Hello everyone!

It’s Monday which means it’s time for another weekly dev log! Today I am still somewhat on hiatus after making Guardians of RPG v1.02 and during this time off it has helped me to see a lot of flaws in my skills and techniques as an indie game developer. Because of this, I wanted to give some advice to other devs who may find themselves in the same position 

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

5: Start with Small Concepts

When it comes to learning how to create games, it’s important to start small and concise. A lot of times indie developers will have ideas that, if not properly contained, can spiral and become massive game concepts with complicated themes, mechanics, and more. All of these things are relatively good when in the hands of someone more experienced and with more resources, but as an indie dev, such an undertaking can become extremely discouraging and can take a long time to fully realize. 

With my current game I decided to create an epic where your character will be introduced with characters, plots, themes, and turn based battle systems with a plethora of mechanics that in the right hands would make for a thrilling game that I could see people playing on steam. However, at the time, I had never even downloaded unity before, so my first implementation was anything but. Even my second interaction of the game could use some work as well. During the past year, I realized that if I had started developing smaller games, not only would I have more games under my belt as an indie dev, but I would have also been versed in a lot of Unity's features and other programming knowledge that I’m just now being keyed into.

4: Choose an Engine

After you have figured out an idea for your game you have to choose the best game engine for your game. Sometimes someone (i.e me) would use something like Unity because they hear about it a lot, but when it comes to 2D RPG games, maybe something like RPG Maker might be more appropriate, or maybe there are specific features about Unreal Engine that you think would be really beneficial to you that Godot just doesn’t have. Whatever the case may be, it’s important to do actual research on the topic. This could save you the headache of realizing you picked the wrong one and that you need to redo your project in another engine, or struggling to integrate your idea in an engine that isn’t built for it.

One suggestion I would make is to look at games you want to create and see what game engine they used. Look at interviews from game devs as they discuss the challenges and conveniences that went into creating the game in said engine. Also look at other informed/experienced people in the industry for their opinions as well.

3: Learn the Language and Design Patterns Before you learn the Engine

I want to emphasize that it is vital you understand the coding language and the design patterns for that language and for game development before you even start using your gaming engine. The reason why I say this is because it’s one thing to have knowledge on a coding language but it’s another thing to know 

1. Data Structures
2. How to Optimize Code
3. Best Coding Practices
4. And More

If you don’t have these skills, good chance a recruiter or a company will pass you up for someone who does. And making games yourself will be riddled with bugs and errors that will be a nightmare to fix. 

A lot of game dev tutorials online will not teach you this either. They are just teaching you how to use a feature in the game engine, not how to optimize, or tell you the best way to do it. That’s why it’s important to learn this stuff beforehand. Thankfully, there are useful tools online that give detailed explanations for almost every coding language and the Design Patterns for game development.

2: Don’t Listen to Every YouTube Tutorial

I get it. You’re looking up how to do something in code and you see “EASY” in the title, maybe the thumbnail has some impressive prototype with the captions “NO CODING REQUIRED” and you go “This is the video I’ve been looking for.” I’ve been there. I also know creating a game is never that simple.

Like I alluded to earlier, game dev tutorials (particularly on YouTube) are not teaching you how to optimize your game, or even teaching you the best practices for implementing a feature into your game. All they are doing is demonstrating how a particular feature in whatever game engine would look like. If they were to teach you how to do it efficiently, they would probably have to explain what hashmaps are or what the Command Pattern is and then they would no longer be able to put “EASY” and “NO CODING REQUIRED” in their video. Consume the videos with that in mind. Also, it’s important to read the comments under the video as well to determine if someone has had issues with the method or if they have found a better way to implement whatever feature you’re trying to accomplish.

I personally have the privilege to get some of my information from Udemy. Since it’s a course you pay for, they don’t shy away from teaching you everything that you need to know about game development versus a YouTube video that is fighting for your retention with click-bait titles and less than ideal solutions in the name of being easy. 

If you want to get the most out of watching YouTube tutorials though, it’s important you go over everything from 5-3 first, that way the more complicated tutorials and videos will be easier to understand.

1: Practice, Practice, Practice!

This one goes without saying, but it’s important that you use the skills that you learned to finally start making your game! In fact, creating smaller, personal projects is a great way to help a lot of these concepts stick in your mind and will prepare you for your next coding project. Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Give yourself a deadline to complete it. Have beta testers test your game and continue to improve and iterate. It may take a while, but you’ll soon become a seasoned indie dev if you follow these steps.

Well that’s all I got for you today. Do you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said? Were there some tips that I missed? Let me know. Be sure to play my game Guardians of RPG v1.02 out now. I want to thank everyone who has played, and supported me in other ways on this game development journey. It is truly a privilege to be able to do this. I will see you all next week.