On your point regarding imposter syndrome: I don't know if this is counter-intuitive, but I actually find lowering my expectations on myself helps to relieve pressure. If I tell myself I'm a game dev and/or other people call me a game dev, _that's_ when the imposter syndrome starts to rear its ugly head because, for me, being given such a label comes with huge expectations and presumptions about myself. If I'm a "game dev", especially if other people see me as such, I start to worry that I'm not going to live up to the expectations set for me _as_ a game dev: I need to make games, they need to be good and they need to be successful by some metric (profitability, critical acclaim, widespread notoriety, etc.) because that's what separates a real game dev from a wannabe or a hobbiest. Until you succeed at something, you're not that thing; you're just _aspiring_ to be. It, like all things in life, is something to be earned. As such, openly calling myself a "game dev", even though I've barely been able to scrape my way through Blender making an ugly doughnut makes me feel like an immediate failure. It makes me feel like I've got an enormous mountain ahead of me to climb to finally get to the point that I can comfortably accept the title of "game dev" in earnest, all while weighed down by the lofty presumption of what it means to actually _be_ a game dev, without feeling like I didn't earn it. Because that's the root cause of imposter syndrome: the feeling that you didn't earn it; that you don't have the right to call yourself that. But deluding yourself into believing the mere act of trying is enough to call yourself that isn't the affirmation you think it is; it just inflates your ego and forces you to cower behind that presumption until such time that you feel like you don't need to anymore. The problem is that, eventually, you get really comfortable hiding behind your ego and it can very often lead you into places that result in your inflated sense-of-self getting out of hand, making you pompous, self-righteous and narcissistic. Even worse, it can cause you to stagnate as a developer because you start to feel like you don't need to worry about whether your games are good or not; you're _already_ a game dev, so you don't need to try any harder than you already do and anyone telling you your work is substandard or pointing out where you could improve is just plain wrong (even if they're objectively correct). _Actually_ dispelling imposter syndrome comes from accepting that you're _not_ what you think you are - yet. But you're _on your way._ And, so long as you persevere and you're willing to accept mistakes and failure as part of the process, you _can_ get there one day. You _will_ earn it. That's what keeps me going, personally. It's that sense that, yeah, I know I'm not a proper game dev. I'm just a guy messing around in Blender or something. But, with time, that may change. Until then though, I don't need to worry about holding myself to unreasonable expectations (and, thus, incurring imposter syndrome) because I'm just a guy, not a game dev, so I can work my way through the process without the pressure or the fear of failure. It makes learning feel less strenuous, failure feel less painful, criticism feel less scathing, and, most especially, makes praise feel like a real achievement - "Someone told me they like my work. Someone said I'm good at this. This is actually working. This is actually becoming real. Maybe I _do_ have what it takes." It's a feeling I will relish if and when the day comes. Accepting what I'm not (yet) is incredibly liberating and gives me a clear goal to strive toward: that I want to _earn the right_ to call myself a game dev, with confidence.

These are so true for app development too. I learned a lot of these the hard way when I got into app development. I’d like to get into game dev at some point and will definitely try to avoid them but we’ll see lol.

Great video. Thank you.

This is all such gold. Thank you. I want to make a giant open world RPG. That's what got me started. 6 months later.. i have some trees lol. What I needed to realize was that putting that to the side so i could work on small games for a bit wont make my dream project not happen, it'll make it happen faster. because when i do get back to it, i'll know what I'm doing. But I think those big dream projects are important. It's what draws us into game dev to start with.

small addendum to "you tried to start too big" You need to taste victory if you want to succeed, thats whats important about finishing a game and shipping it. if you dont taste victory then you will not thirst for it, or know you can get it.

For number 6, Gme design schools aren't much better than tutorial hopping. You are better off taking the classes you need for what you want (Want to be programmer, take programming degree), than to go for a game design program and learn a little of everything. You would be better off using the money you would use for a game dev degree to support yourself and just tutorial hop 8 hours a day and getting the humbe bundle documents every couple weeks when they release a new learn ___

3d horror platformer are so rare I only know b3313 for M64

Some of those hit home pretty accuratly. Especially isolation and beeig afraid to share the things is the number one for me. Imposter syndrome and not liking the project comes next as well. Totally agree with you! Great video!

Great video. I do have one critique though (As both an Indie and AAA Game Dev). When it comes to step number #8 (768 seconds in), I would alter this a bit to suggest to not fail to plan. In my experience, not going in with a plan of what you, the person making the game, want to even do is often what leads to the other steps you've listed. This is why, in my opinion, its best to start your game on paper/in writing as a GDD (Game Development Document) before you start to draw, paint, animate, code, etc. Doing this will help mitigate the follies of Step#8 (and likely a lot of the other steps as well).

I don't know if it's too cutesy for your game, but you could add wind trails like in Wind Waker, except they're strings of yarn.

Looks very unique! Good job

nah bro why was this so inspirational

I really enjoyed listening to this, its given me some food for thought on my early journey into game dev. Your words feel authentic and that you are speaking from a place of wanting to help others and inspire.

Lol why he so weak?

Are you redoing the whole art style or just this level?

Thankyou for this video, I was finding a lot of other videos on this subject were ether disheartening or made me question myself in a bad way. Also I was worried about what I was being advised on because yes these people have made games but they haven't had any success. so how right are they?

after watching it a second time one month later, i can say that i still needed it, you're words are perfectly chosen, thank you.

Im making a 3d boss rush game but im finding it hard to stay motivated because ive never done 3d before and its really frustrating not knowing what im doing since ive been developing games for 8 years and feeling like a semi beginer again frustrates me but i really like the idea

Unfortunately I have sad news for you. If you're the type of person who watches this video, you aren't ever going to make it in game dev. you decided to start on a whim that has no actual foundation in reality. you have no talent when it comes to "gamedev" as they call it. Actually, if you use the term "gamedev", you already are 100% going to fail at this. 0.5% of people who use the term "gamedev" ever make anything worthwhile. I'm sorry, don't shoot the messenger.

God speed, brother. Just started my game dev journey 2 weeks ago. I'm glad I found your channel.

Thank you for makong this video for is. Bless you 🥰🙏👏💙

My laptop can't even run blender

Good video. Your comment about the "honey moon" phase is true. I've seen a lot of people start projects with a lot of motivation and energy and then slowly the enthusiasm wears off and they stop work on their project. IMO that's because the early phase of the project involves fun stuff like coming up with ideas and making cool concept art. But once things gets serious and it's time to solve problems and actually make the game, it becomes laborious and everything feels like work. So they lose interest and drop the project and start a fresh new project. I worked on my game found around 2-3 years and I too felt tired and was tempted to start afresh. But I pressed on until I finished my game.

My approach to avoid remaking my game assets is to not create polished 3d model or level 100% but start from blocking, and put in the game and leaving it there until I make all other stuff in the current stage, next phase I will refine everything little bit not to the polish state, and keep doing this way. By doing this, I can keep make small changes during the development stage and no rework required.

12:49 This is a good thing... Its a tool for improvement on yourself and your game... Its only ever bad if your doing it to procrastinate doing something with a higher priority :( or you've gone insane and decided to completely throw away that system, art, sound, game engine, language, in order to remake it from scratch, just because you hate where your game is at that point in time :/

Awesome, keep up the good work!

W

Hopefully your game gets the attention it deserves

I think 90% of people getting into blender have done a donut tutorial

The man himself! I can't wait for these streams

the best face reveal is revealing that your face was already revealed

I don't know why, but I love the glasses

Looking forward to the streams! 🔥

FACE REVEAL! Hell yeah! Nice beard, and sublime hat

Nice

W guy

The hat is unreal 🤣 love it!

I feel you on the hat man, shit sucks.

i just recently started trying to break out of my own self-isolation. i have many years of experience under my belt with game dev itself, but i haven’t been as focused on the community side of it. some things i’ve started trying are: subscribing/following other devs (whose content i enjoy) with a slightly bigger audience that me, creating a discord server, uploading demo reels/prototype recordings on youtube, and researching other ways devs are getting their name out there.

That's exactly why Americans seem funny to me, you and your problems... I hope the dollar as a reserve currency ends, and you finally have to deal with issues like the rest of the world

Thank you... so much, you won a new member in your community for sure, best motivation video I've ended upon, and the funny thing is, you kind of popped up out of nowhere, and I'm grateful for it.

Looking to work with a 2D designer for an indie game dev. I have developed 12 games so far.

I would like to get help

I’m glad you mentioned coworkers. I want to start a game studio with a buddy of mine but I’m worried we might butt heads and have different ideas. He has also never made a game before while I have made almost an entire game from scratch that I’ll be releasing soon. We are both busy but it’s tough relying on other people when I feel in the back of my head that I can do it alone and I feel like I’d be the most driven out of everyone I’d work with.

Bruh how did you know my first project was to make big mmorpg game xD

i dont know how you're sitting at barely 2.5k subscribers, that insane. Actually bro you're super talented not only with games, your youtube videos are pretty damn crazy to say the least. Hope your channel grows bigger soon :D

#1 [over under flow] auesip 1:38:00 #2 [temple tumble]axyldev, theerasablesky 1:34:47

Sven777 reminded me of Matthew Dicks' advice in Someday is Today: don't be an asshole.

This is exactly what we need to hear! Thank you so much!