I Answer All Your Game Dev Questions | Q&A

yeah in this video I will answer all of your questions about game development quick introduction my name is Jonas I'm an indie game developer and I've been making games for more than 10 years now recently had my first commercial success with Islanders which we made in a team of three now I'm working on a solo project called will you snail and it's a game where you go head to head with a super human evil AI that makes fun of you if you like being made fun of then will you snail is the game for you [Music] wish lists are highly appreciated links are in the description what got you into game development for the most part my father who's a programmer he just saw that I really enjoyed making these paper games card games board games so one day he showed me game maker and that's how I got started with game development what career path did you take education wise so I live in Germany I made my OB tool here or the US equivalent of that would be your high school diploma and then I

studied game design at hgw Berlin bachelor game design which is a pretty great school for example island or started out as a university project there I didn't quite finish my studies there though because I wanted to dive right into independent development what were your games like when you first started pretty horrible of course you still have your old projects that would be cool to see them yeah I still have quite a lot of my old games actually so if you want to see them then just check out the video I made about them a link it here and in the description how much it took you from knowing nothing about unity to being an intermediate that includes c-sharp art game design I think you can become a pretty decent game developer in just one or two years that is entirely possible the reason why your question doesn't quite work is because unity was not the engine that I used to run game development my first game engine was game makers so when I started learning unity I was already at the intermediate level but of all your old games which is your favorite and least favorite I'd say my least favorite is probably spoon tastic baby which was a mobile game favorite one of my old games is

called pink fishy where you destroy a fleet of submarines and boats with a tiny little fish that's what I call a power fantasy each why did you start a YouTube channel firstly to promote my games secondly as a second leg to stand on in case game development doesn't work out for some reason and then thirdly in order to help you do you need a beastly PC to start game development no not at all some game engines of course need more performance than others one game engine that is bragging with being very efficient and lightweight for example is Godot what engine or code language to create your games and really depends on what you want to make on your situation as I said for example if you have a really low end PC then perhaps you want to move for Godot if you want to make a 2-d game then maybe you want to go with game maker if you want to make a 3d game then maybe you want to go with unity and the same for programming language this really just depends on what you want to make my number one advice would be not to stress out about this decision too much because once you've learned one programming language and once you've learned one game engine it is actually a lot easier to switch to

different programming languages into different engines I would say if you're just getting started unity is not the worst decision just go for unity it's free it's cheap and it offers a lot of possibilities to grow in the future how did you learn to code as a newbie I keep copying scripts I also try understanding them but now I'm supposed to remember so much stuff I want to code without copying this is a very common misconception I see about programming a lot of people think that programmers remember all of the functions basically what you're asking is a little bit like imagine you're writing an exam in French or whatever you're like but how am I supposed to remember all of those vocabularies but the twist is you're allowed to use a dictionary so the the answer is very obvious you just use the dictionary you don't have to remember it and then all you need to learn is a couple of very basic things for each programming language for example how to do if statements how to do for loops how arrays work etc etc you just gotta learn how all of that basic stuff works that is actually not a lot you have to remember and then you can just look the

rest up if you need it and actually professional programmers do it just like that what I would recommend to you is start with some simpler and easier programming tasks you can only learn how to write scripts yourself if you start writing scripts yourself and if you want to start writing scripts yourself then you have to start with something very simple and basic and then slowly work your way upwards what tips would you give to an absolute loop with unity and most importantly I would like to have tips - absolute moves with c-sharp if you're really an absolute loop then I highly recommend you check out my unity tutorial for beginners otherwise the way to learn is just to regularly keep increasing the challenge the main thing you need is patience and the ability to pick the correct challenges at the correct time do you think 2 D is a little easier to create than 3 D for a beginner that once again depends on the engine for unity I would say 3 D is actually easier because unity was designed as a 3d engine and working in 3d and unity just feels a bit more natural but if you're using something like game maker then 2d is

your option one dimension more or less doesn't make a big difference in terms of coding as a beginner I'm trying to learn ECS should I start making games without e CS first and later I'll learn ECS all of you don't know what u CS is it stands for entity component system and it is a way to code your games in a more efficient manner so they run more efficiently I'm not sure how much hardware is honestly because I don't know how to use ECS full disclaimer here a general advice would be no you don't need ECS as a beginner there are more important things to focus on but if it interests you or if you want to make games that have federal performance if that matters to you a lot to them go for it what advice would you give to a person who started working in unity and already knows beginner stuff an intermediate person I would say how to get to that point where you know enough to make something on your own and be comfortable with the most of the things in unity I would say that is actually another misconception that a lot of people seem to have that you learn you learn you learn you learn and then at some point you have the skills you need to make a game I would say it is

completely the other way around you can learn how to make games extremely quickly for example in my beginner tutorial you can learn how to make a game within half an hour so you actually don't need a lot of knowledge to make a game you don't need a lot of skills to make a game I think it's a lot more healthy to look at it the other way around and be like ok which games can I make with the things I know now which kind of games can I make with the skillsets I have now if you're making games in unity then at the beginning perhaps you're limited to a couple of rolling balls and cubes and whatever just very simple and basic stuff but you can actually make good games with that so just work with the restrictions you have make the games you know how to make and then just make those games and that will expand your skill sets and that will give you even more opportunities to make other games next time is it a good idea to remake old games like Zelda Mario as a training for a beginner I mean sure it can be a good challenge to learn programming for sure the one thing I would keep in mind though is that you always get better at the things you do which means if you

copy old games you will become better and better at copying old games if that's what you want to get better at good if you want to get better at designing your own games coming up with your own ideas then that's what you should be doing very simple very logical you just become better at the things you do so do the things you want to become better at how to get to the next level and game development when learning it seems like you learn a lot when you're a beginner but then the learning process slows down and you keep developing with the same ideas so how to get to the next level the way you get to the next level is by increasing the challenge usually that happens automatically because if you keep doing the same things over and over again at some point you just start getting bored of them and you'd want to try something new and that's how you grow the next time you make a game just ask how can you make this more challenging but not too challenging and if you find those projects that have just the right amount of challenge then you'll grow by working on these projects how much money do you make from games that will probably soon be revealed in a separate video I feel like that deserves its own video but I have to say enough to make a living at the moment and if

you haven't made any money yet do you think game dev is a good thing to make money no game dev is not a good way to make money and how do you make marketing for your games check out my marketing video wink-wink we ever worry about your current game being unsuccessful yes I do worry about that which game developer doesn't it can always happen it's kind of unpredictable if so how do you keep motivated to continue development just because I very that it won't be successful doesn't mean that I know it will be unsuccessful so there's obviously the hope that it will be successful and that what keeps me motivated have you ever thought of programming in other fields besides games thought about it yes but I don't want to do it what's the conclusion of my thoughts if so which ones and which programming languages do you know I know C sharp and GML which stands for game maker language I know a little bit of Python but nothing to write home about top three favorite games of all time portal Starcraft the Talos principle but there are a lot of really good games like inside a tale of two sons rage what do you think about Nintendo I think they make good games do we have special

memories of Nintendo games or did you never really get in contact with them unfortunately the second one I didn't really get in contact with them do you ever wish your voice was different no offense why would you ask something like this I know I have a little bit of a funny accent because I'm from Germany but other than that are you working on a game beside will you snail know it is always pretty tempting to start something new and to start working on something else because that beginning part of a project is always the most fun that's where you can put the most amount of creativity and you're in a project that's so called shiny object syndrome where you want to start something new all of the time I have that a lot actually but not at the moment no I think the main reason for that is that I'm pretty happy with will you snail I'm so pretty excited about will you snail and also I'm starting to learn that if I start a new game project now in three months I'll be at this place again where I'm like I want to start something new so I hope I have outgrown that a little bit I'm not sure though it might be wrong what makes your games unique excellent question what makes Islanders unique is that it's a very simple and minimalistic city builder that doesn't

even have resource management and what makes will you snail unique is that you're constantly battling and interacting with an AI with an artificial intelligence having something that makes your games unique and stand out is pretty important I think cause that's pretty much the only advantage we have as an indie developer right we we can make things that are different and unique and interesting so we should use that advantage how can I make a successful game you can do that by hitting the subscribe button and watching all of my videos all's I think what's pretty important is that you make a game that is marketable because if you have a game that is marketable then you can more easily market your game and marketing is important for selling your game and the easiest way to make a game marketable is to make a game that has a lot of appeal appeal is basically the quality of your game that makes people go oh I want to play this when they see a screenshot of your game or when they hear about your game unfortunately game development is one of those things where there are thousands of things that can ruin yours and basically the way to be successful

is to dodge all of those bullets like in matrix I've only had one successful game zone perhaps it's too early to ask me about this how do you start to self promote your stuff what channels are best to build an audience I personally really like YouTube surprise surprise discord and Twitter are great as well but it's also just a matter of preference what are you good at what do you want to do if you're good at writing then perhaps you should start a blog or a website if you're good at making videos then you should make videos if you're good at making funny little gifts then perhaps Twitter is the place for you so it depends on your skill set it depends on what you want to do YouTube is great because it allows you to build a very loyal audience Twitter is great because a lot of games press a lot of games journalists hang out on Twitter in this code is just a very direct way to communicate with your audience what is your number one tip for finishing a game right question because finishing games is actually one of the most difficult parts about making games finishing games is a lot harder than you think it takes a lot longer than you think it can be very misleading because when you start making a game it feels like you're

making progress very quickly but the further you are intruding again the slower things will move you have to be very very careful with your scope the number one thing you need to do is you need to keep the scope small enough you need to make sure that the game you're making is small enough so you can finish it Tim Russ work has a pretty cool rule that I like you OSS whatever you want to make cut it in half cut your idea in half I perhaps would go even further and say just do 10% of the idea of you that you wanted to do make that and make that into a full fully contained finished game and then you can still gradually expand and increase it afterwards so what you want to do is you you always want to keep your game as close as possible to being a finished game as for every game I feel like there are different ways to build a game right you can either build it in a way where it's always very very far from being finished or you can build it in a way where it's always very very close to being finished and you just need to build your game in a way where it's always very very close to being finished how do you come up with ideas glad you asked check out my video about that it's a

little bit of an older video but it's still very up-to-date and relevant so check it out hey Jonas I'm currently working on a top-down shooter game with a few puzzle elements and I wanted to ask you if you think that there are some audience for games like that I'm afraid that's not enough information to tell if there's an audience for that if you're top-down shooters different and interesting and appealing then of course there's gonna be an audience for it cuz most people I spoke to about it told me that they think that most people would much more likely play 3d games just because that's something they know better I mean whoever said that kind of has a point because a lot of people just want to play triple-a stuff with awesome graphics however there are still a massive audience for indie games there's still a massive audience for 2d games so you can totally make a truly game work like saying that only 3d games work that's that would be ludicrous I'm working on a story driven puzzle game and I'd really appreciate some rule of thumbs tips advice excellent video idea I don't think that this is something I'll be able to cover in a Q and a session well actually really like

designing puzzles and I think I have a couple of really good tips for that so stay tuned one of the upcoming videos I hope will be about that just as a very quick starting advice I feel like what a lot of people get wrong about puzzle design is that you don't start puzzle design with the puzzle you actually start puzzle design with the rule set so you without even having any puzzle in mind you just design a random rule set an interesting rule set you start exploring that rule set while it's possible with the rule set what is difficult and challenging to pull off with that rule set and that's why you're gonna turn into the goal of your puzzle voila now you have a puzzle suppose we are using the personal version of unity and our game finishes in eight months and in the last month we buy Unity paid version so will the logo still come there will there be the Unity watermark in the game if you've developed the majority of the game in the free version of unity but then you buy the paid version at the end the answer is no if you export your game with a paid unity version then there will be no logo what is the salary for game programmer in the

first second third and fifth year I don't know but definitely a lot less than another industries the internet says between 40 and 60 K per year but obviously still very much depends on the company you work for what advice would you give for someone who wants to enter the games industry as a game designer that's actually another question I get a lot the most important thing if you want to work in the games industry is get the skills you need to work in the games industry and there are a lot of different ways to get those skills especially nowadays where you can learn everything online you don't need to visit a game school gather experience by doing your own little game projects and then the number one thing you need to do in order to get a job in the games industry is just to build up a portfolio so just having a little portfolio website that shows all of your works and what you can do and if that is any good then your chances of getting hired are actually quite decent as well and then the second part of the question with the fact that I currently live in a third world country that doesn't really change a lot about the question because you can still get hired over the internet right so that means if

you manage to get the skills you need to work in the games industry then you can probably work in the games industry and is getting a degree in North America or Europe the only option I got no I don't think that's the only option you've got as I said most gamedev companies don't really care about your degree they care about your skills and about the fact that you're a nice person they can work with so that's the two qualities you need to bring you need to know what you're doing and you need to be a nice and reliable person and you of course need to be able to show both of those qualities what getting a degree in north america or europe help you probably yes and probably an advantage but i don't think it's the only option you know we would like our game to be reviewed by you what do we need to do the answers i announce those videos beforehand before i play your games i always post an announcement in the community section of this channel or if you want to make sure that you don't miss it then you can also join the discord group link to that is in the description as well so i just announced beforehand when i'll record these videos and then you have some time to send in your game and then i'll pick a couple of the games that are sent in because the amount of games you're

sending me is just getting too high i can't play all of them I don't know I know you don't play mobile games for your channel but if you find one you're interested in would you play it in your spare time for fun yeah sure I would do that I've done that a couple of times actually although perhaps you might do a Jonas place your mobile games video one day is there any useful but unknown software that you like to use I really love snipping tool because it allows you to take screenshots so easily my whole digital life has changed with snipping tool and then also I think a lot of people underestimate the power of game engines there are so many cool things you can do with game engines there is not really an unknown tool but it's definitely an utilized use for a tool if you want to know what I mean then check out my five reasons to learn programming video where I'll show of some of my coding projects how can I make my game work in Windows Linux and Mac that depends on the game engine and unity for example it's very easy you just hit export for Linux or export for Mac and if you want export for Mac you unfortunately need a Mac because Mac doesn't want developers to

make games for their platforms or they're trying to make it a little extra hard there in theory it should just be one button but then usually what happens is that once you've got that game on that platform there are a ton of additional boxes that you need to fix how to get motivation just answer those two questions why do you want to do it why do you think it's worth it if you can't answer those questions then yeah perhaps you shouldn't do it and if you can't answer those questions then hopefully you will feel inclined to start working now that's all I got how can I overcome procrastination or you're asking the wrong person is struggling with this a lot as well at the moment so just plan exactly step by step what the next steps you need to take are and that hopefully will make it a bit easier you also see a lot of programmers that play the piano I didn't realize how do you keep focused by eliminating all distractions by doing enough sport and by eating healthy have a nice working environment take enough breaks if the correct lighting as well how do you make decisions in your team when your teammates disagree with an idea of yours or vice versa we might island ocean a team of three and the way we dealt with situations like that was just democratically due to

the fact that we were three that us oftentimes very easily possible basically just need to find one more person that's on your site and the decision is through plus with three people there can't be a tie if you like the more people have a say in the decision the harder it is to take a decision of course so what I would say is if your team is larger than three people then try to reduce the amount of people that have a say in certain decisions maybe your artists shouldn't be able to vote on the game design decisions maybe your game designers shouldn't be able to vote on the art decisions if taking decisions in your team is just too difficult then you need to set up certain boundaries and you need to set up certain systems certain rules how you want to deal with situations like that for example you can set rules like okay if we can't find a decision in X amount of time if you can't agree on something within 20 minutes by discussing the issue then Tom will decide because he's the him lead or all vision keeper or whatever those rules are something you probably have to discuss with your team as well how you want to handle the session making but I feel like that is a

discussion worth having because it will make all of your future decisions so much easier what are you planning on doing when you're done with will you snail sometime in spring I want to start another game project with grizzly game so the team I made Islanders with do you have any ambitions to work in the triple-a games industry one day he'll know might change in the future but at the moment absolutely not have you ever wanted to collab with another game deaf youtuber for an official steam release not yet should you consider a proper studio name in case you ever decide to hire additional studio members I mean I'm already a co-owner of grizzly games so I already kind of have a studio name I'd prefer to keep it to one studio for now but who knows what the future brings would you work as a full-time game developer I'm already doing that what is your dream game project I would really like to make a tower defense game because I've made a lot of tower defense games when I was younger and if you like I could make a really awesome kick-ass tower defense game one day I'll make that happen and weten asks what are some of your long-term goals the only goal I have at the moment is to keep making games and to be able to afford to keep

making games full-time as an indie developer that's the only goal I have at the moment and even though that might sound humble at first it's really not it's really asking for a lot where do you see yourself or your channel in the future myself in the best-case scenario I manage to make a couple more successful games a couple of things that I'd really like to experiment with in the future is perhaps hiring an editor the ratio at the moment has tilted a little too much towards making videos though having somebody edit my youtube videos or something like that that is something I definitely want to look into at the moment I don't think I can afford an editor but hopefully I will be able to do that sometimes when cats or dogs I would say dogs have a better cuteness factor but cats have a better cuteness to effort ratio so I would go for cats will you snail yeah Rob Rob Rob Rob can this be the first question no and for the grand finale the questions I get by far the most let's just answer them here so I don't have to answer them again why are you making will you snail with game maker and not with unity the answer is I really like game maker for simple

2d games however I do think that unity is a lot better for 3d and unity is also a lot better for bigger game projects game maker is like really really fast for smaller game jam project projects and stuff like that but also it's kind of hard to keep big projects clean and game maker and there are just a lot of architectural things that you kind of don't have in game maker but that you need in order to keep your game organized so if it would make will you snail again now I would go for unity however when I started this project I thought it would just be a small 2-d game and it turned out to be more than that when I'm stuck with game maker which to be fair it's not the worst thing that could happen game makers are perfectly solid engine for 2d games I went for game maker as an accident but to be honest it doesn't really make a big difference it's fine then secondly can you make a tutorial about insert tutorial topic here I can but I probably won't personally I don't really enjoy making tutorials that much there are more interesting videos I could make making tutorials to be honest is a

little bit boring sometimes and then also if you're asking me about a very specific tutorial like how do I create a gravity inverting plasma gun in unity can you make a tutorial about that then the answer is an even stronger no on this channel here I want to help as many game developers as possible and if you like making super specific tutorials like that it's just not what this channel here is about and from now on if you ever see somebody asking a question I answered in this video please be so kind and just link them to this video because there are timestamps to all of the questions in the description I kinda feel like I keep answering the same questions over and over again so hopefully this will help a little bit I want to thank you very much for watching as you know [Music] [Music]