Falsehoods That Slow Down Beginner Game Developers

They sure slow down me...

You need to know your tool thoroughly before you start; this way, you'll work efficiently.

It's better to learn how to break down ideas into actionable steps and learn as you go. You'll get to know your tool while working with it.

And do only what you need to do.

The idea, execution, skills, and art are the most important.

Actually, entrepreneurship, building in public, marketing, and shipping fast are more important.

The rest can come later.

Also, ideas are cheap. Every time I see a game about an alien invasion from hell getting all the money, I’m sure that whatever my idea is, I should make it dumber.

I'll never be as good as my favorite creators; I'll never create my dream game.

You're looking at who your favorite creators are now.

Did Hideo Kojima know how to make Death Stranding when he was making a penguin racing game? Was he even thinking about who he'd be in 30 years? Probably not.

Focus on the here and now. Set a realistic goal, add some goals that will help you learn something, and most importantly, finish that penguin racing game!

I'll drown in a sea of bad games.

Steam and other catalogs are full of games no one has heard of, that's true.

But all you need to do is build a community – whether through a newsletter, on Reddit, on Twitter, or anywhere else.

Share your work regularly, show screenshots, discuss solutions, and create tutorials based on what you've learned. Be persistent! People will start to notice you if you consistently create and show your work. People appreciate consistency. A person who does one thing consistently for years can be more believable than someone who comes from a magician’s hat.

I don't have graphic or musical talents.

Thomas Was Alone is a game about polygons.

Dwarf Fortress is a game made of ASCII art (or at least it was in the beginning).

Geneforge Mutagen has no soundtrack.

You can buy assets, sometimes for pennies.

Many graphic effects are just smoke and mirrors anyway 😉

There's also AI – a controversial solution, but it works, kinda.

I'm unsure which engine to choose, as I'm not sure which one will be the best in the long run.

Oh, man, that’s a big one.

Should I choose an engine that is the best choice long-term? (whatever that means in this market)

Should I choose the most robust engine?

I learned the hard way that the choice should focus on the one that makes progress possible daily. After a whole day at work and the rest of the day fooling around with a 6-year-old, I could sit on something for an hour in the evening, and the simplest engine overwhelmed me. I understood 60-75% of what I was seeing, and it still overwhelmed me.

I stood before a Milton-esque choice: is it better to make no progress on a short road, or to make small progress on a longer road?

I picked the latter. Because even after a long a tiresome day, looking at code still stimulates my brain. I may as well never finish a game. But hell, it sure is fun to program a game from scratch!

a snail programming on a laptop

What slows you down?