Why Does it Take SO LONG to Make Games?

[@AIAdev]

Man this video is a banger. Thanks for making it, so many good take aways

[@sasquatchbgames]

thanks man! So glad you liked it!

[@lisa_jeffs]

"I need more friends" 🤣... Gold! Great Vid!

[@sasquatchbgames]

lmao thanks!!

[@jonathanlochridge9462]

But that is why I generally prefer to start with middle of the game when fleshing out a 7 day or month level prototype. If the middle of the game is worse than the beginning and the end. So, long as it isn't too much less. That you can get away with it being like that. (for dealing with the skill increasing during development. And also making the main character after I make the main villain. Since, they are interconnected but relatively, making the main character is generally less work than the boss. And you can use a placeholder in many genres. I completely agree it is fundamentally iterative.

[@AizakkuZ]

Making a game by yourself is insane it'd look something like this: Writing (Story (World Building, Lore), Character Development (Know Your Characters), World Progression (Plot Without the Player), Video Game Genre(Hack N Slash, Sandbox, MMORPG, etc), Player Progression (Plot Centered Around Player), Planning of Mechanics (How Player Moves, How Player Interacts, etc)) -> Environment Creation (Creating the world that you build recognizing the specific genre)(3D Modeling or Art, VFX) ^^^^^^^^ Now overview all of that again seeing if what you made makes sense WITHOUT changing the writing aside from the Mechanics. -> User Interface (Use Previously Planned Mechanics and begin Drawing Concepts, Finalize Designs) ^^^^^^^^ Now ensure the User Interface can be coded in properly, if not revise. -> Animating (Plan out based upon mechanics, create animation) ^^^^^^^^ Now ensure the animation looks good and it can now be coded in, this can be swapped after programming btw. Of course, this also needs several revisions. -> Programming (Plan out Architecture (Programming Paradigms), Plan out Code Logic, Write Code, Comment Code) ^^^^^^^^ Now ensure that the code works how you expect it mechanically within the world and for the UI that you designed, rewrite code logic until perfect. -> Sound Design (Create and utilize sounds, Use created Environment + Plot to create music) Now ensure that the music sounds good within the environment and for the gameplay, continue to revise until perfection. ------------------------------------------ Let me know if I got any of this wrong but, this basically shows you just how much work goes into a game and how much that actually can be for a solo developer. When you think about it, games are quite literally an amalgamation of several different areas which can all be fine-tuned to perfection and basically hold their own. For example, a novel has just the Writing portion, a comic or manga has the Writing portion then the Art portion, an anime or cartoon has the Writing portion, the Drawing portion, the Animating portion, and the Sound Design portion. The amount of work that goes into any of these is insane but creating video games is comparable in work to a movie.

[@sasquatchbgames]

lol holy crap! Yep you got it pretty bang on

[@darkalleywaystudio3975]

I agree with you 💯. I have actually worked on comics and later moved to video games as my medium. When I started a long time ago with my journey to make a game, I did not realize how much work/ knowledge it would take. You have to know a lot of everything as a solo developer but I do know through other developers, it can be done. So, that drives me to keep making my game.

[@PlayWithFurcifer]

Strong video, well done! We threw out so much of our game it could be a whole other game i think.... like, really.

[@sasquatchbgames]

thanks so much!! I haven't even been at this a full year yet and I'd say I have a couple months worth of work already that won't make it into the final game. It's really an iterative process. Just checked out your video on your demo, it looks really fun! Congrats you guys!

[@doug9000]

Thank you for the video, im solo developing a game too and sometimes a feature that i imagine would take a full day of coding takes three or four days, That makes me feel an impostor in every way possible, the emotional support that videos like this brings its amazing, thanks.

[@sasquatchbgames]

I'm so glad to hear it helped, thanks!

[@straycoded]

My favorites are "Oh wow that big mechanic only took a couple cups of coffee!" Then days later you have to redo all of it because now you need to add something else in and it doesn't work well with your other mechanic.

[@doug9000]

@@straycoded but this still better than thinking too much ahead instead of actually doing stuff, a day of designing/thinking never feels productive to me.

[@straycoded]

@@doug9000 Yeah I feel demotivated when I have to backtrack; but I'm always happy that something tangible is getting done. Making a great game on paper isn't tangible enough to feel the same as actually doing something with it for sure.

[@jwlewis777]

Very awesome video! I've spent years "reiterating" my item system, still not done. I've spent over a year designing my vowel world, just to ultimately scrap it. Everything you said is 100% spot on!

[@KenWaite]

Keep going! You’ve got this! You are creating an amazing future for yourself.

[@sasquatchbgames]

Thank you so much!!

[@rubekiG]

I have a computer science degree. It doesn't help with self doubt...

[@sasquatchbgames]

That's fascinating! Just something we all have to work through I guess. Thanks for sharing BTW!

[@opalwisdom9780]

Thanks for the video! I love playing video games and I’m not a game dev myself, but I stumbled across this while googling why game development takes ages and this answered my questions very well. I’ve definitely gotten some surprising insights into it.

[@fontainewaite3209]

Can’t wait to see the full game. Keep going!

[@sasquatchbgames]

You and me both!

[@lewessays]

What worries me the most is writing bad or very buggy code. Thanks for the vid

[@kantagara]

I'm glad I'm not alone in this :D Thanks for this amazing video!

[@MikeMarkovMusic]

Amazing and underatted channel, you give me motivation to start working on my game and be realistic about it!

[@Ironroc]

Watched quite a few of your videos and it's been really cool to watch each video you make get better quality, more engaging, and just better overall. Well done! You deserve to grow faster :)

[@sasquatchbgames]

I appreciate that! It's starting to pick up eeeeeeeeever so slightly now. I'm excited to see what the next few months look like. Thanks so much for the encouragement!

[@darkalleywaystudio3975]

This actually is the most annoying part of making video games. I want to tell people about it but as soon as I do I regret it. All they ask is " is the game almost done?" My answer is the same. No, I'm one person and it takes studios years with hundreds of developers to make a "AAA" game... My game will be done when it is done 🤣

[@Knight_Trooper]

I gain a lot of helpful insights towards game developement. Thank you very much

[@smokeback]

mentioned a very key point how the game feels is alot of work even if you making a platformer you need to give it a feel not just random jumps

[@Will5353_]

10+ years is just too long of a wait in a series

[@Dosor72]

Im making my first game thats not in scratch (unity and C#) its been weeks and all I have is player movement and a projectile that gets launched upon a button press

[@sasquatchbgames]

Hey congrats on the transition! Scratch is a great starting place but moving into Unity from there is a huge leap. And getting that much done in your first few weeks is actually really impressive

[@cryptojonny6837]

When it comes to graphics there are exceptions there is a type of genre that doesn't need graphics and removes that barrier with only words this type of genre is known as interactive fiction and some of the games are text-based games but not all. This KZbin video has a nice talk about them when Infocom was still around the vid is called. 1985: Making TEXT ADVENTURE Games | Micro Live | Retro Gaming | BBC Archive

[@KalilMasters]

As a Junior in College for Game Design, this video helps a lot.

[@sasquatchbgames]

That's awesome! Glad I could help! Good luck in your program

[@Adam-kk7nw]

​@@sasquatchbgames will u be my friends 😊

[@marreco6067]

Thank you!

[@sasquatchbgames]

Glad you liked it!

[@carmichaelgameworks]

It took me since age 16 to 26 for my vision to become clear and began working on Project Cy since 2021.

[@FlutterVR]

Excellent video! I feel seen. 😄 Also, loved your video "Why is Game Dev SO HARD?"

[@Diablokiller999]

Yeah, still working on my player controller for 8 months now and it still doesn't feel the way I want. First getting this right, gameplay first :3

[@SweetPeteInTheBackSeat]

helpful thanks

[@coreymatthews5210]

Hey, I appreciate the channel! The quote for gamedev that I hear commonly is "The last 10% is the longest" Looking forward to move vids!

[@sasquatchbgames]

Yep that's a great quote - a good reminder that a lot of the "perfecting" we want to do ends up taking place in the home stretch. Thanks so much for the encouragement!

[@Tbor12]

Good stuff dude keep it up

[@sasquatchbgames]

Thanks, will do!

[@danielmisra2912]

really good content on you channel... -> subscribed

[@sasquatchbgames]

Thank you!

[@ObsessiveGames]

Awesome video, thank you

[@sasquatchbgames]

Glad you liked it!

[@nikhilvijayraj5461]

you are doing a great job in standing as an example for solo developers like me.

[@downsouthmagog3844]

So after I do some games I learned how to be faster set a more realistic Scope and I work now more in my comfortzone So you can be "faster"

[@alexjoyce1111]

If your games are anything as smooth as your voice, they'll be legendary. Thanks for the insight!

[@sasquatchbgames]

Lmfao!!!! That just made me keel over. Thank you

[@Divergence]

I'd rather games take longer these days. We all know that rushed games never turn out well. Least with recent triple AAA titles as examples.

[@Divergence]

Cyberpunk is a good example of this. If they had an extra year of development time. I think it would have been way more stable than it was.

[@EresirThe1st]

Cyberpunk was in development for years and years.

[@giantarcsfora9279]

I stopped going to the local game dev club because I've been working on my game for close to 20 years and you can imagine their reaction.

[@shavais33]

This channel has less than 4k subscribers? That's unpossible! I guess it's just young yet. It must be in the incubation period that new channels often have before they begin to reach their audience.

[@danielwalley6554]

It's definitely a grind.

[@karkadeight]

I found this video very insightful and helpful. I have a universe in mind and my dream is to make an open world rpg, similar to bethesda and souls games. It's a huge task and I always thought it to be foolish to even think about starting it, and going into game dev at all (since it's video games, I thought it's "not serious"). But if I try to think of a hobby - it's playing games, and thinking of creating my own feels right. I am a website designer & developer, and a piano teacher. Both things work but don't feel so right... maybe game dev will be the ultimate right thing, I don't know, but I want to try. So thank you for this video, it calmed down some of my intrusive thoughts and encouraged me to continue 🙂

[@brightFlaskGames]

Really good video. Honestly, I think it takes longer than we think because we estimate bad. If we all started with smaller games and grew steadly this sort of issue could be avoided. Or at least the chance of it happening would be decreased.

[@sasquatchbgames]

I'm not even good at estimating what I can do in a day, let alone a year lol! So yea to your point I completely agree

[@brightFlaskGames]

@@sasquatchbgames Yeah it's tough. But you are doing good, man. Just keep going!

[@gho5tspartan26yt]

1:24 I mean COD manages it but every games comes out broken😂

[@haideral5594]

as always you are right...

[@theothetorch8016]

Thank you.

[@sasquatchbgames]

Welcome

[@veosotano]

I want to be your friend! Love the channel, cheers!

[@sasquatchbgames]

lmao thanks man! BTW feel free to hop in the discord if you ever want to chat

[@DreamInProcreate]

Hi, hope this video is still relevant for new friends

[@NoneNullAnd0]

"You have no computer science degree" translates to "you didn't get scammed". Trust me, you don't need one.

[@BartMamzer]

Haha, I did the same thing, my answer was 1 more year tho. This time it's really only 1 year away ;)

[@sasquatchbgames]

I’m closing in on a year, and I thought I’d be a LOT further than I am lol

[@BartMamzer]

@@sasquatchbgames Yeah. The most problematic part is that making content takes a ton of time, but for the player it’s like few minutes of gameplay :d

[@Betruet]

Validated! :P

[@sasquatchbgames]

Glad to hear it! 🙂

[@vick3554]

Ur goooddddff

[@TheRobinsonJahliyl]

GTA 6 ??😢😬😳

[@user-ds3cf7jt2x]

hello dude

[@ghostradiodelete]

No one is pestering me about my game.... D=

[@ThousandairesClub]

*Too Damn Big Worlds with half the content 👎 AC Mirage was mid but it had the perfect sized world and still not enough content* 😂

[@HeyItsMaKaty]

Gamedev is very time consuming..

[@Coco-gg5vp]

First for real

[@sasquatchbgames]

sorry, but this counts as an infraction and will go on your permanent record. Let it be publicly known that you were in fact "Second." Better luck next time.

[@theothetorch8016]

@@sasquatchbgames x)

[@sebastianhall8150]

First to say first

[@sasquatchbgames]

Sebastian Hall - 1 Coco - 0 Well done :D