like when if you've ever speed dated uh I haven't well if you've ever speed dated one of the like a pretty cool question to ask is do you want kids because that's just like a yes no and that defines so much of your life uh and like if someone across the table from you says no and you want kids or conversely if they say yes and you don't want kids that's the one of the biggest red flags in the world is don't date that person for three years and I and one of the big things I hear Indies do when I see Indies do all the time is they tell me this awful story about their publisher how they distorted their vision how they didn't support him

properly and I was like so like what did the publisher tell you that they wanted and they're like they wanted a storyl Rog likee procedural generation game and I tried to make my really cool atmospheric Story game and I was like stop right there what are you talking about of course you had a problem with that relationship because you didn't want the same thing