from Hacker News

What it takes to make a game by yourself

by vicarrion on 9/15/22, 12:59 PM with 161 comments

• by piinecone on 9/17/22, 9:43 AM

  I love reading these kinds of posts. Whenever I’m reminded that I’m not alone, I get a little bit more self-compassion and that makes me more excited to release my game and helps me appreciate all the progress and hard work to date.

  I’ve been working on King of Kalimpong [0] on and off since playtesting a one-week prototype of it in 2014. I had no idea how much work a networked physics vehicle/movement shooter game would be. (I should have, I was 8 years into a programming career).

  Working part-time was critical (for many reasons), but so was learning that progress is a product of discipline, not motivation, and that I needed to learn “infinite endurance” (I think that’s what Chris Hecker called it).

  Once I adopted the perspective that I was some finite number of 3-4 hour blocks of concentration away from turning a goofy idea into a game that anyone could play, finishing became something that felt inevitable — as long as I kept going.

  I’ll take the time to write about my experience after I release (which is now months instead of years away) in case any other game developers get anything out of it. Until then, thanks for another reminder that I’m not alone!

  [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1989110/King_of_Kalimpong...

• by warrenmiller on 9/17/22, 8:33 AM

  I have a game with +10 million installs on the both app stores, the truth of it is making the game is about 25% of the work - the rest is dealing with marketing, screenshots, videos, user reviews, Ad/IAP SDKs, waiting for Unity to switch between platforms, dealing with Unity bugs/upgrades, etc.. When you're making the games it's a joy - the rest of the stuff can be a real grind.

• by njsubedi on 9/17/22, 3:03 AM

  I started making games right after I joined my university. Those were simple flash-like games with simple gameplay and basic UI/UX. Fast forward 10 years; I started a game studio and we’re a team of 50+ but still making really simple games for mobile. Not that we didn’t try making “huge” games but constantly creating new games and publishing them and seeing them succeed is what it takes to keep making games. As an indie developer, you’ll probably make a dozen or more games before people actually play one of your games. It’s a long battle but making many simple games is more important than trying to make a blockbuster in the first try.

• by Nemrod67 on 9/17/22, 1:04 PM

  The hardest thing is finishing, because everything is ever connected to a "perfect" version of itself...

  And it's way less fun (for most game dev people) to code the "perfect" version of an input remapping system or leaderboard system :p

  Obligatory self-promotion:

  I just released my Space Pew-Pew game on Steam in Early Access, complete with original 16bit-neoclassical OST!

  https://store.steampowered.com/app/914930/Alcyon_Infinity/

  "Destroy hordes of ever-improving enemies and their Mothership. Alcyon Infinity is a fast shooter/bullet hell with dynamic movement and risk management. Up to 4 Co-Op players with Controllers."

  I'm doing a stealth release, primarily for my own sanity. There is something different about having it out for the World to seen rather than working on it for 3 years and giving up in the meantime (happened twice).

  The magnitude of the marketing work ahead is kinda daunting, but at least I have some kind of anchoring to realspace for prospective players.

  A game you can play and refund is more tangible than a forum with promises...

• by darkteflon on 9/17/22, 2:42 AM

  This is timely. Since I’m on sabbatical, I decided to spend 6 months cramming Unreal Engine 5 and Blender to see if I could cobble together enough expertise and the bones of a project to work on together with my now five-year old son over the coming years. I always loved gaming growing up and I figured it would be a great way to get him interested in, and learning, a broad range of skills that might help him along the way in future.

  To be honest, it’s been more of a commitment than I expected, but I don’t regret the time spent at all and I think it’s something my son will come to treasure. Sketching imaginary animals into a text book and seeing them come to life in-game a few days later is a magical experience for a kid.

  I’d just repeat what a few others have said herein: for hobbyists, keep your expectations for what’s achievable nice and low, make sure you enjoy the journey, and perhaps think about it as something you put an hour into every day, rather than one-focusing on hitting concrete milestones, many of which may remain out of reach for months. Oh, and checklists: write loads of them and keep them handy!

• by checkyoursudo on 9/17/22, 12:02 PM

  Have any of you made a game, not just by yourself but only for yourself?

  I haven't (other than some basic terminal-based games when learning new languages, etc), but I've thought of a few that I know I would like but don't want to put in the time/effort to make them something that someone else would like.

  I also wonder about what to do when you have an idea that you know is way bigger than yourself, but you're not in the business of producing things that are way bigger than yourself? I've had a few of those, too.

• by mmcconnell1618 on 9/16/22, 10:51 PM

  I think video game success is probably distributed like startups. Maybe 1 in 10 will have real success, a few might break even or make a little and most will end up never making enough to cover the costs to create. The work is massive and the pay off is not guaranteed. Creating a video game by yourself is not for the money, it's because you're driven to create the idea you see in your mind.

• by pengaru on 9/16/22, 11:39 PM

  Perseverance and conditioning yourself to be comfortable with (or even excited/inspired by) long periods of unfinished-ness are core competencies in practically every demanding project I've embarked upon - not just software, literally anything that can't be started and finished over a weekend.

  A WIP is often largely indistinguishable from a complete and utter broken disaster. When the project necessarily takes a long time, that work-in-progress state can start convincing you (and your peers/family/friends/onlookers) that it's not a work-in-progress but a total failure. The only difference between those two realities is abandoning it vs. finishing it.

  Some (most?) people lack the grit to get through that trough of "unfinished-or-failed?" ambiguity.

  That's a lot of text trying to describe what I've found is the real substance behind "real developers ship".

  And somewhere in all this, you still have to have maintain enough perspective to know when to cut your losses.

  As a developer, and builder of things in general, I have hella respect for anyone who does such projects.

• by moviewise on 9/17/22, 1:14 PM

  Good luck to all indie game developers!

  If you need a break, seeing this documentary about it will be worth your time: Indie Game: The Movie (2012) https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/indie-game-the-mo...

  And, if you need some encouragement or diversion about the joy and reward of learning and how it get help you achieve "flow" and happiness from your work, please read: Some Advice On Happiness From A Few Good Movies https://moviewise.substack.com/p/going-through-an-existentia...

• by mr337 on 9/17/22, 2:43 AM

  The Mathematics StackExchange reference gave me a chuckle.[1]

  1 - https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3137017/how-do-you-...

• by rhincodon on 9/17/22, 12:23 AM

  Which makes what Stardew Valley developer, ConcernedApe, accomplished so much more impressive. https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile

• by cpojer on 9/17/22, 11:29 AM

  This is a great post, thank you for writing it. I got into programming 20 years ago because I wanted to make games, and I spent my teenage years in the 2000s building web games. As a high school project I spent a year building a turn-based strategy web game (https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1460221157634830337).

  I have recently gotten back into it to explore things I never got a chance to do before like building an AI and fog-of-war. Currently the game is inspired by Advance Wars, and you can see me play against my AI here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bGeEeti22bM

  I’m tweeting about the technical details and progress on Twitter:

  * Basic explanation and code examples: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1460221157634830337

  * Map Editor: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1488510688389566464

  * Fog of War: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1547967785015189504

  * Testing Infrastructure: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1538299796334686208

  * Random Map Generator: https://twitter.com/cpojer/status/1537444893580136454

  I’m currently working on the game design to make it “inspired by Advance Wars” instead of just a clone.

• by keyle on 9/17/22, 7:55 AM

  I've shipped quite a few by now and I'd preface by saying this person uses Unity as well.

  There are many game devs that choose to roll their own... The code stats look quite different.

  Also contractors... Some literally do everything by themselves.

  If you're doing your own game out there, hang in there and strap on for n^2 the expected timeline!

  I love making games because to me it's one of the hardest part of computer science... Not only you have to make something with immediate rendering, that runs at 60fps or higher and that is fun, full of contents AND unique in some way!

  Then you haven't even started marketing...

• by racktash on 9/17/22, 12:06 PM

  I started making total conversion mods for Half-Life 2 when I was a young teenager – I made the levels, models, wrote the gameplay code and so on. I never really recommend game development to anybody, because it can be quite an exhausting hobby (not to mention career), with a high cost and low reward ratio (note: in my experience!), but it sure taught me a lot about realistic project planning, budgeting the cost of features and so on.

• by danielvaughn on 9/16/22, 10:36 PM

  The irony of video games is that they’re often associated (at least in America) with childishness. And yet, by any conceivable standard, they’re by far the most complex creative endeavor.

  Creating a video game requires knowledge of the following: programming, graphics, 3D or 2D art tools, artistic ability, UI and UX design, game design, music production, cinematography, storytelling, copywriting, etc etc. It’s just astoundingly complex.

• by aschearer on 9/16/22, 11:00 PM

  Congratz on releasing! It's so so hard to actually reach that point.

  I've made a number of games by myself as well as with small teams. It requires incredible focus, scope management, and tons of time. It's like boiling the ocean. For me, it's all worth it to create something original from start to finish.

• by DaveSapien on 9/17/22, 11:40 AM

  I'm also a solo game dev with a recently released game.

  All this is really spot on with my experience. It just not clear if the author hired an artist or he just recommends it...its quite common for Game dev's to claim they made a game by themselves but actually contracted out the music, art, animation, etc.

  Somewhat of a bug bearer with me as there are some genuine solo dev's creating great work that get overshadowed with the whole solo dev marking spin.

• by phreack on 9/17/22, 10:22 AM

  It's certainly a huge endeavor. I probably have a pile of projects that I started and abandoned at some point for various reasons. The saddest of all was the first one that started to get traction... a story based game developed iteratively chapter by chapter where the writer got a hard case of imposter syndrome and just quit (it was just the two of us). Success is also hard to manage for some people.

  Right now my newest moonshot is joining a friend who's just started trying to make an educational game for developers, that teaches you in a fun cyberpunkish style how to develop an NES from scratch, step by step. It's an absolutely bonkers idea but it's something we'd have loved to have and that we're having a blast making, just for ourselves. I doubt it's ever going to be successful if we make it to the finish line and ship it, but luckily it's just for fun. I'm thankful of posts like these, it helps getting motivated to make it through.

• by hutzlibu on 9/17/22, 7:18 AM

  Hah, related question I had yesterday, is it procrastination, if you play your own game, instead of focusing on finally releasing it?

  (my conclusion was, a bit, playing it is helpful to think about balancing and final polishing, but only playing it and not improving it probably does not help much. In either case, it is probably a good sign, to have fun with your own game ..)

• by thunkle on 9/16/22, 11:23 PM

  After playing brogue for a couple of years, I'm really intrigued by rogue like development. I haven't started yet, but something seems more approachable about having a bunch of ascii characters as the gui.

• by flykespice on 9/17/22, 2:33 AM

  I haven't made a game yet (not even a prototype) though I have been tempting for years. I can't point the issue, whether my coding skills aren't up to the task or because I can't make assets for my game, or because I can't hire a staff and my game ideas scope needs a team to realize them.

  The problem is I don't know what is the right next step to take in front of all the issues aforementioned, and I have been thinking that for years without taking any step ahead or risking

• by prewett on 9/16/22, 10:59 PM

  This is really a sequence of seven games of totally different genres, which is definitely going to increase the difficulty and time commitment! It looks like an interesting game, though.

• by Cryptonic on 9/17/22, 10:11 AM

  Great advice, wish I knew that earlier in my life. I mean the start small and finish experience. I have so many ambitious abandoned projects, I even lost track xD

• by jheriko on 9/17/22, 11:09 AM

  its interesting to see how this differs from my own experience, from a time without game engines, 3d graphics libraries, the internet or even books for reference.

  the point about actually finishing things is a great takeaway. the first game i finished /myself/ took a week, then got another week of post-launch attention... but that was after some 10 years of personal work to develop the skills, then another 5 years or so in the industry gaining experience.

  i probably could have done this earlier, but i was constantly setting my sights higher than what was realistic.... but actually the lessons from doing that were pretty invaluable. today, i'm more than capable of filling any role in any of the specialised areas of programming required for games to an expert level... and a lot of that knowledge came from trying to build AAA quality features in isolation with little support - finishing features or engines rather than whole games.... so as much as i agree with the conclusion, i'm not sure it would have helped me to learn it sooner :)

• by NayamAmarshe on 9/17/22, 7:45 AM

  Starting game dev is way easier than finishing it. Requires years of commitment with a super uncertain outcome. If you're someone who cannot take financial risks, you absolutely shouldn't be in game development unless you know what you're doing and unless you're fine with failure and an empty bank account at the end of it.

• by michaelsalim on 9/17/22, 1:19 AM

  Whenever I get to know a developer that dabbles with game development, most of the time I can be confident that they know their stuff.

  It's such a demanding field that if you're passionate about it, you're bound to learn a lot of things. I don't do game dev anymore but the time I did taught me a lot about what I know now.

• by b800h on 9/17/22, 8:15 AM

  The game that the author is writing seems quite similar in concept to Spore, which I thought was interesting.

• by bambataa on 9/17/22, 8:55 AM

  I dream of creating “the thinking player’s Stronghold” with more complex defences and economy, but articles like this confirm that it will only ever be a dream. Hell, perhaps DF is already 80% of what I want.

• by Razengan on 9/17/22, 12:41 AM

  Not getting bored with it.

• by foobarbecue on 9/17/22, 12:29 AM

  Nice to see an NM Tech alum pop up here! I did grad school there.

• by stevage on 9/18/22, 11:58 AM

  Seems like an odd choice of game format for a solo dev, since it seems to be essentially making 7 separate games?

• by darepublic on 9/17/22, 6:17 AM

  The lines of code section shows the number of files not loc. I thought you had 333 loc at first

• by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung on 9/17/22, 2:22 AM

  Just look at the guy that tried to make Yandere Simulator, and don't do that stuff.

• by Eratosthenes on 9/17/22, 5:50 AM

  >predictably dense math answer

  They gave you the damn formula....

• by greazy on 9/16/22, 10:57 PM

  I was surprised by the low bum we of lines of code.

• by lienhoangduy on 9/17/22, 9:36 AM

  Can a no-coder create a game by himself?

• by bergenty on 9/16/22, 10:52 PM

  Not much, I was able to make 9 levels of a very graphic intensive game in unreal over six months. Is it really that much work to take it from that to something that runs on all the platforms? I’m genuinely asking.