How NOT to Make a Game on STEAM

[@b4ttlemast0r]

"let your friends work for you for free" 😂

[@not_ever]

"Not being able to see enemies coming from behind was a design bug the only sensible solution was to make the game in third person camera" It would have been easier and simpler to have a map/radar with the enemies as red dots and the player as a green arrow. This shows the direction you are facing and the number of approaching enemies from all directions.

[@esoopthederp7672]

Or just use sound design

[@NaudVanDalen]

This game looks like a pre-alpha version of a first person shooter. I prefer textures, any textures at all and also enemy models with health bars instead of balls that show their health inside of them.

[@Burrya]

This is the definition of underrated. From content to presentation, every aspect is fabulous. Keep up!

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

a good editor matters :D

[@WestinsWorldStudio]

Super helpful! For me as a solo dev it took me a while to realize the importance of taking notes from what I learned from various videos. I thought I could retain it all. But by the time you invest time in one component e.g. Blender, or coding, or rigging or animation, and when the time comes to revisit some tools you learned several months ago, it’s almost like starting over. Take notes so you don’t have to watch lengthy tutorials from start to end!

[@PaulSpades]

You know, some pretty good points I haven't already seen in other dev videos - and I watch a lot of them. Cheers and good luck with your games!

[@UltimatePerfection]

7:17 This is why I love doing gamedev livestreams. They require almost no editing before being put on YT, and doesn't take time away from development, because you'd be doing coding anyway, might as well do it live.

[@andreypopov3400]

It’s not a “design bug”. It’s just called a bad gamedesign. And no - you can't fix all the gamedesign decisions, because you are not immortal, no game is perfect. And I would argue that fixing glitches should still be a priority over a “design bug”.

[@XoADREADNOUGHT]

Actually, there definitely can be "design bugs". They are born of bad game design, true, but it's a design bug when a real code error is introduced due to the mistakes in design. Now, if it is truly just poor game design making for a poor experience, then yes you're right, that's no bug, just bad design.

[@edhahaz]

Call it however you want, but he's right.

[@andreypopov3400]

@@XoADREADNOUGHT not sure what you mean by "real code error is introduced due to mistakes in design". Coding a game and designing a game are two separate processes. A mistake in code leads to technical mistakes (crashes, freezes, collisions or pathfinding not working correctly, etc.). A mistake in design leads to gameplay loop mistakes (a weapon being imbalanced, a character being poorly written, a game mechanic being made boring for the player to interact with). Those two worlds are not that connected, actually

[@XoADREADNOUGHT]

@@andreypopov3400 If you implement a menu system with a dead end with no way to return from the final menu, causing a soft lock - if that was not part of the design for the menu system, it is a design bug.

[@andreypopov3400]

@@XoADREADNOUGHT if that was part of the design (for example if UI designer forgot to add back button) - that's not a design bug, that's a bad UI design. If that was not the part of the design (so that the programmer did receive task to implement such button but did not do it for some reason or did it incorrectly) - that's a simple bug, not a design bug.

[@BigCatsBite]

I found the parts about the steam store very enlightening, thanks for those tips!

[@NoCodeFilmmaker]

I love the constant reference to Jenga. A perfect analogy

[@KummoDeveloper]

On lesson 4 you note a small youtuber giving tip to setup steam page as soon as possible. That actually used to be true in past and it used to help. And it still kinda is true but now with caviat that it does have to look professional when u do it. You still should have steam page setup at least weeks before launch of game (or demo) but it should have high quality capsules, trailer, screenshots and if possible few gifs showcasing the game. I know some small indie devs that kinda cheat and make fake material about things that aren't in game yet but that they know/hope/assume will be in final version (both on trailers and on gifs - for example there might be somekinda intro scene before battle that isn't actually in game but was edited on another software or on platformer games they might not be showing material for complete level but instead just recolored existing levels or are showing footage of very small portion of level they will work fully on later). This does need some extra work compared to how old "steam meta" used to work but u still want to gain wishlists passively and/or have some purpose for marketing (for example call for action to click wishlist button).

[@JS27982]

9:31 is so true with one of my favorite games, geometry dash. the developer robtop took a lot of time polishing the code to make it perfect and it took... a mere 7 years to release an update.

[@JS27982]

it might have also been that the update was big and added a bunch of things that he couldn't work with in time, which is why some features were delayed to another update.

[@shakotan4703]

good video, exhausting voiceover

[@michaelperrigo]

Facts

[@logosimian]

Re: Lesson 9 Way I see it, bad code is an optimization problem. When people optimize code, they traditionally weigh how much memory it needs against how fast it runs. But making your code ugly optimizes for getting the project done sooner (or at all), and making it clean optimizes for making the code easier to fix and maintain, especially in the future when you have to re-read it after forgetting what you did. If you're working on a team, you might give more weight to readability. If you're making your first or second game, you might want to give more weight to quick turnaround, because it may be more effective to finish a bad game, and make the next game better than to try and make a bad game good.

[@zekenebel]

Everything u said was right except from the bold statement you opened this up with. Traditionally developers do not weigh those two things at all. They are completely separate from eachother. The ammount of memory something is taking is not relative to how fast something runs even by a fractional margin. If I don’t store X thing in memory it’ll take me longer to have access to it again as I’ll effectively have to bring it back to the exact state i need it in to do what I need to do. This inherently contradicts the statement. Memory is just for if and when you need frequent access to something in a state.

[@BookFurnace]

Isn't it exactly what he said? There is a tradeoff between loading things in memory in advance (spending more memory overall, but things run faster since you don't need to re-load stuff later), and spending less memory but having to load and unload stuff all the time.

[@tudorlabadin9446]

Some very valuable lessons and tips like the importance of the initial store page and understanding Steam's algorithm. I think your game looks great, will buy it myself once I have the money. Don't know what the other comment is on about, take their harsh advice with a huge grain of salt. Loved your video!

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

Glad to hear that :D thankss

[@andreypopov3400]

5:00 - about the advice you’ve had from other developer. He was right, you should have made a Steam page for your game as soon as possible, that was a right decision. Steam don’t give a lot of traffic to the Steam pages at their launch anyway, but the everyday traffic you get is what matters. That is what Chris Zukowski that you yourself mentioned suggests too: publish the Steam page as early as you can.

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

he was right but i took it too hard. "even if its not great" wasnt equals "even its looking like a shit" 😂 btw thank for your comment dude 🙏

[@andreypopov3400]

@@NashEquilibriumDEV I myself overdo it in the other direction: we've been working on store page and trailer for at least 3 months fulltime - I wanted my steam page to be as good as possible (I thought Steam Algorithm will see good clickthrough rate and start showing the game more right after launch). Nope. did not help at all. In fact, my "good" steam page got almost the same traffic as my previous steam page got. And that's counting all the reddit posts I've made and other sources that I personally lead to Steam.

[@BigGucc]

@@NashEquilibriumDEVwhat they don’t say is that your steam page should acceptable screenshots, a trailer, and demo apon launch. I’m waiting myself like you mentioned in the video. Why would I give up that free publicity that steam gives on a half ass steampage

[@andreypopov3400]

@@BigGucc because there is no direct correlation between your starting page quality and the traffic you get. You'll get about 1000 views the day you launch your store page, then about 300 each day. There simply is no reason to wait until your page is gorgeous since you won't get more traffic from steam only because of that. And the sooner you publish your page - the more traffic you will get each day

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

I think some of what you call "design bugs" are bound to only be found later in development. At that point it might indeed be impractical to backpedal, but it might still be possible to either mitigate or pivot. So like with the fps situation, you could have a minimap, a rear view camera, little arrows indicating stuff behind you (with their size / color / etc indicating urgency), etc. For the view-blocking or ambiguous collisions, you could add more feedback and stuff like outlines for enemies behind a very-close enemy or even a transparency for enemies which are too close. A lot of that you might even be able to feed into the gameplay loop, or even turn into new mechanics (say, having some enemies behave differently when it comes to this stuff or tying some of it to skills, etc). My (armchair) two cents is that of course it is nice to prevent mistakes, but some are bound to happen, so practicing mitigation and pivoting can be just as important.

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

thanks for contribution man. its really bound to be found later 😂 Actually i was aware that the fps controller is not a good fit for the game. also didnt want to add a minimap to the game since the map is too small and don want to make player control the minimap. but postponing to switch to the tps camera was too hard after finishing the whole game 🫠

[@austinreed7343]

That’s part of how things like combo systems came to be.

[@Divisaw666]

this is an ai video right

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

just got help in voiceover. but its my voice btw 🫠

[@matt1871]

​@@NashEquilibriumDEV I hadn't considered using an AI version of my voice to voice over videos.. this has been the biggest prevention for me to start my dev videos!

[@studioprimitive]

Strategee

[@sergeantsapient]

@@NashEquilibriumDEV Some of the stock photos were clearly AI, so not true.

[@shanmukhag2349]

Extremely insightful. Not to be rude, but few of the listed issues are what many call *skill issues*.

[@trygvij1604]

I've kinda binge watched how to work as a solo game developer the past week and this video was actually good. Like no point felt unnecessary and you didn't waste my time one bit. I hope you grow fast because you def deserve it. I'm joining your discord server :)

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

Thanks mate

[@teh1archon]

Excellent video! Many thanks 🙏🏻

[@xle3ntr_33]

not a game dev but was a useful and fun vid

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

thanks mate 👋

[@WingstenGER]

Great advice and really high quality video! Surprised you don't have more subscribers. Have a like and a sub good sir!

[@yokey5002]

games are not made out of "nothing" you are spending months of your life on them and that's worth a ton of money, yes you can spend money but do not forget what the real investment is and do not feel forced to spend on your game

[@egeaydn4722]

underrated channel

[@lonbpalmer]

Fantastic video, thank you.

[@luckyknot]

Great tips thanks!!

[@cprn.]

Your “solutions” to design issues aren't really solutions. When a design decision is literally game changing, let's say from 1st to 3rd person camera, it's changing your game's entire genre. Now you're making a 3rd person game that caters to a different audience, and all your design decisions up to this moment were in context of a 1st person game. A classically trained game designer would go with a new game mechanic instead - a visual or audio cue (screen borders marked in red or distinct sound of enemy behind you, etc), a minimap, and so on. The rest of your advice is spot-on, though. Especially the one about not following marketing strategies found on small KZbin channels. As with everything in life, those who succeed don't have time to teach, and only those who fail tend to give advice. That includes me, if it wasn't obvious.

[@SecretZoneGames]

Great video!

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

thanks mate 🫠

[@bhuvneetsaggu4011]

4:57 well i know, whom you taking about.. thanks I will keep that in mind

[@ausername4meplease]

Brilliant learnings! 🎉

[@РичардТриальд]

Usefull information.

[@log.moon_]

Great video, really good advice!

[@locusruizlopez5997]

It seems strange to me that you call it a bug when it is a design flaw

[@PaulSpades]

Flaws are still bugs in "programmer speak". When we code logic it requires figuring out the corner cases and including them. Anything that we didn't think of - we call a bug, even though it's really a flaw in the implementation/design/requirements. "Real bugs" are unforeseen consequences in a system, not really flaws in implementation/design, but we lump both in the same basket in modern development.

[@adog3129]

the editing style is... too much.

[@Dkfire_1977]

It's really helpful man ✨

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

its glad to hear dude 🙏

[@gracelessgames]

I think one issue with your game could be that its name (which you mention several times in your video) isn't self-explanatory at all: It *could* be a about bows and archery, something about overwhelm, but what is a bower? The wordplay doesn't work and takes too long to process while quickly scanning a storefront

[@gameworkerty]

the transitions are headache inducing

[@Creeperassasin-nc5wk]

yeah the budget thing isnt true at all. I am making my own game rn and all im using are my skills which i gained and still gaining and using basically free tools that are simple and easy to use no matter what if you put in the time . If you manage your projects to be small and have small ideas for small games make those games. Over time your ideas and creations can be combined to make something bigger . No need for a budged if you are by yourself and arent doing game dev as a full job.

[@condescendingsnail3722]

Don't forget about the cost of your labour though!

[@Creeperassasin-nc5wk]

​@@condescendingsnail3722what cost of labor . That will be paid off whenever i sell my game . Why would i need an investor or a budget for something i can do all by myself .

[@studioprimitive]

I think investors are heavily interested in the game.

[@Spacemarine658]

Hard disagree with the clean code, clean code can be fixed, understood, and improved. Spaghetti code will always be bad. Clean code is the difference between a junior dev and a senior one. Perfectionism is bad for sure but clean code is a must.

[@PaulSpades]

For an ongoing web service, or project that needs continuous development - yes. For a game? Nope. He's completely right. Focus on cleaning up the essential mechanics, logic and rendering - not GUI, notifications, achievements and other side goodies. The main stuff will probably need to be tweaked the most, the other stuff just needs to work (and preferably support localisation). Also, most of the side systems will need to be pulled out and trashed/rewritten for each platform, if you're porting the game to other systems. So you're gaining nothing by making the code look pretty there.

[@Spacemarine658]

@@PaulSpades players will absolutely notice poorly designed/coded UI (source am a UI/UX designer)

[@PaulSpades]

@@Spacemarine658 Well, I've been working as a developer on UIs for the web, mobile and games for 15 years. No they won't notice if a menu is a 400 line switch statement or a fancy modular system with components and state machines for each option. We're talking about code here, not the design. Just drop in any gui template you can get your hands on (or IMGUI), make the assets fit your game, add the apropriate options and don't worry about it, not until you have funds to hire professionals. Polish the gameplay, art, animations, effects, sound and music - not the buttons.

[@Spacemarine658]

@@PaulSpades if you are great at your job you can usually get away with it, this is a video for your average developer not experts. A Google search will disprove the players don't notice bad UI www.google.com/search?q=why+bad+ui+hurts+player+experience&oq=why+bad+ui+hurts+player+experience+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRirAjIHCAcQIRirAjIHCAgQIRirAtIBCDcxOTZqMGo3qAIUsAIB&client=ms-android-tmus-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

[@BookFurnace]

Poorly designed - yes, but it's impossilbe to detect from outside whether the AI is poorly coded. Poor and clean code can provide identical behaviors.

[@HyperEpicGames]

People say have your Steam page up as soon as you can. Just to clarify, do you agree with this only if the steam page looks professional (no prototype screenshots) for example.?

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

yes mate setting up a store page asap is crucial as long as it doesnt looking like a shit 😃

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

it should look and feel like something time was spend on. Gamers kinda smell that effort you put in the game. No one wants to buy something sketchy

[@connorjade5460]

How can I get the turkish perk???

[@Mohamadabdallkaremstudio]

can you explain more about the grand in turkey i live there and i don't know this can you provide any information

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

KOSGEB covers up to 600.000 turkish liras for equipment support which is around $20k. You must be a turkish citizien first and get the advanced entrepreneurship certificate from KOSGEB.

[@thepacific2933]

About the turkey case, are you a citizen of both or is it just an application? how does that work?

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

turkey and u.s.a got double taxation agreement. that means you dont have to pay VAT both in turkey and usa. But you gotta do the paperwork to claim that benefit

[@freecash3474]

@@NashEquilibriumDEV How do you apply for support from the government? Do you have to have a company with experience before or can I just apply for it my project that I am already working on which has working basics like multiplayer and lobby system + basic functionalities right now. I am a turkish citizen. I checked the page but it says that I have to provide my previous sales etc

[@PaulSpades]

@@freecash3474 Contact an accountant that has some experience in your field - in this case games/multimedia. They should know when there are funding opportunities and tax breaks if they work with other devs and studios. Yes, you'll need to pay them.

[@aamkaa3406]

Do you make money from developing games?

[@mobildisko579]

kardesim türkmüsün, bende oyunumu steamde yayınlayacam fakat , kafam karışık, türkiyede şirketim veya vergi numaram olmadıgından , oyunumu yayınladıgımda %30 steam %30 amerika w8 ile kesinti yapacak, kalan %40 cebe kattıgımda türk devleti vergi kaçırıyorsun dermi?

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

aynen öyle aga. Çifte vergilendirme meselesi icin sahis sirketi kurmak lazim. gel discordda konsalim

[@mobildisko579]

@@NashEquilibriumDEV Nightkiller#5423

[@mobildisko579]

@@NashEquilibriumDEV nightkiller arkadas ekledim

[@freecash3474]

@@NashEquilibriumDEV Bu devlet desteğini almak için daha önce satış yapmak mı gerekiyor yoksa ilk projeden başvurabiliyor muyuz?

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

her destek kalemine gore degisiyor. ama cogunda onden basvuru yapip proje bazinda bir degerlendirmeden sonra alinabiliyor

[@MonsterS511]

Lesson 2 == Lesson 9 and they're both wrong! 🤣 My exclusive Lesson 69: Learn damn modular architecture! Learn damn interfaces and assemblies! Learn injection! My exclusive Lesson 228: For goodness sake - make actual fun games. Hide the primitive prototypes, don’t show them to anyone and don’t try to sell them. My exclusive Lesson 101: If you use AI in video production - do it good. Or don't use it at all. 🙈

[@TheSimpleDev]

This has some pretty bad and misleading advice. I mean look at a game like Stardew Valley, no money invested in its creation. The developer invested his time in everything though. If you have no money to invest in your game you are much better off investing in developing the skills you need and not selling out to some investor or publisher.

[@NoCodeFilmmaker]

Wrong, time is money. The time you spend working on a game is time you're not making money (if even freelancing). So even if you don't spend physical currency, you're still investing sweat equity into development. So unless you're producing an asset flip or grift, you are investing some level of sacrifice and capital into your game.

[@TheSimpleDev]

​@@NoCodeFilmmaker This is probably the stupidest take I have ever heard. You cannot spend 100% of your life working. People have hobbies, people learn new things to grow. If you are waking up, doing work to make profit from that time until you go to bed you are living life wrong. You need to have hobbies and invest time into improving yourself. Hence I said that he invested his time into everything he did. Time is not always money unless your only focus in life is making money 100% of the time in which case I feel sorry for the sad lonely life you are living

[@NoCodeFilmmaker]

@@TheSimpleDev That's your opinion bro, and you're entitled to it

[@ruinaimperii476]

20 bin dolara kadar devlet desteği ile ilgili detayları nerede bulabilirim?

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

kosgeb veriyor hocam

[@neotracer075]

I joined discord and the only channel is verification... what gives?

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

You can pick a role from there. and open a ticket from limited-key-giveaway chanel

[@SeaShrimp]

If you cancel a feature and you cant readd it later, your code is garbage. If you know you cancelled a feature and you plan to add it later, make your code modular so its easier to implement new features. All these issues go back to the same god damn thing, garbage coding skills. What is the point of this video? "Dont do this because my code was shit and it didnt work for me?"

[@anytng999]

I'm sorry, but damn. While the video is interesting and does point out some noteworthy tips... the editing is just so annoying. It's like watching one of these shorts where there is a Subway Surfers clip underneath to keep the attention span of the viewer. Idk how others feel, but I don't need a text popping up for every word you say in different sizes and locations with a subtle shake. Just keep it simple man. Instead of high-quality content, this just screams 'give me attention'. But hey, you got the views you wanted. So, maybe it's the style you wanna keep.

[@NashEquilibriumDEV]

We'll focus to do it better man! thanks for your feedback 🙏🏻

[@marcinnawrocki1437]

Get better mic, it has some annoying "bumps".

[@dreamingacacia]

My problem is that I don't know the game similar to what I'm making lol. It's not like it's completely out of the world or anything, but the exact kind of game which is rather hard to explain is nonexistence. Which is why I'm making it in the first place. More like because I like a lot of games but... as you can see there is 'but' in my reasoning. That's why it'd be hard for my game to be ABC's clone but I still have enough references to look around. Maybe my real problem is because I have too much freedom, so it's causing me a lot of friction while working on the game.

[@CyborgPrime]

Bro lose the AI voice

[@ana_rchy]

garbaj uses she/they btw

[@quaker5712]

Does he?