11 Common Game Dev Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

[@marscaleb]

You forgot the biggest pitfall of all! Spending all your time watching videos on KZbin about game development instead of actually making your game!

[@Wilker_uwu]

just one more Extra Credits episode won't hurt :p also my PSU is ded

[@magnusm4]

Meanwhile I still need to learn about drag and coding acceleration before I can get back to coding -_-

[@kartman146]

Honestly that ain't no pitfall, you can create the best game ever, if you don't know the in's and out's of the business, you won't make it into a sustainable career

[@DePistolero]

1. Be a gamer 2. Make the game that you find fun and awesome to play 3. Be ready to study(S T U D Y ) 4. Be ready to be stuck. 5. CUT and Rethink( things will get complicated quickly ) 6. P L A N ahead!!!!! 7. Write that documentation and critical bug/error list 8. PROTOTYPE( a game is just a good enough prototype where you decided it is enough ) 9. Have bloody FUN!!!! I failed a couple of times in all from 1-9 in my two projects. :)

[@nematjonabdulloev3568]

DePistolero Thank you very much, pretty good thoughts).

[@nightsistersmusic]

As someone who's just learning, I keep discovering new things and realizing "I can do this?" And then I try to add it in my game Also scope bloat

[@tyelork]

The number of likes and comments shows that people tend to like the more upbeat videos and with editing. I know that they take a lot more time and effort to produce though Tim, so thanks for always putting out good content brotha!

[@magnusm4]

The number one pitfall today is: I've started off with making this kind of game for mobile. This is good enough, I don't need to get better or bigger. You have a media that's constantly evolving, always made easier and grander for solo developers and groups, tons of potential and genres people love. And you decide to stick to simple 2D flash platforming games with the same art style, same format, same scale and that's it. Why? Do you have ANY idea how many people can't even handle learning about variables?! It's annoying how many people pretty much throw away their potential for small scraps. Not even trying something in their spare time. But my personal favorite anti pitfall is core basic structure. Make a bunch of scripts for controls, physics and maybe something else basic. No game, no gameplay prototype, just the basics. Cause then you can re use them over and over again for all your games. It's annoying rewriting basic movement controls over and over again. Simple script of input. Control input based on camera direction, with or without ProjectOnPlane and return the Vector3. You can just make a new instance of the class and call the function. And now you can make a running class, crawling class, helicopter class or a rolling class. And all you have to do is pass in the method call in their parameter and apply anything else you want. Making repeated written lines of code into simple calls.

[@OneAndOnlyRocker]

happy i finally found a game dev channel by someone who isn’t a gamedev wannabe and actually knows shit. very useful advice, i know for a fact i do some of these things. thanks!

[@wilcombebolger]

Hey Tim I can relate to you on so many levels about game design, firstly I am quite an aged newbie developer (52) having just left university studying game design, secondly I am a sole developer off the bat. Your advice positive or negative enlightens me thank you. I watch you nearly every day.

[@mechacrafter8429]

optimizing to early is my biggest problem both in code and level design.

[@bradleysmith9924]

Great video as always. :)

[@egi3539]

Hey Tim, I love your videos lately, they are getting better and better! Keep it up!

[@jamiecovell6991]

Thanks for all of your videos Tim :-) they are all super helpful!

[@omegablast2002]

how can this have any downvotes? literally every single thing he touchs on are spot on....amazing advice. if something he saids hurts your feelings then maybe really take in this advice and see why it makes you feel bitter.

[@AlexanderTHaselton]

Noticing some great editing in this one, well done!

[@ReceptaGame]

2:17 The best advice ever

[@monsieurhonorificfishface5621]

I feel that I’ve seen this video before :S is it a reupload?

[@JordanMillsTracks]

shiny object syndrome is my #1 pitfall

[@bigdirtygaming6429]

Me too man. I've got forty four projects. .....wtf.

[@blitzercreg]

Telling the wrong people about your game as it’s in development! That is - if you want enthusiastic reactions, tell the people that you think would find this interesting. Even if that one person is your cat... Also great advice, you sir have another subscriber

[@vopoxi5152]

You motivates me to continue work on the game. Thanks! :D

[@AMastryukov]

I think the new video format works very well. Keep experimenting!

[@krzysztofjabonski9993]

Great video Tim, thank you :)

[@rafaelocariz1384]

Hi, I have a suggestion: 10 tips of what to do to have a job in the game industry (portfolio, games published, age, etc.) As game industry I mean ArenaNet, Naughty Dog, EA, that kind of company

[@wilcombebolger]

Tim can you do a video on asset licensing please

[@mr-matt2881]

What is that intro song?! It's fantastic!

[@MicahBuzanANIMATION]

Super helpful advice. All this applies to animating a film.

[@karldilkington8587]

The only way to create a masterpiece is to finish it. How to consistently ship on time: Get feedback from day 1: Get everyone involved as early as possible where it is easy to make any significant changes. Limit the number of inputs as you get closer to shipping date. Break every single project into smaller tasks and everyday, find 3 tasks to accomplish that will bring you closer to shipping. Be accountable for the shipping date : never make a committee decision. Stamp your name to the decision and be prepared to ship on time. Be clear of your definition of success - are you satisfying your critics or are you making art. Decide on your own matrices and worry about them alone. Nothing else. -Seth Godin

[@SPACECAKEMAN666]

Thanks Tim!

[@8bit_pineapple]

My biggest problem is getting started -_-, I can't think of any game ideas that I'm passionate about *and* is something suited towards my abilities. Maybe I'm stuck on your #3 and #4 ... I want the bulk of the work to be technical and make things like: the portal gun from portal, or world generation code for a game like Minecraft. When I get a game idea my usual thought process is along the lines of _"While that's a game I'd really like to exist... programming it won't be very interesting and the bulk of the work will be making art assets ..."_ Should I just ignore that? How important is it for me to be passionate about the game vs passionate about the work to make it?

[@electricltd2339]

We have a nice idea for our game, but we haven't really started it yet. It's a survival/adventure game. I've made some models already but we should see if the game idea is good, models should be made later.

[@nairodegame9805]

Hey dev Underground how long are you working on one level ? Do you start with an idea before Make a level ?

[@RamonChiNangWong078]

Have to disagree with 8. Many things do change and sometimes is better to work on a clean slate instead of working on top of broken functions and bugs

[@jiribem9845]

In point 5. you mentioned TESTERS. I have question about them. Is better to use more random tester as friends who wants to play some games you make and not others. Or have fewer "PRO" who really test it for not only gameplay but also bugs, etc.. . _________________________ Currently I am just starting. I make some random games like ping-pong, sudoku, snake a stuff like that. Currently I am doing first bigger game Tower Defense style. And I would like to publish it. Not sure if for free or some cents. But 1 or 2 friend who are for me like "PRO" tester are bit pressure me to put them in credits (no issue there) and to give them some profit from it (I told them that I even do not know if I should monetize it or not...) and also I see big advantage to have as much tester as possible. ________________________ I think there is some middle ground. 1 PRO tester who helps me with development even before some minimum viable product and with details like, change colors or sizes, menu texts, etc. And than have some passionate friend gamers, or even groups like for eg. here :). What is yours opinion about this TESTER topic ? Thx guys, and have a good one.

[@alzon5712]

Oh but my game engine is fairly feature complete, can I build a game now? :P

[@OutlawMantis]

Good video, but I'm sure you contradicted yourself. You said to make the game rather than the engine. I recall in another video you mentioned the importance of making a prototype before anything else. Isn't the prototype essentially the basis of your game's engine.

[@wilcombebolger]

Tim can you provide a link to the 12 games you built previously please

[@Haapavuo]

Roger Hart looking for this too!

[@Drakmour666]

Hello! I've been watching your videos for about couple weeks now and I like them. :-) Me and my friend started to mage a rogue-like 3D game. And I wonder when to start making an audience and try to attract ppl to our game? We don't have much done yet, only a ~100 pages of presentation in Powerpoint with key elements of the game: storyline, weapon classes, game mechanics, enemy types and so on. And of course all images there are from the internet not sketches or something we have done. And probaby all of our 3d models, animations and environment elements will be from free Unity assets. Do we already need to make simplest site, twitter, facebook, youtube etc. accounts? Or we should first make a solid working demo with all key mechanics to have at least something to show? And how to find players-fans of your type of game? For example, how to find rogue-like games fans to attract em and ask their feedback? Just type "Rogue like games forum"? Thanks.

[@RaidenKaiser]

JRPG developers can get lost in feature frenzy it's not just an Indie dev issue it seems to be like it can be the entire industry that can end up in this.

[@rudolphroets]

So i came across your channel literally 2 days ago, I've been wanting to go into game development for a long time now and i'm just eating up every video you have on youtube atm. A question though from someone with no programming experience whatsoever, what would you recommend my focus should be on right now.

[@secretpaddington]

Hello! I am an aspiring game designer who was once in the same position as you. I personally would advice that you download an engine, like unreal engine 4 if your PC is good enough, or Unity, etc etc, and learn the code. Learning code seems daunting, but it's so satisfying and rewarding. Learn a code language and apply it to a game engine and then focus on design/the art. But that's just my advice.

[@seesoftware]

omg this shiny object syndrome is killing me. i have like 2/40 projects wich are actually finished and i just cannot stop beginning a new thing because i allways thing like "hmm i kinda want to try this out now!" and so on

[@MidnightBloomDev]

Could you make video about trademark names, different privacy policies and so? In other words legal things indie developer should watch out.

[@ayushmanbt]

According to me Top game development pitfall is not creating a Minmal Viable Game before starting a serious project...

[@PunkFiddler]

Hmmm... attachment to a project, for me, is passion.

[@Lugbzurg]

No solo work? Oh, dang... I'd better find some people...

[@ChaosRevealsOrder]

I just finished my first game and when I would get demoralized bcs stuff gets too complicated, I would actually have fun playing the game. So I guess that can help :))

[@StarForgers]

The audio seems a bit out of sync.

[@SergeiStudio]

Good video

[@mrdeadbird1479]

A lot of emotional intelligence coming from you pal Thanks

[@kruth6663]

Not trying to be a dick here, but watching this 3 years later, do you think your difficulty may have been caused by the target audience pitfall, at least a little bit? Or is it a marketing issue?

[@JackPS9]

Feature Frenzy, Kitchensinking - Feature Creep

[@MrSonyChaos]

Man... I fell in almost all of them lol

[@ruinsage2677]

New music is better, but still a bit loud compared to the rest of the video.

[@susobhandas6143]

bad sound - bro please fix sound - sound is messy

[@georgebouverie3348]

12) Don't be poor