Just Make Games

I love the message you're conveying here it's hits home "Just making games" is what keeps me going when I've been programming for 2 years trying to find a job as a software engineer the one thing that has kept me from giving up is simply "Just Make Games!!". Also, thanks for featuring my LD game, Demonware Inc!

Youtube has been pushing this video on me really hard, like, it's been in my recommendeds 10 times already I think. Good video!

I've found this to be true. If you are learning- learn and practice learning. Don't create 'end products'.

“When a measurement becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measurement.” — charles goodhart

This video is incredible, thank you for making something beautiful

Game jams are GREAT for experienced programmers. UNFORTUNATELY, not that great for newbies. They just CRUSH you!

I love the LD compo, probably my favorite of any recurring game jam. ...Game jams ARE awesome for "the power of try to murder yourself"!

You raised a good question. I'll tell you why I'd been struggle for the past 10 years. TLDR; skill issue. Seriously. Started from learning random tutorials, made half-baked platformers. What happening here in this stage? I didn't have the game design skill. Though I had rich gaming experiences, but when it comes to making a game I got tunnelled vision and couldn't bring up proper words for how would the game be like and only got "what kind of game do I want to make" and yeah, MMORPG my bro. Then the tutorials hell happened. I learnt so much from tutorials but I couldn't make a single game, why? It's because I didn't study properly and only followed the tutorials, so when I need to utilize the knowledges the most I could recalled was some keywords and had to open official documents while developing the game which kinda frustrating. Afterward I struggle to the point that I lost the sight of where I wanted to go, so here another classic gamejam hell. I joined many game jams too, but didn't participate much in the social. It's because I didn't proud of the game I made during game jam, though I learnt a lot from making it. Then another struggle with personal project. It's been a total struggle and it's ended up bugging me to the point that I stuck in the loop of watching motivational videos and newbie how-to videos that's popping up everyday with repeating patterns from new game developers that want to have followers on youtube. Now what happened? As I said, skill issue. I lacked technical skills so that the inertia on working on something was so high that sometimes it's like a month before I move me lazy arse to work. Well you could call it "mental barrier" which could be say that it's too abstract to explain in proper words. I know many people also had or having mental barrier which ended up causing inertia from your daily routines into making something related to making games. For me, it was assets creation part. Partly it's traumatic experiences from my ruined uni life, another was the collapsed of self-confidence which enacted the self-defense mechanicsm, hence "mental barrier". Though I'd say assets creation is the most fun part for me. I just struggled because of the PTSD and had to make immense efforts to unfucked myself. After I won the mental barrier, what happened next? This one is the last and I only managed to make it work on paper thanks to ChatGPT since a last week, it's the game scope. At first I thought the game was rather small...apparently the story alone allowed me to split into trilogy. Well after I splitted into trilogy, it's still too big. Afterward I use ChatGPT to help in both making suggestions and estimate time which normally not accurate, but I have my own way to make a good calculation for myself. I made the plan of 2 weeks, though I gradually reduced from 6 months, 3 months, 1 months, into 2 weeks. The planned 2 weeks would be enough to only finish my first prototype with nearly finished game system and using placeholder assets. Now what happened here? It's actually the SKILL ISSUE on planning the game scope! That's right, the true reason I struggled for the past 10 years is that I didn't have a proper skills set for working solo. It'd be different if you're working as a team since people can split their expertise and some people may have the right skills to manage the project scope. But as a solo, you need to be an all-rounder. The one man army, or gamedev god. Just pick ones that you like. Not to mention the false understanding under the illusions which other people talked or given advices. Something like "you must have a prototype in a week or a month at most", can't be use in context of "you're a total noob without any experience not to mention you can't even make a proper system by yourself yet". So here is the advice if you skipped everything to read here or read until her, considered it as a bonus. Study the game development workflow -> study tools workflow -> only study the part which you need right now -> go make your dream game -> if it's too big make it smaller by either splitting or directly reduced the scope. The planning skill is fundamental for every parts of game development or even in life. So if you don't know how to cut the big chunk down, then maybe get some help and learn from it.

This video really hit me - in a good way. I literally have no words, just thank you.

As someone who used to mess around alot on RPG maker, I felt the heart in this vid. I think more devs; big and small, should embrace this philosophy.

I needed this video, thank you. ♥

thank you so much for this video man! I'm a game dev too and my first game jam ever was Ludum 55th, in last month. We went in three friends and made a lot of fun. I really like the message you send in this video. Inspire me a make a video about my ludum jam too. Congrats, and thank you!!

This video has re-ignited my passion for gamedev. As soon as i can, i'll come back to it with new eyes. Great video, really underrated channel ( you got a sub yayy!!!)

Darksiders devs were asked why. They said cuz they thought it was a cool idea. That simple

I myself was about to create a video about this feeling, but you have captured it perfectly! Also as others said, you have been recommended to me hard!

Great video. Recently I've been struggling to get myself to make games because I'm always thinking about the end product. But this video reminded me why i started it in the first place, for enjoyment. Just subscribed :)

I really needed this, thanks!

Thank you, needed it) ♥️

Love this. Love the insight. Love the message. I might go make a game now.

Great message, and really well articulated. This is helping me get back on track and filter out the noise. I forgot somewhere that Youtube, and marketing, and likes, and followers is not what I started out looking for. I just wanted to make games.