The HARSH Reality of Game Development...

[@ByteOfMichael]

Wishlist my game Castlemancer over on Steam! bit.ly/Castlemancer

[@ashleycanning1450]

Done! Good luck

[@neotracer075]

I wishlisted your game but I would highly recommend adding a video of some game play as there are alot of times that I skip a wishlist as there is no video of game play. You may want to add a few animated GIF's as well as I heard that can help too. Hope you do well with sales when you launch!

[@greatgameplayswalkthroughs660]

Castlemancer shows 70 followers (~ 560 wishlists). Even for a dev with KZbin channel with ~ 33 800 subscribers. What about the small devs with no KZbin channel.

[@dre_rona]

Finally someone who talks about the difficulty of "I know how to program this but how SHOULD it be programmed?"

[@twikle_squirrel]

Search "game design" on youtube to look for it not "game dev"

[@ByteOfMichael]

The age old debate between implementation vs. design

[@Rattja]

Yeah, this is one of those things that don't really get brought up, and it kinda caught me off-guard how difficult that part is. Coding something is one thing, but can't do that until you know how you want to do it. For instance, I've been messing around with my NPC AI for a while now trying to decide on how I want it to find a damn tree. It's like, ok find a tree.. any tree? A tree within the base area? A tree within a certain range or area? What about pathing? What about multiple villages, should they reserve a tree? How about tree growth? The list goes on, and that's just for finding a valid tree. It's like that for every step, where there are so many ways of doing something, and all are usually not hard to implement, but answering all these questions can be very hard sometimes. Often answering a question also just leads to even more questions, so it is kind of a rabbit hole once you start.

[@insentia8424]

My advice: You needing to think so much about it just shows you: You have no clue what requirements you have from said code, so trying to do any more than the bare minimum necessary to solve your problem (the NPCs finding a tree) is just likely going to cause you headaches. Keep it flexible by making it as simple as possible and then grow it into the best design you can as you encounter problems with it when it's in use. You can't know what your code needs to get done and how it needs it to get done, until you have a feature-complete game anyways. And *even then* you'll likely overlook something and need to rework it another time.

[@TheDarkchum1]

It’s actually simple. If the game works as intended, with no bugs, then the code is fine HOWEVER it is. Nobody will ever wonder about the state of your code. Nobody cares at all. Unless there are problems… (bugs)

[@ymellow.]

I thought this had like 100k views. Shocked it’s only 892

[@icecake1463]

I’m an artist by trade working in video games, and I’ve been working on making my own turn based strategy game for the past month I knew it would be a challenge so I tried to keep it as a vertical slice and simple as I could then add complexity later down the line. I did a basic C# programming course to see what I could accomplish. It’s still a huge as challenge, but with the help of chat gpt and other AI tools I’ve made so much progress in a month as a non programmer solo dev than I could have ever hoped for. But the more I continue with it, the more complex it starts to get and harder. Not only am I required to be an artist, I need to program, I need to level designer, I need to UI design, sound, gameplay etc it becomes a time sink. But I have been enjoying myself immensely which has kept me going. I am hoping when it becomes more fleshed out I can demo it and bring people onboard from either work or elsewhere who want to be a part of making something

[@slBrelaz]

Hooray! Congratulations, you've picked a heck of a task for yourself but it looks like you're doing well! Good luck! Oh and welcome to the world of programming 😊

[@WinclarkYT]

I'm with you here. Once I tried Chat GPT to help with programing my speed upped instantly and I still am learning while using it. I'm sure most of what it recommends isn't best practice so I try a multitude of ways, but It is really good way to get you on a good trajectory for the solution.

[@ByteOfMichael]

Best of luck on the game!

[@Ep1cBramb10]

what are you making it on?

[@beanerb822]

I'm going to be honest but know I'm coming from a place where I'm just beginning. I think it is wise to do the "time sink" and "bite the bullet" and challenge yourself to learn every step of the way on the programming side. In my opinion, this is the most important part and learning music is not necessary since you can definitely hire someone to do that with a very minimal budget. But it's only going to get harder and harder when you use AI. It might seem to go faster but you're only making more work down the line. Those are my opinions and take it with a grain of salt😂 I'm a perfectionist so I want to do every aspect of a game myself, Im sure eventually i will be asking AI for examples but only to.learn, and try to answer questions, a bandaid if yoy will. Not a permanent solution. The more you learn about programming, the easier it gets!!

[@georgeml-o_o]

I think those are very good questions, but even big companies fail in answering them. To someone that's even starting, thinking on this now, doesn't improve his/her chance of success

[@jesseyules]

If you’re inspired to make games simply because StarDew made money, quit immediately and go become a contractor or a dentist.

[@megatronusv2215]

Videogames RARELY make money. Only 5.6% of steam games gross over 200k (note that this gross, before steam and your publisher's cut). So, 94.4% of games are effectively going to fail financially. Understand this thoroughly. Make a game because you want to! Do it for fun, not for money. Reality will piledriver you

[@SkidesGames]

I appreciate your videos man! Excited to play your game.

[@ByteOfMichael]

Thanks so much!

[@noiadev]

I came in here ready for a fight 🤣, but all of this was good. Not answering, questions but posing the questions game devs should be asking themselves. I'll add one question to the pile that I find I ask myself all the time, "What game has done this before?" More often than not the ideas devs have for their games have been done before, and were done very well. Sometimes those are the games that inspire us devs to make our game in the first place. So ask yourself, what game has an inventory system I like? What game has character movement that was fun? What was my favorite boss encounter, and what made it so memorable. Once you are good at cooking, you can take other recipes you know are good, and change them to suit your tastes.

[@ByteOfMichael]

haha I'm only here to ask questions (I really don't know how to anser them)

[@petersmythe6462]

"are we using 16, 32, or 64 px sprites?" Ah yes, for my senior project in Godot I was just like "yes" and had it scale any and all images you decide to throw into the texture pack folder to their correct size.

[@vizzeraltech5399]

been making my own game for a few months and honestly it's the small things you just don't think about sometimes. Like I am merging two of my previous projects into because on their own they're not much. but together it creates a lot of interesting things. problem is trying to finds ways for it all to synch up and have a smooth cohesion. stuff like this do be making games hard. then it's even more when you got people like me who LOVE lore in games so like I spend way more time building my worlds than I do my games as well which takes time away from actually making the game

[@strahinjamaksic4718]

For anyone that says “I cant its too hard” i was 12 years old when i started developing, i learned blender in less than 3 years and programming in unreal engine in less than 1 year and now im like 4 years in developing my game

[@Bwlupus754]

And you can pay bills with this skills? :)

[@strahinjamaksic4718]

@@Bwlupus754 hell nawh thats why im a child

[@-LightSmit]

I started with a simple Japanese learning game which turned out to become an open world MMO for Japanese learners. It’s not that hard for me but the vision got so big I’m starting to see that updates just take soooo long when some players don’t even see the change I’ve been working on for months.

[@H1D3_15]

Im not a programmer nor a designer but I doin my topdown game and now im starting to burningout😢😢

[@pussinboots9983]

Try working on some areas of your game. Stuck in coding? Try working on the music instead.

[@Vanduo610]

Use simple art and keep adding and enchanting mechanics in your game.

[@dacwardztv]

i want to make my own game! All I have so far is my character sprite and a great great storyline and gameplay idea :(

[@ByteOfMichael]

Everyone has to start somewhere! Best of luck!

[@dacwardztv]

@@ByteOfMichael thank you!!

[@JanJozefo]

Choose a good engine with lots of tutorials and examples, like RPG Maker or Unity, and get to it! You don't need to know a lot about programming to put something together while you learn how to polish it

[@dacwardztv]

@@JanJozefo thank you so much

[@JanJozefo]

@@dacwardztv You're welcome! If you get the chance, watch "Develop Games" by Pirate Software. He walks you through different tools and shares ideas on how to make projects that are simple but appealing

[@ItzAstroTheNoob]

Really love your style. Go on!

[@Godot-Bro]

Nice video man! I love your stuff. I, much like you, have decided to jump head first into the solo dev life! It has been a dream for a long time! Made this new channel to document the process. Keep up the good work dude, your game looks awesome!

[@ByteOfMichael]

Thanks so much!

[@Tortuap]

One bit that you discuss around 4:07 is IMO greatly underestimated when it comes to making a video game : design choices. Design requires a lot of trial and error, of back and forth, of exploration in uncharted territories, to ultimately discard most of the work done to retain only the tip of the iceberg. It's, in my case, what's consume most of my time.

[@NotSoSharpGames]

Hi Michael! Big fan! Been watching your videos since early 2022, so excited for castlemancer . This may be a stupid question, but the game you were working on before this, muster, is it released? Or did you never finish it? Or are you still working on it? Sorry, might’ve missed a video or two but I love your videos! Keep up the good work

[@greenguy3648]

I was in the fortunate situation, to be a programmer and someone who really likes to draw(I wouldn't call myself an artist, because my skills aren't there yet) and still my game took me nearly 3 years to make. It's true: Gamedevelopment is hard and if you try go solodev then it's even harder. But still there is nothing more fullfilling when the game succeeds.

[@Guitarist112291]

I have been avoiding these kinds of videos for a while now. In the last couple of days I began diving into solo developing and have been enjoying it but would notice a video with a title like yours and I would avoid it thinking "I'll watch it later, let me just enjoy this sudden spark of motivation a bit longer before it's crushedby reality". I just finished your video and feel excited to keep going. P.s excited for castlemancer

[@ByteOfMichael]

That's great to hear, and good luck with your game dev journey!

[@robertweekes5783]

6:50 what’s this castle looking game, Civilization? Stronghold ? 🗡️ 🛡️

[@dinoeebastian]

I've noticed that a lot of gamers are completely oblivious to what game development is like, people complaining about a game not coming out a year after it was announced even though it's unrealistic for any good game to be finished that quick, and then they think they have the best ideas, and get mad if they aren't added or get mad if they are implemented and end up being bad ideas. It's also always weird when it goes the other way, where a game dev doesn't play games or know anything about what would actually be fun to play

[@bigmunchyfinger2141]

I wanna start game development as a hobby since I have nothing else going on in my life besides sports. I would appreciate a recommendation on a laptop that is capable of “making a game”. Any suggestions help. Thanks. 🙂

[@worronstudios]

I have never played indie games, but I started making one myself so that I have a game I enjoy playing

[@I-OMusic]

One note: "are you a programmer or an artist?" The much more important question is "are you a game designer?"

[@I-OMusic]

You really, REALLY do not need to focus on being good at art or good at programming, just good enough at both to bring your designs to life and good enough at designing to know what's feasibly doable

[@I-OMusic]

Game development, while important, is just a means to an end. Only good game design can make a good game, as YT guy mentions towards to end re inventory, too many beginners ask these types of question when they game is fundamentally unfun

[@I-OMusic]

And "coordinating demo access on steam on Reddit might be too much so don't ask for testers there is so backwards. Devs, you should've had a fun free itch build long before you're thinking about handing out keys

[@I-OMusic]

Great vid tho

[@TheRealCzechmark]

Hey Michael, What is one thing you would do differently if you could go back in time to day 1 of your game?

[@holtzheimer]

I always get stuck in the asset making part but I'm too stubborn to buy/download pre-made assets since I always feel like I can't find anything that fits the game artstyle.

[@hashtagrex]

get something thats good enough. Art assets is the last thing you should think about, because its the easiest to massively alter at any point. Perfectionism is whats gonna kill your game, not subpar assets

[@sanidhyameena5131]

Being an artist and finding a great programmer that is willing to work on ur small indie game is really difficult. There's a ton of programmers in my country but their all working on phone apps for some reason.

[@LevyMorFit]

Hey, I might be interested. what country are you from?

[@Di3g0g0tzyn]

6:51 What citybuilder is that? I like the artstyle!

[@senzation4631]

diplomacy is not an option

[@Di3g0g0tzyn]

@@senzation4631 Thanks for the answer!

[@AIAdev]

Sooooo many little decisions!

[@Nosfernatu]

Also, something about this PNW weather and game dev go very well together.

[@2006Pk]

Well done man, very entertaining!❤

[@ByteOfMichael]

Thank you!

[@deadcrabstudio]

love your work!

[@ByteOfMichael]

Thanks I really appreciate that!

[@Bekah_Penguin]

I’ve wanted to make my own game most of my life but I can’t program or do art 😅 it sounds fun but also scary so it’s hard to dive in

[@georgeml-o_o]

Just starts, one thing after another, enjoy the learning, make small things first. I'm in the same place you are. I'm pretty sure that's more difficult to deal with the anxiety of dreaming about success and ultimately giving up, than learning all that's needed to make a game.

[@thej3683]

Only one way to know if you like it 👍🏻 good luck on your journey

[@Bekah_Penguin]

@@thej3683 thank you

[@Bekah_Penguin]

@@georgeml-o_o true. Good luck to you!

[@colinsanders7951]

Worked for me. I do art and code.

[@Ryöken17]

you didnot even spoke about the sound...

[@bewilderedlearningevolving]

Anyone know the title of the game at 6:51 ?

[@senzation4631]

diplomacy is not an option

[@kiam9941]

What are the game at 4:39 and 7:05 I can't figure them out 😭

[@ByteOfMichael]

4:39 is Backpack Hero and 7:05 is Megaloot!

[@leonstone3443]

its a fun hobby nonetheless! im just making a game cause im bored lmao

[@luisenriquecendejassosa6805]

nice vid

[@ByteOfMichael]

Thanks!

[@Asmar76if]

❤❤

[@elxero2189]

Really tired of hearing the words rouge-like sigh

[@Kinos141]

Honestly, building call of duty would be easier than making stardew valley.

[@MewMasterDaMewnza]

NO! I'm not giving up weirdo!

[@onionbrotm570]

ALRIGHT, I'M HYPED UP NOW, TIME TO MAKE MY DREAM GAME!!! *Adds one mechanic. Alright, time for my well deserved 24 month recess.

[@jackmiddleton2080]

I'm sure others have done it but I love the idea of having animated characters spawn from your cards. Whether you control them or they are just acting out the cards..