so about an eighth of the people i’ve talked to in my generation have told me they wanna be game devs. game development is a really neat intersection of technical skill and creativity, and it also makes video games, which everyone loves. aspiring devs will often get into the field because they have one or two ( or ten ) ideas for the perfect game. however, i gotta say, that perfect game is never going to happen, and there’s a good reason for it.
usually when a new developer tries to make their dream, game they start by producing a shit ton of hand-drawn concept art, a shit ton of design documents, and maybe they even find some friends to join their team. but, notably, there’s no prototype. prototyping should be, like, the second thing that happens, just after “have the idea to make a game”.
it’s crucially important to make a shitty prototype first, where it’s literally just boxes running around and shooting other boxes in the default unity scene. that empty world, that flat white plane stark against the blue/grey/brown gradient background, is the crucible of dreams, where anything can happen. it is also where like 90% of projects die.
when you prototype a game, it changes a lot. by the end of the first 20 hours you’ll be making decisions about what’s too hard to program, what’s not worth it, what would feel great to add, and what’s truly important to the game. this is one reason why having your dream game all thought out, with mechanics, characters, and story, before development even begins, is a recipe for failure. the prototype will murder your dreams.
as it turns out, planning lots is more hurtful than helpful for indie devs, ESPECIALLY solo ones. it sets up oversized expectations, it can be overwhelming, and most importantly it restricts your ability to change things on the fly. let’s try an example:
you wanna make a PvE shooter. you’ve decided on 5 weapons, including a shotgun and a rocket launcher. there’s already concept art and a story written for the character, a shotgun-wielding cowboy. now, for whatever reason, during prototyping and testing you find out the shotgun feels like trash and it overlaps with the rocket launcher because they’re both responsible for mid-range crowd control. for the sake of argument, let’s say you decide it’d be best to get rid of the shotgun. only, you can’t without sacrificing your entire vision for the game. so either you continue with the shotgun-wielding cowboy idea, even though it’s bad, or you destroy hours of hard work and daydreaming.
it’s not a great example, but the point here is that if the prototyping and programming had come first, then the character could have been designed based on the game’s needs, yknow? like whats important to communicate? how does this weapon design reflect its function in-game? what are the arms gonna look like in first person? there’s a thousand little things like this that come naturally and easily when you work on a project function-first, form-second. you cannot think of all these things ahead of time, they are an emergent threat, so to speak.
so how can you stick to your idea of a dream game, when a good game has to change drastically during development? you can’t design a weapon’s model based on its function when its function hasn’t been tested, changed, tested, changed, and juiced up a little. the iterative design process is ESSENTIAL to decent games.
the last point i’ll make is that, if you’re a new developer, you do not have the skills to make your dream game. sorry. there is no true example of a developer making their big break first try. even toby fox was making earthbound romhacks YEARS before undertale. by the time you do attain the skills to make your dream game, you’ll be a totally different person, with a totally different dream game.
game development is a pretty ruthless hobby. it takes a long time and the gratification is very, very delayed. the truth is if you wanna be a game developer you’re gonna have to love to program, you’re gonna have to love troubleshooting stupid issues and working with placeholder assets and messing with vector mathematics until your dick falls off. if you wanna be a game developer, you’re gonna have to love whatever you’re making, and youre gonna have to love making something MINISCULE and KINDA BORING.
and that’s okay!! that’s okay. go over to itch.io, look at all the beautiful tiny things people have poured their soul into. game dev doesn’t have to be about these big, illusory dreams. it can be about gluing stuff together and having fun.
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