The Stuff Nobody Tells You About Game Development

95 of you watching this video are never gonna release your game i just kind of made that up but stick around to the end of this video because maybe just maybe you'll learn what i didn't know about making indie games and you won't quit your project and by the way this video is inspired by mark brown's video in fact i was so inspired i stole his title entirely thanks mark okay so first thing is you're going to hate your game after making games for 15 years i've essentially learned that this is a law it's called russia's law of hatred game dynamics and that's why i've made a lot of tools to make things so much easier for you so you can hate your game a little bit less like my free 2d game kit and my free 3d course both are in the description snag them they're totally free my tree no gimmicks and while you're down there give that like button a little tickle you're gonna hate your game because um well how do i explain this imagine dating the hottest girl on the planet and then one day she farts and then the next day she tells you the earth is flat then the next day she reveals she thinks deodorant is part of the patriarchy then the next day she reveals she's actually bald keep my

bike's name this is essentially your game you're infatuated at first but when you start building it out in unity you slowly learn it's a frankenstein i mean my current game father stopped wearing deodorant about the second day i met her i mean him so for example just take a look at this folder structure it's amazed finding my way around is basically like playing a metroidvania we've got a folder called asset dump i mean look at all these pre-made assets we've got a decal shader that's been jerry-rigged to work for our game okay wait never mind it doesn't work a toilet nice just toilet okay gun effects blood and bore effects another toilet wait which one do i use here's a trick if you ever need to clean up your project just create a folder and name it delete me soon and then put all your files in there it always works every time on top of the folder structure being a mess your game's art will look beautiful but behind the

curtain it's horrifying so just get used to it don't panic it's totally normal and i know it seems like it's not that big of a deal but i've quit entire projects because my project was a mess clean up your project it's gonna take a couple days or maybe a week and you'll be in love again ah kinda second your tiny little game is going to take probably 30 longer than you think i'd even go so far as to say if this is your first game it's gonna take you twice as long just take it from valve who delayed team fortress 2 by nine years [Music] or the team behind gran turismo 5 which was delayed by five years or even my own game pinstripe which took five freaking years so why does this happen the first reason kind of has to do with chaos theory essentially chaos theory in the context of making a game implies that little changes made to your project can result in massive changes over time

in the case of let's say a ladder in my game father it's not as simple as just allowing the player to move upwards while touching the ladder i mean you've got to think about what happens when the player jumps to the ladder should the player snap to the ladder's position and where should that position be what happens when the player gets to the top of the ladder so how do we know when to let the player go all of these tiny little variables have to be fine-tuned and you gotta consider their relationship to other fine-tuned systems in your game as the game expands so does the opportunity to break the game every single time a new feature is added it's gonna break the game now a video game is essentially this hyper minimalistic replication of our current world so it's gonna require you to essentially play god to make that happen and you're not god are you so you're just gonna make a broken world this video is brought to you by intelligent design academy prove to your heathen friends that jesus the christ created the entire world all for the price of 316. the second reason is

simple you're going to grow insecure about your game the longer you work on it so you're going to start adding stupid features that nobody asked for it's called feature creep and it's the satan of this world that you've created he's always slithering around telling everybody in your game that your garden is not good and there needs to be more there doesn't need to be more remember the price of your game it's going to be the price of maybe one or two big mac meals all beef patty getting all kinds of protein so you told them no pickle right so keep it simple stick to your gdd and that's a game design document and below is a really good one in the description i highly recommend you fill it out while you're working on your game third your indie game is not gonna sell itself but thomas minecraft but thomas undertale but thomas braid quiet that's like telling your friends to play the lottery because betty sue down in pickens won the lottery all right now i get it minecraft wasn't just lucky it was a great game so was braid so was undertale but are you sure that your game is great most games are just okay my games are

just okay the plot itself is a rather compelling mystery but certain aspects at the start don't hold up once you reach the conclusion so that's why we focus on marketing to ensure our game sells when the features that we're so in love with just don't do the job you'll get a good cleaning today so here's what you should do right now and i know this seems like not a big deal but it's actually the most important thing you could do in terms of marketing your game and ultimately selling it start building your audience now start posting on social media i don't care if it's a square that's just bouncing up and down in unity post the video post the screenshot or the gif get the content out there your goal should be let's say 2 000 followers on twitter instagram tick tock and youtube by the time you launch your game now what do you do with this following well obviously you can ask them to buy your game on these platforms when the game is available but the problem is you don't really know how these algorithms on

these social media platforms work i mean you could have them wishlist the game on steam that's cool but you don't really have control over the email list by the way a wish list on steam is essentially an email list it's just valve has control over it not you what i recommend is offering a free demo in exchange for somebody's email address so just post great content and then let people know that the demo is available on your website and then on your website is an opt-in form and this is on top of getting wishlists on steam that way by the time you launch your game hopefully you have 10 to 20 000 email addresses that you can email whenever you want to let them know that your game is launching on sale part of a bundle or part of a kickstarter campaign as digital entrepreneur jeff walker says an email list is a license to print money if you think about the way hollywood rolls out a movie or apple rolls out a new iphone or the gaming industry rolls out the latest game they don't just drop it onto the market they turn their market into an event how

can you create an event how can you create buzz with your game immediately well you can use an email list imagine being able to email thousands of fans who are waiting for your game you're going to get conversions you're going to make money this is why an email list is a money printing machine it's old school but so is bread and bread is delicious especially toast with garlic butter dipped in skitty sauce man i wish i had known these things when i started making indie games it would have saved me so much trouble thanks for watching guys i hope this was helpful be sure to leave a like if it was and be sure to download that game kit below it's totally free and wishlist my game father cheers [Music]