Watch This Before Making Your Next Indie Game!

[Music] hi this is Jonas I'm an indie game developer and I've made a lot of games in my life already but for some reason I keep making the same mistakes so this is an open letter to myself I'll force myself to watch this video before making my next indie game especially before making my next solo indie game to remind myself of a couple of things that I want to do differently next time there's probably something useful in here for you as well just keep in mind that this is advice to myself dear Jonas from the future this is past Jonas speaking to you I know you tend to get very excited when starting into a new game project it's one of the most exciting phases of a game project and the way I know you that just completely puts you into tunnel vision mode we can't have that so please just temper your excitement if you want to make a commercially successful game you need to be methodical and you need to take it a bit slowly once you've calmed yourself

down a little bit the question I want you to ask yourself is do you really want to make your next game alone you've made a game alone will you snail you've made a game and a team Islanders you know the difference you're just way way more efficient than a team you can get more done in a team you can get faster and better results in a team of course there are downsides to making games on a team as well both has upsides and downsides I just want you to pause for a second and think about this question does it make sense to make another game alone the next question that you can only really answer once you've temper your excitement a little bit is is now really a good time to dive right into your next big game project or would it make more sense to work on a couple of smaller game projects for once in the games industry there's a lot of stuff going on all of the time there are new things you need to learn all of the time unity is constantly getting updates for examples or working on some smaller game projects is a really good way to learn and potentially find some game ideas that you can turn into bigger games later on finishing takes a long time in creating sucks so better enjoy the time

in between game projects where you can make a couple of smaller games once you're ready to make a game remember that appeal and marketability are the most important factors that's what you should focus on right from the get-go right from the beginning I know you're making a game that is fun is relatively easy for you but making something that is appealing and marketable that is a lot more of a challenge so that is what you should focus on right from the get-go right from beginning make that your main focus the next out prototype this is advice I give to pretty much everybody who asks me on how to start into a game project I always tell them prototype however for some reason I didn't follow that advice myself for my last two personal projects I didn't do any prototyping both for will you snail as well as for over Sonova and both of those times I regretted that decision I wish I would have done that because prototyping can really improve your ideas so much it can help you so much to find something interesting to find an interesting mechanic you need to design your game in engine and not on paper I want you to

try vastly different things once you found something iterate on it maybe even make some visual prototypes to test if something is appealing because during that entire prototyping process of course appeal and marketability should still be at the top of your mind and prototypes will help you massively to explore how appealing and how marketable something can be next step for you Jonas that is kind of related to prototyping as well is be open for experimentation don't go into it with the attitude of I want to make a tower defense game don't go into the development process with a fixed idea of what you want to create be open to all solutions be open to experiment because that's the only way you can find something interesting and original next up Jonas what I need you to do is once you're starting together game idea is do your research do it there is a little bit of research see if there are any similar games play those similar games then read all of the reviews read through the community have what are people saying about the game what would they like about those games what would they dislike about those games because

that can give you a lot of good ideas what to focus on in your own game what you need to pay attention to and it also tells you if there's even an audience for your game the main goal of that little research session is to find out if there is an audience for your game next up especially after checking out a couple of other similar games you need to know what sets your game apart you need to know what makes your game different and then you also need to lean quite heavily into that during the man for example what makes portal different is the fact that you have a portal gun that can shoot portals that is a very cool USP unique selling point however now imagine that that portal gun was only a very small aspect of that game that would not be very cool portal is entirely focused around portals that is the way it should be so if you have something that makes your game stand out if you have something that makes your game interesting and unique your game should be designed pretty much entirely around that because that's how you get the most bang for your buck if you have something cool than something that makes your game unique and interesting then

you want to lean into that make the thing that makes your game stand out stand out is what I'm trying to say then here's something you've done quite well so far and that is creating an MVP a Minimum Viable Product quickly within one month you should have a game up and running or will you snail I had playable demos very very early on that were just fun little mini games you could play for islanders we had that for all of us know where we had that and that is just always massively useful because that makes sure you can test it you can show it to people you can see if they like it relate to that is this thought right here always keep your game finished I believe that there are different ways to build your game you can either build it in a way where it basically always looks broken and super unfinished or you can build it in a way where it basically always looks like a finished game and I feel like that is the smarter way to build a game where you basically always working in on a finished game and all you're doing is adding new content and polishing it out it takes a little bit of extra effort but it comes with so

many advantages you can publish it at any time and you can iterate it a lot better you can be like okay what does this game need next the risk of not finishing is a lot lower have multiple exit points don't build a giant commercial game right out of the gate just build a little mini game first that you can publish for free that's actually something I was quite happy with with will you snail as well where I first published the game as a mini game on each door I oh and then I got a lot of feedback from people I saw that people liked it and they told me if you turned this into a bigger game then we want more different enemies etc etcetera so there were a lot of things I could take from that and I could also see okay there might be demand for a game like this I'm very happy that I published Willy there's a minigame first and if that hadn't worked out then I could have quit there so have multiple exit points one exit point is you publish the game as a minigame and if that is not well received then you don't go any further next up let people play your game early on I think we all most already covered that right I think it makes sense it's common sense but common sense Jonas I

know you're stupid even though something is common sense you oftentimes don't do it so just let people play your games early on get some feedback it makes sense and then another thing I've learned from will you snail is set up your steam page early I'm sitting at around 1,000 wish lists right now which sure is not I'm super mind blowing number but it is still 1,000 wish lists more than if I hadn't set up that sim page so it just makes sense to set up your steam page early okay I'm done talking to future Jonas now I'm talking to you again YouTube audience and fellow game developers if you have any advice to somebody who's about to start a new game project a new commercial game project please make sure to drop it in the comments below because then we can just turn this video into a place where you can go when you're about to make a new game or when you're about to start a new game project and you can just watch this read some of the comments and that will hopefully get you into the correct mindset to make something that's of course be aware that the advice I gave in this video was specifically for me it probably still applies to you but the main thing you need to keep in mind is

that everybody is different and the most important thing you need to do is you need to be aware of your strengths you need to be aware of your weaknesses and then you need to find a strategy that utilizes your strengths and finds a way around your weaknesses that is the most important thing probably more important than the other things I've mentioned before let's just keep that in mind right everybody's different on this channel I'm a game development content here's more subscribe and see you in the next one have you ever asked yourself why you're here you taught me how to manipulate it kill on your behalf so that's what I did [Music] and everybody is how you catch some volleyball [Music]

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