How To Make Games ALONE In 2025 - Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 022

[@thomasbrush]

► Get 50% off Full Time Game Dev during the Black Friday sale: www.fulltimegamedev.com/full-time-game-black-friday ► Play Bulwark Evolution: store.steampowered.com/app/290100/Bulwark_Evolution_Falconeer_Chronicles/ ► Learn how to become a full time game dev, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-how-to-make-six-figures

[@DavidWehleGames]

I love Tomas! He probably gives the best most practical advice on r/gamedev

[@TYNEPUNK]

where did all the replies go

[@bb3d]

Thank you for this interview. I was laid off yesterday after releasing a small game in 5 months. At 43 with 25 years of experience I am feeling a lot of what is said in this interview. Lots of truth in here. Here is to kicking off something fresh and new and FUN for funs sakes.

[@SandorClegane-TheHound]

I love what your doing Tom Its refreshing to see someone actually giving the "as real as it gets" interviews

[@j_cap95]

This man is my spirit animal

[@blakasmurf]

Swears like a sailor, but please can we keep him! 🤗

[@falconeerdev]

​@@blakasmurf I will be your spirit garden gnome !

[@a420dro]

it's possible, some genre more than other, but damn so much work, and if you don't have progamming background, forget about your game or you will end up with walking simulator without real gameplay. To be honest, even being graphic artist, 3d artist and programmer, it's still damn lot of hard work and frustration... cannot imagine someone does that solo and not having those 3 skills.

[@MalikFrost12]

I have a lot of respect for this guys mentality and approach to game development and the industry

[@Education-or2xb]

Yup me too

[@ItsJustJoeGames]

This was one of my favorite interviews. The amount of actionable insights is off the charts! 🎉

[@kaingagame4351]

Tomas Sala is legendary. What a man. Great podcast!

[@lcizzlelc]

Mr Sala gives loads of good info especially the part at the end about not throwing anything away. Some of the legends in the industry basically made the same gaves many times. Hideo Kojima - Metal Gear for example. Or ID Software and FPS games, each one pushed the genre a little further.

[@DesignedByTaz]

There is so much real talk in this conversation. I love it!

[@chilenitonuma]

"Cozy" for me never meant "micro-managy" or "deep". Those two things can be mutually inclusive with "Cozy", but their is not direct correlation. Case in point: "Darkest Dungeon", "This War of Mine" and "FrostPunk" could all be considered "micro-managy" or "deep" but definitely not cozy. Meanwhile you can have a game like "A Short Hike" or even something like "Little Nightmares" that could both be "cozy" in their own ways, but neither are really "deep" or "micro-managy"

[@RiorXD]

Title: How to make games alone video length: 2 seconds Content in video: JUST DO IT!!!

[@motioncache]

Shia LaBeouf "Just Do It!" kzbin.info/www/bejne/kInWgnSOrcSUpZI&ab_channel=MotivaShian

[@jacobkirkbride1581]

Great guest! Enjoying this episode a lot.

[@Ravsiles4542]

Was planning to work alone. But I rather talk first before making plans in making a game that may or may not work. Depends the kind of game I really want to focus on.

[@TYNEPUNK]

I released on steam 10 days ago, got 9 sales.

[@Ion3353]

Congratulations!

[@Beans-io7ud]

What’s the game called?

[@TYNEPUNK]

@@Beans-io7ud tenement

[@armintakacs7186]

Game title?

[@TYNEPUNK]

@@armintakacs7186 looks like my replies are being deleted, but i will try again, tenement

[@tygeta9851]

Thanks to this channel , I've been trying my best to polish the hell out of a demo/vertical slice. Get everything working then put it out there to the public while I work on the rest. I've been trying to keep it to myself until the entire game was completed originally.

[@makebreakrepeat]

Perfect timing! Just planning out my first game ❤️

[@amunchasethesun]

Such a cool, down to earth dude with great advice. Thanks for another great interview Thomas 😊

[@Mekkablood]

I think this guy is brilliant, but also wrong about the current scene. Indie games seem more popular than ever, and AAA games (especially as a service) are falling out of style. I would base this overall sentiment I see from youtubers/reddit comments/twitter comments/growth of reddit communities based on the indie scene. I could be wrong though, but I think he's basing this assumption on lower funding specifically from store fronts, and a few specific publishers. I for example didn't even have to a seek out a publisher and multiple came to me, and I had never made a game before, and had no real social media following. If your game looks good the funding is still out there.

[@falconeerdev]

Actually I am not interested in funding. I am much more in favour of bootstrapping yourself to self publishing sustainability. My assumption that its harder now is based on the falling revenue amounts succesful games are able to muster and the further click-bait-esque trajectory of things. But these trends are not grasped from thin air. Analyst like gamediscoveryco have pointed out time and time again the median and average revenue streams are dropping. Not funding but sales basically. But there is still good succes to be had some viral hits but also general "good games" sell well still being mostly true. But the definition of 'well'. Is just substantially lower than a few years ago. Frankly about half.. Which fits with my own experience and the massive amounts of indiedevs who have been doing this for longer often say the same things. Its not an apocalypse. But the golden days of just having a decent game are gone. The bar is higher, the competion is higher and the revenues are lower. So yes its not the end of the world, and indies are doing better than ever and more of them do so , but by en large they arent earning the giant sums of 5 years ago. Its a more mature market

[@Mekkablood]

@@falconeerdev Makes sense, thanks for replying.

[@cheesepantsgaming1964]

Yeah I agree with a lot of this. It also depends on the genre and market. If you are solely talking about steam, pc or mobile. The market is red ocean. Whereas VR is blue ocean market and MR even more so. It just depends on what your goals are. As technology evolves and more indies gamrs are releaseeld competition will be bigger. A lot of variables. Just have to decided where you want to compete first. Then base your ods on that decision.

[@ra9dev]

Thank you for your insights! I got so many hypothesises confirmed ❤

[@Panimaco]

I hope I will be that calm and chill as a solodev

[@falconeerdev]

Lol. This is about as calm as i get. I have the adhd in droves and a few other acronyms and the deep anxiety that goes with it. I need to analyze and work incredibly hard to get some calm.. But do not think im am not scared shitless or procrastinating or any bad behaviour as part of this journey. :) Its just an interview. Everyone has stress and fears of failing. :). You just get better at hiding/dealing with them..

[@Panimaco]

​@@falconeerdev yeah i have it too, when I was a kid like 12yo some doctors give me pills that make me lose my own self, and then lose 12kilos, I was skinny AF and when I get rid off this pills, I learn some self control and it took me so many year to be as calm as I am right now but, I was just mentioning that this guy was calm AF and I admire that. I really hope the best for u and for the guy AHAHAHA.

[@GuatekeFrankie]

That insight of min 25:00 is simply mindblowing. I thought about it, but he just put the right words to actually make me realize

[@mahkhardy8588]

Real talk! Another great interview!

[@ekroook]

This was the best best episode of Game Dev Podcast, more like it please. 👍

[@Elrinth]

What he says around @00:29:00 about you have to check if your indie game is going to make money is somewhat true. It depends on the indie dev. Does the indie dev have unlimited money? Does the indie dev have 0 money and rely soley on the game to succeed? Also it's not suggested here. But I think a good idea to check if your indie game will be successful would be over a time period. Like if you push your game with dev logs and trailers and such and recieve a good response over like 6 months from lots of people. Then it's a good idea to finish the game. But if it doesn't happen, maybe consider doing something else. From listening to the video it sounds like it must happen over night :) Which I think is an impossiblity unless the game is revolutionary in some kind of way and gets insanely word-of-mouthed.

[@angparodi]

I also think that it's important to fail fast. You don't want to spend 6 months to find out your game doesn't resonate with it's target audience. You need to validate it as quick as possible, otherwise you'll spend tons of money and time to then shelve it and start again.

[@present_artist1033]

Love it thanks guys! Great reality checks with a glimmer of hope ;)

[@mattpen7966]

this guy is great, super honest takes

[@gamemaker_01]

I usually go for f2p games. That is what we did for our first game. That way you can get your brand out to more people. I think most of the audience on youtube is not even indie. Probably more around the hobbyst type. Everything in the video is correct. That is what I am working on, helping others build games faster and actually finish their games. Not much out on youtube on finishing Also I agree with the business comment. I would say every game is a business. It might be a small business and might not be profitable, but a game is a business. There is money, is just that technology is evolving. If you are business you decide where you want to compete. Blue Ocean or Red ocean? VR, MR and AR are all blue oceans. There have been some big indies in VR.

[@KliftonRiley]

Thanks for this, very informative!

[@a6gittiworld]

Great interview. Knowledgeable insights

[@facelessanon]

I can vividly remember Thomas mentioning a 'Tomas' ("tow-muss") in another podcast. Wonder if it's this one...

[@michaelgriffis6450]

Instantly liked this guy. 😂

[@RangTangStudios]

His guy kicks ass!

[@Huedini74]

I like this guy!

[@habagun737]

Two cool dudes

[@RadikalizedEternally]

The same thing this guy you brought on said is basically what I’ve been saying on your videos I just might be little rough around the edges cause no time for stupid shi an dumb questions.. people might think I’m trolling on videos I just be up front telling people the real instead of being fake cause when u fake no one likes u in the end..

[@ToonSoulsGame]

I'm developing a Cuphead style game by myself... Enjoying this episode a lot (subscribed). ❤

[@marcelslofstra2157]

Altijd leuk om een fellow dutchie te zien hier :)

[@littlephoenix]

great podcast🙏👏

[@augustocereto]

5 minutes of video and I want to buy Falconeer and Bulwark at full price

[@flamingpenny]

But HOW do you prove it fast? That's the part that's still a complete mystery to me. If you make 15 prototypes and they don't have vertical slice level art, how do you know which is the one to follow without having a pool of like 100 playtesters just trying your unpolished games?

[@foolsanticsstudio]

22:30 When he says "owning you audience" he makes it sound dirty XD This has been very informative. Thank you

[@joshua42777]

Hello, I would like to ask a question, I'm making a very simple game with a minimum of modeling, but I wanted to make a model on the side to see if I could do it, but I'm finding it's taking away from My game, would it make better sense to hold off on modeling and sculpting until I'm making a game that requires those skills?

[@aronjonsson3280]

Have more europeans on , we seem so jolly and over the tops sometimes, perfect for spicing things up 😂

[@VictorDiaz-do3cb]

It always creeps me watching Thomas looking at the camera

[@Smeighl]

That was awesome, "Nah, fuck that cozy shit!" Love it.

[@WalterWhiteOfficial2011]

Hey bro just wondering what's by car the easiest game engine to work with a team on a game? Are there any ones with built in sharing? I currently use godot, have a semi decent understanding of unity, not great at either but me and a Friend wanna work on a game we had an idea for, what engine is easiest to use for sharing a game and having 2 people work on it at the same time?

[@soggy_dev]

Maybe it's just because I don't wanna believe it, but I don't think it's fair to say that you have to go full time to ship a game

[@TYNEPUNK]

but how do u know if its good what u have made? could be amazing but no one noticed yet. i like that as a test tho scrap it if not.

[@HattoriStudios]

Hey Thomas! Check out my game I’m working on. It’s a open world ninja jrpg, currently it’s just me working on it!

[@TYNEPUNK]

what is "simshipping"?

[@TYNEPUNK]

MS are the only platform to disappoint and turn me down. Planned my whole life for it now im working with all of their competitors. Quite funny how they make an enemy of some devs.

[@TYNEPUNK]

how does this bloke get deals though? just physically meeting someone?

[@CoffeeAI201]

Pretty sure publishers finna be obsolete

[@GeckoOverflow]

Sound is a bit out of sync

[@CPastaWhispers]

I have a problem can someone help me????? All my codes in update and start function are grayed out and i did everything nothing worked any suggestion the code runs fine its just super annoying to watch garayed out codes

[@packdebienvenida]

why do europeans (like.myself) use so much the f word while talking with US people? Are we cooler that way?

[@greenheart5334]

Mothafka Mothafka? - Quentin Tarantino

[@simspawn]

Excellent video. Man just really needs to stop scratching his nose so much.... Like, wow.... Stop doing that

[@altermoremusic]

People, if you are game developers and are looking for a music composer who can feel the situation, please, you can contact me. I will be interested in working with indie projects. Even if you don't have money to pay for the services of a composer, I can agree with you on a percentage, etc. I want to make great music for a really interesting great project. I am good and work honestly and I am also an independent music producer who tries to create interesting worlds and stories through music ☺