What I Learned Failing to Finish a Game in 2024

While thinking of making a game I’ve found these helpful:<p>1. The Art of Game Design, A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;schellgames.com&#x2F;art-of-game-design" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;schellgames.com&#x2F;art-of-game-design</a><p>2. 20 Tips on Making Games by Jordan Mechner - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jordanmechner.com&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;library&#x2F;20tips.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jordanmechner.com&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;library&#x2F;20tips.pdf</a><p>3. Liz England’s blog - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lizengland.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lizengland.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;</a>

One of the reasons I got into software development was that I wanted to make some games (even just small ones that I release for free).<p>I&#x27;ve now been coding for like 14 years, and I still haven&#x27;t done it (besides a number of prototypes). And I&#x27;m so burnt out on writing code that I never have the mental energy to push through and get one done.

I think putting off polish for later as the OP and multiple comments here recommend is a fallacy. There are many popular, successful games that would just <i>not</i> be fun if they didn&#x27;t have good animations, no effects and everything was boxes. Every game that relies on &quot;feeling good to play&quot;. It might be fine for an RPG or an RTS, but it&#x27;s probably not for something like Overwatch or Doom (the new ones). Just imagine Vampire Survivors without sound or effects. Some games live off the art style alone. This is a very controversional opinion, but I think if e.g. Ori and the Blind Forest had bad art, no one would have played the game. Some games you can evaluate really well with bad art and no juice or polish, other games need some and there are even games that need a lot of it, before you know if they can be fun. It&#x27;s not that simple imho. I remember working on games that were not really fun until I added some effect and suddenly it was really addicting. People like flashing lights and noises and pretty pictures. If good, unique or interesting art was irrelevant, no one would invest in it, but people do.

The brutality of the marketplace is unlike any other - Steam has over 100k games in it&#x27;s store, with 18k added just last year. Yes, as in anything there will be the breakout few which go on to generate fame and riches, but in general if you are a single or small group indie with little to no marketing budget you are unlikely to ever turn a profit. As the saying goes &quot;just because you wandered through the desert does not mean there is a promised land.&quot;

Multiplayer game development just stinks. It&#x27;s not because of the networking and the tricky bugs and cumbersome testing setups (fake latency, packet loss, a bunch of open game clients) if you like these sorts of things (though of course that can suck sometimes and does frequently), but if you get far enough, you just depend on everyone you know for play testing constantly. The more people you need per game the worse it is. I worked on a 3v3 game for a couple months and it got really hard to find people to test towards the end. Just imagine making any plans for a group of 6 people. That&#x27;s almost always annoying. Now try to do that once a week and some of those people don&#x27;t really know you, so they don&#x27;t care about being late or flaking out. This is not just annoying, but it really impacts the game. The game requires design and tweaking and experimentation just like any other, but if you can properly play test your game once a week for an hour or two, game design progress is very slow and tedious. I&#x27;ll never work on a multiplayer game again solo, only with a team at least as large as the number of players the game is designed for.

I’m not entirely sure why, but I find myself drawn to reading about failures and the reasons behind them, far more than success stories. There’s something uniquely compelling about failure—it often teaches us hard, invaluable lessons that are nearly impossible to grasp when everything goes smoothly. Success, on the other hand, can sometimes be attributed to a stroke of pure luck, leaving fewer insights to learn from.<p>Similarly, when I’m considering a purchase, I tend to focus on the negative reviews (those rated 3 stars or below) rather than the glowing, positive ones. Negative reviews often provide more logical, specific reasoning as they shed light on potential deal-breaking issues. That said, they can sometimes veer into irrelevant complaints that don’t resonate with me. For example, when I’m browsing book reviews on Amazon to decide whether a book is worth reading, I frequently come across one-star reviews criticizing the print or paper quality. If I’m planning to buy the digital version of the book, those complaints become irrelevant to my decision-making process—even though they might be incredibly important to someone else.<p>In essence, I find value in the nuanced, sometimes brutally honest critiques that failures and negative feedback offer. They paint a more realistic picture—one that helps me make better decisions and understand the world a little more clearly.

The point about art being hard for programmers hits home. I hit the same thing when dabbling with game programmer (at a much less skilled level than OP). Difficult to stay motivated when the early drafts look like crap and you’re coding against stickman art.<p>I’m guessing these days there are placeholder art libraries available?

Learning how to prototype a game is a skill. I&#x27;ve prototyped hundreds of games over 30 years for work and pleasure. Seeing the potential is genuinely hard but it IS a skill you can learn.<p>Understanding that the general public should not and indeed cannot be expected to see the potential is also a hard lesson. Games like VVVVVV are unicorns. Never bet on being a unicorn.

I have barely done anything in game development, but in terms of engine, what has been better for you as a solo dev?<p>Risk of rain comes to mind as a great multiplayer videogame with a small team, it was made with gamemaker studio.<p>I am curious how is the ecosystem right now and if Godot has become a more attractive option for solo&#x2F;indie development.

I really enjoyed the article, especially the focus on a gameplay loop, and leaving polish for later. Often I have found that I can tell if a game will be &quot;fun&quot; after a super low fidelity prototype. One of my games began as a jupyter notebook, for example. Of course, the rest of the process is also very important, but I am not sure a game that is not fun from the start can be made into a good game.<p>In the same vein, I can recommend this book: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;34376766-blood-sweat-and-pixels" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;34376766-blood-sweat-and...</a><p>It shows that even big companies and development efforts can often struggle to create a fun game, even when the people involved have a lot of experience. It is a hard thing to accomplish!

I really enjoy living vicariously through indie gamedev retrospectives like this. Both technical and non-technical sides.<p>Nice work and best of luck with taking game #3 forward!

Taking ClarityCorp as an example, I see an opportunity to focus more on the design phase (testing ideas) than the implementation phase. As engineers, we often dive directly into coding and implementing systems related to our problem rather than asking simple questions like, &quot;is the game loop fun?&quot; I&#x27;ve seen some brutally simple prototypes (150 lines of JavaScript) that represent an idea well enough to determine whether the idea has the potential to merit the time investment required to bring it to fruition. Personally, I&#x27;d rather test 15-20 different concepts at the lowest fidelity before settling on a direction than 2-3 half built games over the course of a year. Not knocking the author at all (kudos for producing some work). Just offering suggestions.

Really liked the article, I think there is also something to be said about the difference in learning game design and game development. I think people tend to want to do both at the same time, but spending some time just on game design can help you feel less helpless when learning development.

Sometimes, it&#x27;s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a game, only to realize it’s not as fulfilling as I initially thought. With <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;buffalokingmegawaysdemo.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;buffalokingmegawaysdemo.com&#x2F;</a> I had a similar experience. While it offers a lot of potential, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something missing as I played. It&#x27;s a reminder that not all games or experiences are going to be worth pushing through, and it’s okay to step back and evaluate whether it’s really what you want. Sometimes, it’s better to try something new than to force yourself to finish something that doesn’t truly click.

I started building an iso game a couple years ago and like you was not looking forward to having to make so much art. Then I had an idea. Build it in a 3D engine and lock the camera in an iso like position. Now I can use 3d models and not have to worry about creating all these different views. Also you could do effects when walking around the board by spinning the camera and then locking it in a different iso position. I&#x27;m pretty sure this is how newer iso games are made.

So many games will use a Capsule as their player for so long that it seems impossible to get a fully rigged player later on

If I learned something every time I failed to finish a game, I&#x27;d know a bunch of things now.