So a highschooler emailed me about game dev......

hello everybody how are you my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe how my teeth are sensitive today I think ok I'm the creator BM called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called never saw and click the link in the description to check out those games ok so today's gonna be a really fun day actually I got like 10 questions from high schooler and he has a project that he's working on and I thought it would be really cool to share the answers with you guys because these questions are things I wish I had asked before even starting indie game development so let's just jump into his amazing questions and I'll try and answer as best I can and hopefully this won't be too long of a video and this is from Michael but before we get started guys I want to thank Skillshare for sponsoring this video Skillshare is an online learning community for creatives where millions come together to take the next step in the creative journey for 2020 now

specifically if you're curious about deepening your existing passion for game design it's an incredible place whether it's audio design for your games or to deol astray ssin or animation or unity or unreal coding storytelling marketing management whatever it is you need to learn about game development it's on Skillshare now one of my favorite classes is by Rusty Smith and it just covers unity basics now the coolest part about this ad read is hey what do you have to lose just get to three months of Skillshare premium by clicking the link in the description it's really that easy you really can't beat that guy's give it a shot see what happens let's make 2020 the year where you become a game dev and release your very first game or if you've already done that congratulations but let's make it the year where you take game dev to the next level all on Skillshare click the link in the description to get two free months of premium membership and explore your creativity michael says hey my name is Michael and

I'm an aspiring game developer he's very interested in writing InDesign I've been following your channel and projects for a while recently and he was assigned a career project as part of the project were required to interview someone in the field but I was hoping you would be willing to answer some questions so here are the questions okay so the very first question what is your daily routine and you know what let's see here I want to make sure some of these questions I'm gonna do really quick answers but this one I really really like what is your daily routine I understand the nature in the nature of game development every day is a new challenge is there a normal daily process yes actually so my daily routine was established by my dad he told me or he taught me basically what it looks like to be a an adult and and what a normal person should do in their you know in an office environment basically

you know taught me all about 8:00 to 5:00 taught me how to be consistent with my schedule not be you know addicted to social media while I work all that good stuff so thank you Dad for teaching me all of that I also learned my daily routine by working a regular job for three years so I was a graphic designer for three years and so it's really really hard for me and by heart I mean I always feel guilty if I don't have like a standard schedule so I start work around 8:00 8:30 which you know sometimes I start at 8:30 because I'm at the point now in my career where I sometimes sleep in a little bit so I'll start my day 8:30 I'll work till 4:30 actually I'll usually work through lunch or I'll take like a 20-minute lunch break and then I'll end the day at 4:30 and I will go down to my gym I have a gym in my garage and I work out for an hour in the gym just to blow off steam and get that out of the way so that's my daily routine I

don't usually get up and get ready for the day right I don't unless I'm doing a video like today I don't like I really don't get dressed for the day I'll just jump into the office which my my bedroom is like two rooms that way and I'll just jump into the office and get to work get a cup of coffee and get to work all right that's my daily routine as an indie game developer it's nothing special I love it though I love just jumping into the office and making games and drinking coffee and listening to podcasts or live streaming okay so the second question is how do you men manage and this is a really good one how do you manage your stress and motivation when working on projects he says he personally crashes hard after creative highs and it's difficult to pick himself up after that so the way that I manage stress is hmm the way I used to manage stress is after the day I would get a glass of wine or two and that's not

smart at all it's just not a good way to be the way I manage stress now is what I answered in the first question which is I jump into a weightlifting routine push myself pretty hard some days I don't push myself very hard and and that's it so I built my gym as almost an extension of the studio because it was that important to my work environment so my gym downstairs has leg press you know squat rack bench press dumbbell rack pull-up bar pull down bar pretty much everything you need to do a full workout when I hit a creative block I get really pissed off I get really frustrated and it it definitely kind of hurts my relationships with people I will get very frustrated and I'll I won't stop thinking about work it's hard for me to stop working so that's why I go to the gym at 4:30 because if I want to spend time with my daughter if I want to spend time with my

wife I'm going to hop into the gym and get all of that creative frustration out you know on the bench press or something and believe it or not you get all those endorphins you actually get a little bit of a testosterone rush as well especially if you're doing squats or deadlifts and those chemicals they actually make you feel a little bit better and you kind of forget about work all right number three do you encourage a set schedule for indie game project timelines yes I do this is gonna be a quick answer absolutely 100% I do I also know that you're going to change that schedule in the long run but it's good to definitely start out with one and it's good to keep one going especially if you have a budget or you're working with another studio like I'm working with a studio called serenity Forge and they will tell you that it's very important for us to keep our schedule because there's multiple budgets going on you know they have a team of their own that they have to pay I've got myself I have to pay a

salary I've got contracted work that I have to pay for and so when money's involved you want to be really really careful with your with your schedule number four what personal / technical skills skills do you believe to be valuable as a game developer I I think I'm only gonna speak to the personal skills one because this one's technical skills I mean you guys know C sharp unity unreal Photoshop blender those kind of things but personal skills this is actually one I've been really thinking about lately I was thinking about it today what's really important to me dedication to solving problems being able to stick with a project that you don't really feel a connection to and maybe you feel bored of an idea that you've come up with as a game developer sticking with it is really really

important and it game development is half of its creative and then half of it is problem solving and both both of those sides of the equation it's really easy to burn out you can get exhausted as a creative person you can hit a roadblock or what's the word a writer's block or a game dev block and when it comes to development there are so many things that can go wrong in game development I've always compared it to building a house of cards and when that house of cards is teetering and ready to fall or even if it does fall and it collapses in the game has a ton of bugs in it or the project is screwed up all those variables can't frustrate you so being able to follow through is so important as a game developer and I've definitely got a lot to learn there with follow-through as well so don't feel bad if you are someone who does struggle with follow-through you learn how to have a thick skin as you continue to make games 5 this one's important this

one's really important I wanted to talk about this one how saturated do you believe game development will become within the next year or two and how do you stand out oh my goodness it's gonna be it's gonna be really really saturated this year and next year that's just my gut feeling it's gonna be very very very very very very saturated now a lot of people wonder why it's saturated right my guess is it's saturated because it's so easy to learn game development and in fact not only is it easy to learn game development sometimes you have to learn it sometimes you can just drag and drop assets that have already been created for you it doesn't mean that your game is gonna be amazing it probably means that your game is going to be a clone some other game but my point is is that it's really easy for everybody to make a game so releasing on let's say steam it's kind of a it's an S show right now to launch on steam and so you really really want to be vigilant as I said

that vigilant about what it is you're launching and how it stands out so your next question was really important which is what is the best way to stand out if this market is so saturated and you know that's an interesting question because part of me says it's really important for you to be forward-thinking so think about what's going to be popular like if you're if you're totally thinking about the money or the commercial aspects of your game think about before we're thinking about what is going to be popular in the markets so right now I mean I see I'm not very good at this cuz I just make games I want to make I don't really think about what's commercially viable but from what I can gather the games that are commercially viable are the minecraft type games right the ones where you're creative whether it's fortnight roblox minecraft these games allow the player to be really really creative and the reason why these are popular is because streamers are able to continually play these games over and over and over again and the experience

is different it also allows for user engagement audience engagement so being creative as a player I think that's really really popular and in fact if you choose to not make that part of your game I don't really know if your chances of being successful are significantly diminished so allow your player to have creative control in your game that's one way to stand out the second way is technologically like thinking inside a word technologically thinking about the future so VR is a good example it could very well be that VR is the new standard like I have no idea there's all these new platforms coming out epic game store I bet you steam is going to do something new very soon that's just my gut apple arcade is another one Nintendo switch there's always new platforms so if you want to be successful always be looking for the next platform and jump on that platform as quick as you can because these platforms are hungry when they when they when they come out

they want to make a big scene like do Google stadia really wanted to make a big splash and it was uh I think you know it would have been smart to at least talk to them and see if I mean if you're if you're solely focused on money I think Google's your guy right so if you want to talk to Google or if you want to talk to any of these bigger bigger platforms and you know getting financial support is important to you I think thinking about those companies and and the ones that are trying to get into the game scene which is pretty much every big company right now those are the companies to partner with at least for now and again that solely has to do with money that doesn't mean being a successful game developer is only about money but if you're thinking about money that's my advice okay number six I'm gonna try answer this one quickly going from purely solo to being part of a team what do you think are the largest pros of a team and if any the largest cons I can speak really quickly to the largest Pro of being part of a team I've said in

in past videos it's it's lonely to work solo that's so we'll put that aside mainly being part of a team actually in the long run it's gonna save you money so it's really really important to to think about your time as having a price tag right so I know that a lot of you work for free right now because you know you're not getting paid from a publisher or a an investor or a Kickstarter campaign you're literally working for free but if you want to be forward-thinking if you want to think about a long term it's really important for you to put a price tag on your time so sometimes I put a price tag on my time for like three hundred dollars an hour just because especially if I'm really pissed off and I don't want to work on something I'll be like do I really need to spend time on this or where can I spend other time or more time working on something that I'm actually good at that I have a higher value right so I've spent a lot of my

time doing music and art and atmosphere and story that's where my I have my highest value a team is good because you can you can find people who are really good at something and give that to them and even though it might cost you money or maybe a percentage of your revenue like if you're partnering with somebody and it's 50/50 split that actually might be better for you because your time is better spent somewhere else so always putting a price tag on on things actually can help you in the long run it might stress you out at the beginning but I'm looking I'm learning this now it's really helpful to put a price tag on things and get some help because your time is better spent on the things you're actually good at that's what's gonna make the game actually have a higher value all right number seven do you think that becoming a part of a corporate game design of corporate game design is worth it it seems that large companies want very specific skill sets and it's somewhat limits you uh it depends on what you want I want control so I don't want to be part of a big

corporate entity or at least work for them like as an employee I'm certainly willing to partner with them but I'm not really I don't really want to work for anyone else I like to be working on my own so yeah it depends on what you want if you if you like one thing like if you really really like making models then maybe you should go work for Blizzard you know because you could be a model or full-time and get a really good salary alright number eight as a writer you're curious about what your opinion is on story based games as opposed to the mechanic so I go back and forth on this if you have a really good story then it's more important than your mechanic if you have a really bad story then your mechanic is important do what you're good at is my quick opinion there I focus on story but I've gotten to the place now in my career where I can actually focus on the mechanic as well with the help of team members or a publisher or someone to maybe offer up

their opinion about mechanics because mechanics is definitely not my forte story is so I focus on a story but it doesn't mean that I'm gonna release a game ship a game that has a really bad mechanic in it if that makes sense I'm much more into plumbers than mechanics anyway like Mario that was a joke man now son wait what do you believe is the most fulfilling part of the development cycle oh man starting the game and getting to the point where you know what it is so like maybe 25% into the game where you know what the game is and you're like really excited about what you've created the rest is kind of stressful starting the game is really stressful because you don't know what you're making but you need to get something done especially if it's your full-time job and then shipping a game it's a nightmare you hate your game at that point there's tons of bugs in it you have alpha beta testing and everybody's kind of crapping on your game and I'm exaggerating I think but and then you

release your game and then GameSpot gives you a 5 out of 10 review so you know I can't have a look I kind of can't let that one go can I and then number 10 the final question college is a requirement for my family yeah yeah I was about to offer an opinion about that but I can't I mean it's your family do you have any suggestion about what aspect of school to focus on networking or what degrees to work towards I don't have an opinion because I don't believe in going to school for this kind of stuff I just don't I don't see it as valuable but if you're forced to go you're asking do I have any suggestions about what aspects of school you should focus on if you asked me you said what degrees should I work towards get an engineering degree and then become a game developer with that like that's why I'm confused about school because I only think you should go to school for something you

really really need to go to school for like engineering or nursing or being a doctor or something in all seriousness like if you really want to be a game dev get a game to have degree like that's that's that's great my opinion here is very very salted and I'm staying away from offering my opinion here man but like I got a degree and so I'm kind of being a hypocrite cuz would I would I would I'd trade my degree what I'd be willing to let go of my degree if I could snap my fingers and change the past I don't know part of me wishes I had those four years back so I could be building my company at that time I don't know Michael I wouldn't don't don't listen to me about that all right guys that's everything Michael thank you so much for these questions these were really really good sorry if I was rushing through this guy's part of

me is looking at my camera and I'm like that camera is gonna run out of batteries here in like five seconds so I'm trying to get this video in but I really wanted to answer these questions for Michael as best I could you know game dev is a really really really really really really really weird industry and so my answers to these questions Michael are gonna change in a year's time it changes so fast and I know that's not specific to indie game development you know there's a lot of industries that change really fast but indie game development is especially true because the technology changes so fast and the standards are always changing and the platforms are changing and the people who have access by access I mean how easily available it is to become a game developer it's always changing so yeah just take my words with a grain of salt is that the phrase and yeah that's everything thanks guys subscribe leave a comment leave a thumbs up support on patreon that would really

mean a lot thanks guys fight you [Music]