I Made a Game in Unreal in 14 Days... (No Experience)

So I decided to start learning Unreal Engine and start making my own video game... and future games :)
Here's a list of the channels and tutorials I found to be most helpful in getting to where I got to:
​⁠@thomasbrush
​⁠@UnrealSensei
​⁠@GorkaGames
​⁠@PrismaticaDev
​⁠@promptmuse
First, a mindset, realistic perspective video from Thomas Brush, (the title says game studio, but that can be a solo dev)
• Start A Game Studio In...
If you're completely new, start with Unreal Sensei's video:
• Unreal Engine 5 Beginn...
You might want to also watch his update on his landscape brush (more important than you'd think):
• Unreal Engine 5 Landsc...
Then, make Gorka's first game, this was a needle mover for me, really makes you start understanding how blueprints work and it feels amazing to actually make a video game.
• How to Make Your First...
Prompt Muse has an amazing workflow video showing how she downloads characters, uses Accurig to rig them, uses Cascadeur to make animations, and then importing that all into unreal. It's a ton and somehow under 30 minutes (Careful on choosing the skeletal mesh you choose when you bring it into Unreal, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to select the UE4 one) P.S I think it's probably best practice to learn manual rigging and modeling aswell:
• How To Easily Animate ...
Here's PrismaticaDev's Interactive Plugin announcement video! It's what I want to dive into next on my own so I can get a beautiful interactive world, he's also got a bunch of amazingly useful videos about physics, wind, lighting and a bunch of other stuff:
• My plugin is OUT NOW! ...
Quick overview video about making game characters from Blender to Unreal:
• How to Make a 3D Game ...
In depth workflow video on making game-ready characters:
• How I Create Character...
#unrealengine #Imadeagame #gamedev #learning #gamedesign

[@Lextorias]

going from "I gave myself 2 weeks to make a really simple concept" to "I spent $80 on physics and weather plugins instead of implementing gameplay" is the quintessential solo game dev experience

[@slandshark]

I've been learning Unreal Engine game dev, never done any of this before. I made my first game, similar to the above following a Gorka Games tutorial on youtube. Took me about 11 days, about 1 to 2 hours per day. But I didn't buy anything to make it work, just used the free assets from Unreal Engine Library. Same exact style of game, same kind of health bar, same 'wave spawner' system where you fight enemies in waves. I'm not an experienced game dev by any means, but I think basic level design (putting down trees, landscape, etc) is the easiest part of the whole thing. Basically just point and click to paint stuff down or resize things. It's the actual game mechanics that take much longer, where you add code behind the scenes. I'm only using blueprints (no direct C++) and it's been great so far. I'm now 33 days into learning Unreal Engine and I'm working on my 2nd game by following a tutorial. But it's more of an adventure game similar to Tomb Raider. On a side note, Metahumans look fantastic, but they are not optimized at all. Once I added my 3rd metahuman into my 2nd game the level editor became almost unusable. I had to turn down the LOD on all metahumans to '1' (lowest setting) just so I could keep using the editor. And I'm doing it with 64gb memory, RTX 3090, and AMD Ryzen 9 5900x... I won't be using metahumans in the future, just not optimized enough.

[@dreadtrain2846]

You ain't wrong lol

[@dreamingacacia]

that's depends on you have more time or more money lol

[@thatlittlespider]

Yep, that's the must have experience for all solo devs, also download a million animation and assets you dont use

[@pryzmgaming]

i dont have a lot of money but as a solo dev as soon as i start trying to add something to my game i check the marketplace and see if its already been done. Then if yes see if it has good reviews and is easy to implement for newbies, and then figure out if i can afford it :)

[@sebbo59]

"until I got distracted literally 7 seconds in and watched a 2 hour long podcast" classic.

[@erickr199]

happens everyday lol

[@mrxcs]

The only solution I found for that is using Pomodoro, a cycle of 25 min of work and 5 min doing whatever I want.

[@theartworkhub]

Currently me rn

[@PrymalChaos]

who else is procrastinating by watching this video right now?

[@ErichToven]

Waiting on ue to download ironically enough. Went looking for something to watch. Good job augarithium.

[@rosendaniel1258]

Underrated comment!

[@JeffJK000]

I was supposed to be studying for CCNA, but I'll do it later.

[@qNeros]

I don’t want to talk about it lol

[@hargel3870]

Im always procrastinating something. If I could procrastinate life for like a week and just like sleep I would

[@nathankellman3183]

As a professional game designer who has worked on AAA Games, the parts where you go "why isnt this working?!" then realize its a button press hit home lol. Keep it up man, love the video.

[@MrHaggyy]

Control system engineer can proudly say it wasn't a button. It was a typo in the makescript or config file xD

[@ExarchGaming]

Thats kinda cool that you worked on Diablo 4.

[@weirdthings9583]

Just as a general question what game engine do AAA titles use?

[@weirdthings9583]

Just as a general question what game engine do AAA titles use?

[@MrHaggyy]

@@weirdthings9583 For the most part the one the publisher is providing. EA has Frostbite, Ubisoft has Ubisoft Anvil, and Blizzard used to write the engine alongside the game so Diablo 3 or WoW all have a tailored engine for what the game needs. Today many tailor Unreal for 3D and Unity for 2D made games.

[@EastyyBlogspot]

Careful EA or Ubisoft might try and hire you as the way things are going you might be the most experienced person they have.

[@ac6339]

True for EA minus Respawn.

[@ghosterino]

Yeah, I have the feeling they hire people who have just finished an online course.

[@giocareperdivertirsi]

Lol

[@JFrenchman]

The quality of their games isn't dictated by the quality of their develops, it's dictated by the poor management of the companies.

[@EastyyBlogspot]

@@JFrenchman oh yeah i know that so many stories of games being developed for years but due to management time being wasted as well as crunch....and the problem is its pushing out the talented devs to strike out with indie companies, Rocksteady for example is a shell of its former self along with Bioware

[@EtheralGames]

As someone who has been developing games for nearly 5 years, my biggest bit of advice would be to focus on the core systems before anything else. Example core systems being, (attacking, taking damage, dodging, health, enemy movement, ai movement). Polish and design can always come later.

[@JackSather]

Thank you!! This is the kind of tips i’m looking for

[@yaranaikaexecute3196]

I think that applies to creating anything. I'm studying graphic design and doing my fair share of web development on the side and this approach is the best when it comes to designing anything consistently. You go in with a simple, small idea, sketch it out in any medium that you want to (be it a drawing on a piece of paper, some notes in a notepad or some rough code), then you make it function well and at the very end you can make it look good. Ofc thats just one approach but I think it can help anyone getting started in creating. And if you want to really learn to make videogames you just need to make a lot of small ones, GMTK has a great series focusing more on his thinking than programming when it comes to creating a videogame.

[@ericlagel]

As someone who’s been in the industry for more than 20 years, I second that advice. Also, looking forward to seeing you progress!

[@timaltstadt824]

Spitting straight facts. You can always build upon an idea or system even if the initial system is miniscule.

[@FakeEnema]

This is basically what I came here to say. Gameplay first, art later, like way later.

[@BrokenParadoxCreative]

I started into Unreal like 2 weeks ago, with the mission of making my own game and god I can relate to this video. Excited to see how you progress, and appreciate you sharing the roadblocks and solutions. The biggest lesson I’ve learnt so far is to stay focused on one aspect at a time, which is super hard when you keep finding shiny videos on how to do “cool” things in UE. I’ve now made myself just save videos and not watch them until I’m finished with what I’m working on before getting distracted 😅

[@bearlybearable3407]

This is honestly very inspiring. I've played games all my life and have always wondered about making my own game but fearing that it was just writing lines of code all day. Seeing you with the same passion and going out and chasing it is awesome. Love the video!

[@IsmaelSerrada]

Being a game dev over 10+ years. I would like that every single person who stated "making games is easy", "that's not working, you're just playing a game" (or any other comment understimating game developers) to watch this. It is HARD WORK to make games. I felt your struggle, same thing happen to me years ago, but over time, you will know how to save and manage your time better. Keep on going, once you get that satisfaction of seeing your game working, and other people enjoying it, is addictive.

[@gamerz000.]

Yes, I just started few days ago and have to say it's very hard, if you are making solo game you not only have to learn programming, you also have to learn how to make assets For 2d (know how to paint) and for 3d know how to do 3d modeling, texture making and also know how the game engine works. And If you are creating your own game engine than that's another level of difficulty. These things individually takes months to learn or even years.

[@arcanep]

@@gamerz000. yes it can be super time consuming I love art so for me it was a must learn but yk there are hundreds of thousands of ready templaes for your first project dont try to reinvent the wheel , unless you really want to ofc you can , anyways best of luck fellow GameDev

[@gamerz000.]

@@arcanep no i guess I won't need it, I am making low poly 3D game and i am just making a city builder game in which we are a person in the city (the Ruler) and I want to do it all by myself so I can learn more. But Thanks for the recommendation.

[@Omnistudios-ps1ko]

I so get this. Even my wife who knows exactly how hard what we do is... I can feel her rolling her eyes when I say I have a ton of work to do. Like, everything we've done to be a part of game creation, almost ruined games for us, or for many... did ruin video games for them.

[@MrAndyPuppy]

agreed - I almost wish he hadn't shown the bit at the end, and just stopped at the end of the two weeks. I know, give people hope and all that, but you really need to hammer home the fact that game making IS HARD.

[@Repeeli]

This is something that I can't help but admire. As someone who has tried to get back into programming and learning it only to give up after a few days, I can relate to the frustrations and glimpses of hope you get when actually managing to make something work as you imagined. I also love how you show the "mistakes" and how your attention can only hold for so long until something else grasps it away. I truly hope you continue with this and actually start producing great games, since you have a creative mindset and a vision what you are aiming towards.

[@JackSather]

Thank you, and we’re still cranking! On my first paid udemy course recommended by someone that emailed me

[@ShadyRapture]

Start smaller. Give yourself projects you can actually complete. Plenty of excellent 2d games. Try game maker studio. Don’t do visual code, do the actual code and quickly move into scripts and inheritance. Give yourself goals you CAN achieve and start small. Then you will actually learn and you’ll love it. It’s the difference between trying to make something AAA and just giving up vs making some meh games that feel complete which help stepping stones to greater projects.

[@MrHaggyy]

Oh from someone who does programming for a living gaining control over yourself is the key. Like you do stupid misstakes when you got tiltet in a competitive video game, programming can overwhelm you with frustration if something doesn't work. If you want to get better you need to replace frustration with curiosity. Collect things that work. Try braking those pieces and understand them. Ask yourself why something doesn't behave like you want it to and experiment around a lot. Keeping your attention at programming is like running. You need to build your stamina slowly over time. Gladly my job involves a lot of other timeconsuming tasks, because i still couldn't maintain ~40h of pure programming a week. It's really time consuming to become a decent programmer. Good education can give you a jumpstart, but you need to start grinding and embracing it at some point.

[@x1FaTaLIx]

could you share the udemy course by chance?@@JackSather

[@idkProduction10]

@@JackSather Have you tried to buy into Unreal Sensei's Masterclass? I bought into his Masterclass 2 years ago and I'm not sorry, he has really good tutorials starting from scratch

[@ExploringWithJosh]

this was so cool!! good video and story telling

[@JayRowMay.]

Holy, I haven't seen you in ages!! Guess I'll start watching all your videos from 22 and up now 😂

[@TheWordofChrist]

Man, I really really appreciate this video. I have been trying to learn game dev in the same exact way, I feel like I just watched a video of myself. Except for one key difference, you kept with it. I've hit all these different levels of frustration and given up and revisited over and over. Sometimes I get so discouraged I start thinking I'm the only one that runs into these problems and that I'm incapable. Oddly enough I found your video "Getting distracted" but it was exactly what I needed to see at this moment. I forget we all learn and experience the same difficulties and I need to power through and continue to learn. Thank you for the gentle reminder that we all struggle in the same ways but gotta push through to see progress. Thank you for your time, your humor, and your complete honesty. Great video and i'll be subscribing for more to follow you along this journey!

[@Nirox12]

There's your studio name... "Just a horse games"

[@crevanizekil]

"I've got a KZbin channel" ltd

[@6ftS]

"I sorta make games" home studios ADD limited

[@johncole4882]

"Just the horse studios"

[@Butter625]

Careful now. You might summon vaush.

[@GodOfWarConnoisseur]

JAH Games

[@gtritz4223]

The ending made me happy. A true testament to the saying “finished over perfect.” Nice job!

[@TheOtherOtherAccount]

Perfection is the enemy of the good enough.

[@Salamattder]

Ubisoft says “Not finished…Perfect”

[@brythewiseguy]

I love this so much. I've been exploring the possibility of getting into game development, and the fact that you did this in 2 weeks is amazing. You've given me the push to just go with it and try it out

[@probrawlstarsplayer5400]

I love that you also talked about the problems that you stumbled on in game and life, not many people talk about this, and they tryna make it seem like they didn t put that effort into making something. cuz now everyone shows only the succes. and it also helps others, they can also learn from your mistakes, or simphatize with with like see that they have those problems, struggles too. it isn t just them(cuz that s how social media makes us think cuz they show only the succes). so Thank You!

[@GorkaGames]

You learned so fast! I loved how everything turned out. I'm happy my tutorials were helpful! ❤

[@westonparker2293]

Bro, you are the GOAT man. You really helped me through my Game Dev course at University. The way you explain things makes it super easy to understand.

[@pterafier]

THE LEGEND APPEARS

[@JackSather]

@GorkaGames dude!! Thank you so much for your help! Your a legend out here

[@moregamingplayz9002]

​@@pterafierhow are you here you play ark and make ark content

[@boss-ut6yw]

no way

[@sleeksays2858]

I’m really proud of you for doing this Jack! Small as it is, it actually seems fun and shows perseverance!

[@H0useH0ldH4cker]

Really good realization at the end, I'm sure this experience will help you in other places in life too! I did a solid run for a few years on game development, still had no real product after to show for it, but many mini projects, lots of learning, and lots of fun along the way. I dont regret it at all, and am still interested in revisiting the hobby in the future!

[@JayRowMay.]

This was a great watch! I hope you do extremely well in this endeavor and come out of it better then ever!

[@EldenPeasant]

Good luck on your journey. In case you don't know, Astlibra and Chained Echoes are 2 of the most amazing JRPGs and both were made by one guy.

[@Evanz111]

Wasn’t expecting to see Astlibra mentioned here of all places! +1 to both these.

[@JL32506]

Kenshi was mostly made by a single madlad, and he brought more people into the project after his initial success with it.

[@cIoudbank]

whenever i play indie games like dredge or something i always think ‘man, i wish i made this’ i hope u can make this work. and think ‘man, im glad i made this’

[@jaredtolley4785]

I don't make video games but I make board games, and this is one of the most important things to nail down. At the start you should spend 90% on mechanics and maybe 10% on visuals. Just enough to not have an eye bleed while testing. You never know when visuals or even your entire theme might change. Then as you progress and things get more established that ratio can shift until by the end its 90% visuals and 10% mechanics. It's hard because beautiful visuals are motivating and get you excited more easily than fixing the umpteenth bug etc. but it saves a lot of time and money, especially if things change mid project. **That said, I found this inspiring and anyone starting their journey is cause for celebration!

[@3DPDK]

Not as a game developer but as a 3D artist and animator: Disappearing textures are often a result of insufficient memory allocation for textures. The defaults can quickly become full if using extremely high resolution textures and/or algorithms that combine textures (such as layering the terrain texture over the rock object texture) which often creates yet another texture file besides the ones being combined. In some cases the software will attempt to store textures, especially textures with "baked in" effects like shadows or ambient occlusion or combined layers in memory locations it can not access because it is outside of the texture cache range. What it retrieves from this inaccessible memory is all zeros resulting in pure black or sometimes pure white textures or completely transparent textures depending on how it interprets the pixel data. I don't know if Unreal provides a way to increase texture cache or not, but the other way around the issue is to reduce the resolution of the base texture files. In some software the resolution reduction is done as the file is loaded into cache so you don't need to actually alter the original file. This is an experienced guess. I know nothing about Unreal, but most 3D software use similar procedures to render an image to the screen.

[@adecentname56]

Hi Jack, I was a senior game designer at Square Enix for 7 years. I worked on Final fantasy 15, 16 and kingdom hearts 3. Honestly for a newcomer, you did really good man. You created more game in 2 weeks than i did in a month when i first started (and I was unemployed 😂). Good gob my dude. My only critique is that you didnt add any taxi's, and the game is not called crazy taxi, and the game is not crazy taxi. If you add those simple elements, you might have some gold on your hands.

[@bootymuncherwebb7045]

Didn't really ask ok

[@JackSather]

Thanks man! And This is the advice i’m looking for people 🚕

[@seandavid9440]

You should have told them to make a new final fantasy tatics

[@CrossfireGamingNetwork]

​@seandavid9440 BIG FACTS OMG. Sorry I loved that game growing up.

[@therealfrogjuice]

This dude’s style of videos is awesome

[@fightwithonefilms]

Not for this video

[@Lesservector]

This year I picked back up on building a game I started conceptualizing years ago, and am still working on now. 100% relatable on the KZbin rabbit holes, tutorials, and overload of information. I too have the same experience with discouragement. It found it helpful to make a simple checklist to just get the basic functions of things to go and worry about the fine details later. Glad to know I am not alone.

[@playdoob]

Jack, ur vids are outstanding. probably my favorite KZbinr, and the only one i want to sit down and watch rather than have on in the background as i'm doing chores or somethin. good luck w da game dev journey. i have faith u will make somethin great, and yes i will buy it.

[@pascalcleroux6]

While i greatly applaud the effort, the problem is you’re basically trying to do / learn everything all at once. Most solo devs started with a foundational experience in one craft of game making and then ‘winged it’ for the rest, slowly learning everything else. I’ve been in the industry 15 years and i still barely can make my own games, coding especially haha

[@bam_bino__]

thats the reality for most solo indie devs

[@echorises]

That's the case with the people who start out in directly in the industry. I am a back-end developer/systems designer by trade, but in reality I can do some devops, front-end stuff, desktop apps, machine learning because I had to because I did not land a job directly. Most people in my team severely lacks the understand of other parts of the development cycle. Lacking the knowledge is easy problem to fix, but usually people learn to rely on other people which is called having a skill in teamwork. Well, I never learned that fully. Been solo for so long, started a job solo, got raise after raise while being solo, hired other people and made the project modular enough that I can stay solo. Now I am about to turn 30 and decided to make a video game for the first time in my life. I am for sure making use of my profession using my coding skills both in C++ and Blueprint in UE. I am for sure using my understanding of front-end and UI/UX experience. I am for sure using my very little skill in 3D modelling because when I was 20, I needed money and had to learn Blender, haha. I find myself jumping between these skills and losing a lot of time in one sense, but gaining precious knowledge in other sense. The thing is that nowadays, the video game engines are just advanced enough to make it easier for us. Is asset flipping bad? Maybe yes. But you can use those assets to make the prototype of your game and focus on learning other parts and maybe you can get a 3D designer to help you in the future. When one focuses on the good aspects of it, one realizes that it has never been this easy. Still difficult, but the easiest so far.

[@InsomniaNest]

Skill issue

[@mistermelancholy7698]

I've been coding in Godot for a few months now and at a base level it's extremely user friendly and intuitive on the other hand I still know very little of the obvious infinite depth of coding techniques but am quickly learning the basics.

[@pascalcleroux6]

@@mistermelancholy7698yah! Godot’s great, i’ve been experimenting with it as well, gscript’s super easy to learn too, my problem is just ‘sticking with it’ i get too distracted with another game idea haha

[@aidancusack4483]

Love seeing creative people do creative things, shout out Jack Sather

[@BasickingYT]

this is so cool man! Just found your channel and I am already in love. Please keep going on this!!

[@user-ee3gf2kq6c]

Great video! Very relatable, and it's neat to see the progression of learning (it's never a straight line!). Best of luck in your endeavors!

[@EpicSpaceman]

So pleased you watched and enjoyed my video! Really interested in your journey too, good luck with it all, I’m just starting to take a look at UE5 to see if I can incorporate it into VR and/or games in the future.

[@rageagainstmyhatchet]

Bless you, Mr Spaceman...

[@Hazardous]

Great video and very relatable haha! Excited to follow your progress and best of luck on this journey :)

[@MR_ZERO230]

The 🐐

[@JackSather]

Thanks bro!!

[@The_Gaming_Kiwi]

Cant wait to play your game, been watching since the first recreating stunts video.

[@Lalaland.001]

@@JackSathersuper awesome, to also see all your pitfalls was super interesting. I can relate am in the middle of learning it. I bought myself a course in unreal 5 which will take you in ten days from noob to be able to use the entire engine, make you familiar with all it's lingo, basics and then some. It is a filmmaker course. But it also learned me the in and outs of the engine itself. I can confidently say that I could make a game in 2 weeks just from this course alone. It goes into every detail in bitesize chunks so you don't need to sit through 5 hours of footage. It breaks it down day by day in 30-60 min sections and after ten days you actually know unreal 5. It also updates everytime a new feature is added and you get lifetime acces to it. I bought it at a discount, but believe me this course is the real deal. It's called boudless resourse in case you want to know. I am not sponsored but this resource literally changed my life. I hope this helps you out in some way shape or form. Just felt I had to share it with you since it has helped me tremendously...

[@eg769]

I got a question, not to detract or take away credit from this man here at all but where are the KZbin guys who are educated in making actual games that aren’t big or mainstream? From the first few minutes it seems like this is just some guy who loves videos games trying to make a game.

[@chasecsgo7041]

im so glad u went back and kept going had a huge smile on my face really inspiring that is VERY impressive for 14 days i think you showed to not give up if you load up ue or whatever you want to do enough times and keep pressing buttons, watching tutorials, soaking up everything you can about the subject and eventually something is going to work its inevitable but give yourself the time to learn if you say you can't you won't the mind is a very powerful thing!

[@vitalyvainer2831]

It is really captivating ( to the point that it's entangling) to hear and see your excitement about doing such a bold move. Whatever you do, do it with a spark of passion( You, mister, definitely have it. ) Good luck , work hard, and (most importantly) have fun while doing so.

[@perfectenrager]

I didn't thought you would go down this route but damn is it a dream of mine too. Good luck on the road and I hope you will make some unique and great games in the long run!

[@SKandSCS]

If you really want to, there's no better time than to start now and you could even e-mail Jack. As said, it's a passion thing, hell, the team could exchange so much knowledge out of passion itself that you could learn new things and teach new things. A true collaborative experience! And if you do decide to start learning, best of luck and remember, you can do this, no matter who says what!

[@DeltaNovum]

Even if he can just have fun with it, it would be fun to follow along with the journey. And him having a large audience and captivating personality, will make it worthwhile, whether he finishes it or not. Also he shouldn't worry too much, about the horse and cart thing. Even a AAA game studio such as Bethesda can't get that one right. You thought I was talking about their workflow with Starfield right? Where they just started making all the different systems, hoping it would eventually turn into a streamlined game. It did not. BUT I was actually referring to the intro to Skyrim and the glitchy horse+cart. I'm 36 myself and have been wanting to make games for many years. Started learning unreal many years ago, when UE4 had a subscription model. But I stopped doing it for many years, due to multiple reasons, including mental and physical health issues. I'm really wanting to get back on that horse now and these kinds of videos are very inspirational. Its my dream to create something. Not even to make money or for clout or anything. I just want to make something I like to play myself, and others might enjoy as well.

[@FirstCrimson]

Hell yeah, welcome to the game dev journey! Even after using UE for 8+ years, I'm still constantly learning the tools- it's a software that encompasses a whole umbrella of jobs so it can definitely become a bit overwhelming. If you ever need any assistance with the learning journey, feel free to throw me or any other UE devs a message, the community is very open to helping each other. Great video!

[@JackSather]

I will!

[@JackSather]

Omg you made suit for hire! That’s where I know you from, I was like, I’m subbed to you haha, yes lets get connected

[@hallofguts]

Your video game concept is so great, the Viking, glowing tombstone and Valhalla end lol. Thank you for this video, I found it because I’m looking to make my own game, so thank you, it inspired me and showed me quite a lot

[@thatboicrossent]

I really enjoyed seeing your journey when making a game. It is something I have grown interested in myself. I work more on the cinematics side, but I can remember when I started working in Unreal and going down the endless rabbit hole. Keep going man.

[@pterafier]

As someone who did youtube and makes games now, it's so fulfilling and I'm glad to see a youtuber trying it out! Making games is all about learning from the failures and trying again, and you did exactly that! There are probably people looking at the final game like "Damn I wish I could make that", and you should be proud to have made it. Also UDS is amazing. Best of luck on your journey! I've been in Unreal for about a year and a half and i'm starting to feel like a real dev lol

[@chalonhutson]

Broooooo!!!! I'm so excited! I started learning UE4 about 4 years ago as a hobby during COVID. Since I found your channel, all the videos on awesome game ideas (coughs in Bannerlords video), I thought, "I need to make one of his ideas a reality!" Time for me to put the work in and get good enough to make it happen.

[@TheDonkerZ]

I just stumbled across this video and your channel. THANK YOU for documenting this journey. It's the first time I have felt genuinely seen in the journey we all share called "Solo Game Dev with ADHD" (you mention not being diagnosed, but the constant distractions and other problems you run into are my experience to a tee). Seeing the joy on your face when you figure something out and show off what you finished with is the type of payoff that myself, and a lot of people, are striving for.

[@DCJGaming]

Good for you on giving this a go! I’ve been working on my first game (Champion of Andia) for the last 4 years. And this video takes me back down memory lane! Making a game is such a FRUSTRATING process. But the satisfaction of getting X,Y,Z to work is unmatched! Congratulations on your progress so far!

[@EtherealSandwich]

The attention thing rings home so much to me. I set out to just do something new and end up spending the day regretfully wasting it, and then wishing I had done better. I'm so happy that you managed to overcome that!

[@BuffDaddySmoove]

You have quickly become one of my favourite youtubers and its funny because this past month ive been really wanting to learn unreal but ive let mt fears get the better of me. I think this truly gave me the push i need to make the jump.... Thanks man :)

[@noamlaros3965]

I actually cant wait for another video like this I love seeing new game dev's getting introduced to game development and I love watching it

[@Scruffy-fv6xi]

This video convinced me to finally start my game dev journey and I have been learning unreal from the ground up for the last 2 weeks , would be really awesome to see a part 2 either building further on what you made or with the knowledge you have now see what you could do in another 2 weeks .

[@Mr_Sin99]

This is one of the best videos I have seen so far on youtube regarding game development. The struggles are real. I also wanted to create my own game but never got to do it. I hate myself every day for it but this video has given me some hope. Finally I will start making my own game Thanks for sharing your experience. Kudos to you. Dont stop now, its only the beginning...

[@shanepadgett5567]

A few of the biggest tips I can give as a senior developer. 1. Learn and use revision control. At least the basics. And commit to it every time you get something working. Work atomically as we call it. Small changes that you get working and commit because you can revert back to it if something goes wrong. 2. Learn to actually use the basic tools of unreal. Get a good grasp of typical workflows. 3. Blueprints alone will not be a good choice for building a game unless it’s little more than a walking simulator. Blueprints are in fact code, minus some syntax. 4. Watch GDC videos. If you want to see how things are done from both graphics and gameplay perspective, these are some of the best videos around. Most describe theory instead of just providing a tutorial. Two great ones are the Tsushima grass one and Spider-Man web swinging mechanic.

[@Mngzkhuel]

I SO feel your frustration with Unreal Engine. Things not working for seemingly no good reason... It's nice to know that it isn't just me. Thanks for sharing this and for being so transparent :)

[@lilltattarn94]

Im giving you both thumbs up dude! You did great for a beginner and as I see it, you´re halfway there already. Big up brother!

[@Nomad454]

Jack, DO NOT compare yourself to others! As you may know very well, the videos you watch that show how to do things, or the guys who make a playable experience or game in X amount of days, they don't show all of the struggle!! It's not always what it seems! You are an inspiration to me because I have been down this same road as well but I was not as committed as you are. You're the freakin man, keep it up.

[@mojaindustries4185]

The amount of stress and pure suffering I had to go through to fix problems that appeared out of nowhere is accurately portrayed in this video and that gives me so much motivation. You'll get better with time, just stay persistent and don't give up.

[@Zacharadus]

Well, consider me inspired! I graduated with a degree in Comp Sci in 2020 and I still haven't used any of the skills I learned in my career, which has been saddening me a little bit. My absolute favorite class that I took was a Video Game creation using Unreal 4. At the time, I was just checking boxes to get the grade, but I think it's time I finally revisit game creation just to see what I can do. I'll have to be a bit of a weekend warrior for this, but who knows, maybe I'll start fixating as I tend to do and eventually produce something I'm proud of. Thanks again for sharing your journey!

[@JSavedTheDay]

Ain’t nobody skipping to @6:30 We love you jack, and we’re totally here for the entire journey

[@retrorevival1]

i did. this 30min could be 15mins if we cut out all the nonsense. random tangents about videos he watched while being distracted? jfc

[@lahiruweliwitiya2]

I'm not a game dev, but I went through a similar character arc with music production (i.e. starting with zero experience), and I have to say that satisfaction of finally achieving a workable result is SO real. I related to this so damn much. Great job man!

[@anthonysacco5010]

I started out on Protools 6.5 and worked my way into a top 10 studio...

[@Nikolay1995]

Thank you for sharing your experience!! I think this is the most realistic devlog I've seen. By the end it's clear how much you've learned. Congrats!! And best of luck 😁

[@ryanwright6716]

Congrats bro! It wa actually cool to see how hard it was, it was humanizing. It was raw. It was real. To get beat up by yourself, by your own inexperience and then in just 2 days to completely start over and show that final product, I loved it! Thanks for showing how truely hard the process can be and not filtering the video. I loved it. Curious to see where you go from here. Im new to the channel, Im a new SUB. Keep up the great work bro.

[@Evanz111]

Absolutely loved Yahtzee’s dev diaries where he tried to make a game a month and gave us updates on the development process. Never expected to see a spiritual successor come from you, but I’m 100% down for it! Godspeed! ^^

[@shelby1casey223]

Hey! I would say I'm an intermediate 3D artist, I've been modelling for a few years but I have a lot of concepts to learn yet. In my time learning 3D, something important I've learned is what failure means. Failure is not the opposite of succeeding at something, failure only happens when you stop trying. Every time you make a mistake, every time you have to scrap everything and restart, every time you get a weird issue that you spend hours trying to fix, only for the solution to be turning on or off one tick box, is the process of improving. There is a way around every obstacle, even if it means starting over. The path forward is never blocked unless you stop trying! You never failed in this video because you came back and kept trying, and you learned so much in doing so 😄 (Also the constant youtube tutorials is so real lol I have so many playlists for Autodesk Maya, Substance Painter, Zbrush, etc.)

[@greatbriton8425]

You remind me of what the millionaire (I can't recall who it was) said when someone asked him how he succeeded: "Fail as often as you can!"

[@ifthis_]

i felt this entire video deeply lol... from the same exact distraction videos to how you consume information -me these last six months learning blender. so i decided to learn unreal today, with the launch of 5.4 and just discovered your channel through this video. i'm sticking around for the journey.

[@The.Edgerunner]

youve earnt my subscribe with this brother! never watched a video i felt more connected too and feel the same way! im currently learning modding as we speak. but i couldnt agree more with your view and passion for this! hope to see much much more coming my way from you nd support you on your journey

[@DeepCover66]

Read the title and thought this was an Ubisoft video for a second.

[@aceshigh2784]

😂

[@joshuatealeaves]

Here’s some no bs blunt advice : Game tutorials are cool in the beginning. After a few months though you need to learn to code. Most aspiring game developers avoid it because it’s not glamorous & there’s a huge learning curve. But if you want to eventually start a studio, have payroll & get your ideas out there like you said, you need to bite the bullet & learn to program eventually. If I were you I would learn how to program yesterday. Build you a solid foundation that can hold all your ideas. Beats having a shaky foundation that crumbles anytime you put a twig of an idea on it. Good luck Jack 🙏🏻

[@Chkoupinator]

definitely agreed, but games need artists as much as they need programmers and if he is more inclined to be an artist wasting time on trying to understand programming is not the way to go imo. Using plugins and tutorials will only get him so far though but it's better to be a really good artist and need a programmer (and maybe learn how to workaround your weaknesses) than to be average at everything after wasting years of training into it

[@joshuatealeaves]

@@Chkoupinator You’re spot on. Looking back on it I don’t why I gave him programming advice when he said he’s an artist looking to build a team. I jumped the gun 🥲

[@ChuMingming-xn3jb]

This is exactly what I needed, thank you for sharing your experience~~~~It's good to know you~~

[@soloCRPG]

Great video. As a former professional game Artist 3d/generalist, your decision to give Blender a whirl is awesome. Your idea in filming yourself for animations is spot-on, and a technique used by professional animators for decades. When I was learning 3d animation (before KZbin, working on a Pentium 66MHz PC and an SGI Onyx) we always had mirrors at our desks to learn facial animation and were literally throwing ourselves on the floors to nail the movement of a death animation. Keep up the work and don't be afraid to get into the meat of traditional modeling and animation. It is becoming a lost art among indy devs. Creating your own assets will give you freedom in design and your game a consistency in visual style you will never get from purchased assets alone. Rock. On.

[@kkon5ti]

Jordan Peterson really is the worst way to get distracted

[@CountMount-Cristus]

It's a pretty good result actually! I've been using Unreal since UDK and had a similar learning journey as you. But I've found that reading the documentation on the topic I'm trying to learn is the most effective way for me.

[@user-gl6jw1zt2j]

This was super interesting and cathartic to watch. I have been learning UE5 from past couple of months. This tech is mesmerizing. With all the difficulties it still attracts you towards it. I have noted down many things from this video. As you rightly said, the UE KZbinrs are doing phenomenal job of teaching. That includes you now. Subscribed.

[@Scorch052]

Love this video because it really captures almost everyone's first steps in getting into solo game dev. If I had any advice to give it would be to keep giving yourself these kinds of deadlines, trying to make small projects quickly and focusing on developing the fundamentals. Game jams are also a great way to do this in a collaborative environment.

[@onion6862]

This is the first video that I'm watching from you, and let me tell you that seeing the last part of the video really made me proud. That game looks amazing and I'm happy that you didnt quit. For the moment I don't have a pc to make games on, but I also want to create some amazing games that I have in mind. It might take me years but at least you made me feel like not giving up. Thank you :).

[@CesarsHideout]

Thanks for this video! I started this last week and OH BOY! Feels like I haven't learned anything though I definitely know more than I did before I started. I'm excited to keep learning.

[@fnustudios1781]

Wishing you the best. Looking forward to seeing more progress.

[@somhunt5446]

Love the process Jack. This was a major distraction but I needed this. I was thinking about all flaws in my own learning today, and this was a documentary of me. The distractibility, and the endless rabbit holing due to that internal voice of 'why?' and the need to perfectly understand before moving on. Thank you Jack, my first video of yours - random recommendations.

[@GEK0dev]

I’ve been developing for almost two years, This engine is painful, But incredible at the same time, Knowledge is everything, I am already able to help people who are where I was. The Journey is incredible, I encourage you to keep going

[@balogunlikwid]

I can relate to your struggles on a very personal level man. Thanks so much for this video. Every type of struggle you mentioned in this video feels like me, and you have inspired me that even with all of this I can still be able to get things done. So thank you very much for that. I intend on starting my own KZbin channel and this has inspired me to just get started and figure it out as I go. The anxiety is killing me though 😢😂. Wish me luck 🤞🏾

[@feebleturtle8922]

After starting this journey myself for new years I started to lose motivation recently and this video helped respark that drive to keep going. Thank you

[@RegularRebellion]

Jack, mate, thank you so much for taking the time to create this video and share your experience with the learning process. After watching, I feel like it was exactly what I needed. Game design has been on my mind for ages, and I've always felt like it's too late to start, but your video has given me real inspiration. The way you addressed the challenges of learning curves really resonated with me. Massive thanks for that. As someone diagnosed with ADHD, your advice of "just get the basics done" is pure gold, something I often realise too late when starting a new project. Progress always trumps detail in these scenarios, but we often get caught up in the details, which limits our progress. P.S. You should chat with your doc about ADHD ‘cos I think you're onto something haha. My diagnosis changed my life, giving me extra headspace to better understand why I do (or don't do) certain things and allowing me to go a bit easier on myself - if this resonates, you should definitely chat to the doc :) Thanks again, +1 sub and will support where I can!

[@NyxDiscordia33]

I'm so glad you decided to make this journey (and sorry for your loss) making games is such a rewarding, incredible experience. It teaches you a lot about failure and simplifying your ideas until you have something fun that actually works that you can build upon I do have some notes on the animations, though. It's fantastic that you used yourself as reference; genuinely a really effective method, but because of that and the fact you didn't have a *real* war hammer to lug around I feel like a lot of the weight and handling of the weapon was lost in translation. Your character holds up the hammer like it's some kind of aluminium pole with a flag on it and swings it like a toothpick. You gotta really sell the weight of the weapon if you want it to have impact. Anticipation, reaction, follow-through, secondary animation (which Cascadeur does an amazing job with), the world is your oyster. But hey, you still made a thing despite all your trials an tribulations and something that a vast many of people cannot say hope you continue your gamedev journey 'cause it's only just begun

[@allabout3d235]

Hello Jack, I'd highly recommend creating small projects if you want to make games and keep the process fun. Take the game you're showing us now, for example. Turning that into a full game could be a 3-year journey if you already know the scope and story of the game, but realistically, we're talking about 5 years. There are many things people forget when it comes to games, but one good example is picking up items. Implementing the action of a character picking up an item is not hard, but what's difficult is getting the game to understand every situation that can happen and still perform the task correctly. What should happen if you get attacked at the same time you pick up an item? What happens if you cancel picking up the item, and so on. Try making a game that is single-based, in a close environment, and with simple mechanics. That will give you the chance to succeed but also push yourself to create more advanced projects in the future.

[@Sabamonster]

Happened to find this video on accident and right off the rip you said something that garnered respect from me. "As I'm critiquing developers work - I feel a little bit of guilt about the fact that I don't participate in this medium." While it's true you don't necessarily *need* to know how to make video games to critique them; a lot of the critiques that people give and their expectations are often times incredibly unrealistic. They don't understand that something that SEEMS innocuous and like a trivial thing to fix, can be a colossal endeavor. Having written and designed modules for games and helped in the creation of a few others, trust me when I say that lots of things pop up unexpectedly and sometimes issues arise with things that are seemingly completely unrelated to the issue in question. I've always held the belief that if you have strong opinions about games and developers and you want to shit on them (Not you, just in general) you should at least have an idea about what you're asking of them and how much work is involved. People scream about things they have no knowledge of and while having valid complaints is one thing - saying things like "Just [insert thing here] do this! it's not that hard!" When you don't even know what the issue is, is ridiculous. It's like something going wrong on your vehicle and screaming at the mechanic to just fix the flux capacitor. The most minor issue could also potentially be related to the entire structure of the game, making it near impossible to fix in a timely manner without reprogramming large swathes of the game. One tip I would suggest; is try to look at Troubleshooting as if you're solving a future problem - as, don't look at it as if the troubleshooting your doing is purely for the *now*. Everything you learn, will at some point be beneficial to you, regardless of how inconsequential it seems. It's all experience and while some things may not turn out the way you intend, you WILL learn something in the process. Over time and with process of elimination (Or determining what DOES work) you'll have accumulated a library of things to reference when troubleshooting something later on. Gaming is essentially just problem solving on a major scope, so take those little problems and see them as potential building blocks for your later endeavors. It still won't remove the frustration completely, but if you remind yourself that you're paving the way for future projects by resolving your mistakes now, it does make it a bit easier.

[@MagicPlayersRox]

It took me two weeks to get through one of his videos due to working full time lmao but seriously amazing video and split up into chapters definitely the fastest way to get introduced into everything unreal engine

[@llewischandler3260]

Thank you for thia video! Seeing the experience of someone new to unreal has actually been really hwlpful. Ive wanted to do this for so long but found it so daunting. Definitely going to sub!

[@tumangeorange8388]

Love this video, especially appreciate showing the process of struggling I for sure resonate with it.

[@Tatiana94406]

Absolutelly amazing video. What a journey! I admire your dedication. And you even tried to to do physics in UE - it's a battle!

[@LowkeyLucass]

Just in a youtube hole watching stuff but i stuck around for yours instead of skipping. gave a sub! Looking forward to seeing more of your videos man! i feel the same way you do!

[@lieutenantlunar7234]

As a guy who has been merely messing around with game engines for some time now and not really getting anywhere game wise, i really related to this video and helped me remember there are many more people who have the same exact problems that i face with creating games. game development is hard at first, for a while even, but the more you do it and the more games you make the more experience you'll gain from them. I will release a game one day if i really get knuckle down, because i know i can. Thanks for this vid man, you got a new subscriber!

[@jgrywacheski]

This video on my recommendation page so thought I'd check it out. You've gained a sub for sure. Enjoy the video, the process, the honesty........ It's not overly stylized or "youtubey" which is refreshing. Looking forward to following your journey. From one graphic designer to another I say good luck.

[@TSUKILORD]

Mannn, I love your energy! Is really good content and thank you so much for sharing this with us!

[@mokeman4416]

As someone who is about 2 and a half years into game dev and unreal i think its awesome to see you and others dip your toes into creating games and you should be really proud of them game you made at the end of this and im happy you stuck to it and hope you can make even more cool things in the future

[@jeremiahdomer4657]

Hey this is really cool. Glad to see we will have another indie dev in a few years cuz we sure need em.

[@AviusL]

SOOO...fkn...relatable!! Especially the part where you follow the tutorial exactly, and then miss a crucial tool to proceed. I always get stuck for hours trying to find it xD Ty for making this video!

[@FKreider]

Not sure why KZbin recommended this video to me but I’m glad that it did! I remember being a kid in school (20+ years ago) and wanting to make my own game and this brought back a whole bunch of memories and feelings! To me that end product looked epic! Congratulations!

[@Shu-kaiHolliday]

i have no experience in gamedev and seeing your process of making a game has been interesting for me. It definitely looks like a lot of hard work especially when you're tweaking small details. But i really liked the graphics and i would honestly play it. keep it up! i think u have the potential to make more cool games.

[@bjpickles7424]

Every person who says "game dev is easy" or "just add X feature" needs to watch this. Game dev is hard, and it's not a "bash out in 2 months" topic. There's a reason why people have full careers dedicated on only 1 aspect in the development pipeline. These things take time and experience. Best advice I can give - make small fun prototypes. You'll learn from mistakes & make better games. Just like drawing/painting you're not going to make a masterpiece on your first go. Keep going folks, you'll get there! This video is literally the first phase of every indie devs journey. "How hard can it be" to "I spent money to fix my problem but it didn't really work". Great video.

[@omgftwttyl]

i just started learning everything too, thanks for this video, I think I needed this. I'm at a point in life where its hard to go on being boring and doing nothing. The part where you said not to fixiate on being perfect (the issue with obsessing over floors you have) I think I do that to a lot of new things I try.

[@AverageWTPilot]

As a game dev with 4-5 years experience this takes me back to when I started. I had no idea what I was doing and would over-download nonsense just like you did. I got impatient and frustrated so much early on. But it gets so much easier overtime as you figure out what not to do. Even with all the hours of frustration and obsession, game dev was the best decision I have made in my entire life. It makes you feel so worth it when something finally goes right and there's a feeling you get from it that you get from nowhere else. So I urge you to keep going forward in your journey because it's so worth it. Good luck out there!

[@Callion.]

This is my first video on your channel, but somehow I got hooked and watched it all, which is surprising, my time span is usually a few minutes. I guess I can see myself in your shoes and overall you seem like a guy with a great vibe. I've been a web application developer for over 10 years now and I'm a huge gaming nerd, always have been, always will be. Gaming on some level has always been a part of my life since early childhood and just like you, I always dreamed of making my own games but never got around to actually doing it. You know, having a full time job and then starting to learn a new one after workhours is so exhausting and mentally challenging, but I just want to let you know that you have given me hope and there is some motivation building up inside me... which is very rare in my case, just for you know. As for the process itself, I like your journey and hope you will continue, I especially like the portrayal of the disappointments that will always be part of the learning process, but the victory is much more rewarding. I look forward to the rest of your journey. I was curious that you never used any AI tools, meaning ChatGPT or others, most of the developers actually adapted these tools and became much more eficient and I believe that will stand for game development as well, since you can actually have a long interpreted conversation about your unique problem can be really helpful and the AI can give you relevant insights that you can't really google that well. That would be my recommendation. Finally, I wish you luck and who knows, maybe our paths will cross some day.

[@chadgarrett6947]

We are so similar it's crazy. Great video! Trying to make my own in Unreal 5 and these new updates have made it so much nicer for artists like us who are so good with concept stuff but don't have as much experience with coding ect.