Should you aim for multi-platform games?
What if multiplatform is the worst criteria a beginning indie game developer can pick?
When choosing a game engine, I used to think very fast forward.
I always assume I picked an engine for many years, maybe even decades. After that, I was supposed to be dead too old to change my habits.
When choosing my previous engine (Godot, if you joined recently), I mainly focused on an engine that would give me both 2D and 3D capabilities. And Godot seemed to promise that. Sure, they’ll tell you, that it’s not an Unreal alternative when it comes to 3D. But I didn’t consider Unreal good for 2D (that was before I learned about Cobra Code’s YouTube channel)
And I have to admit to an error in my thinking here. This reminds me of an opinion of a chef whose identity I can’t recall:
if it serves different types of meat, there’s a possibility that some of it will be wasted
Why should a 2D engine be good enough for 3D? And the other way around as well?
There was, of course, the second criterion - the possibility of going multiplatform. And yes, I know what you think - Godot is not the multiplatform solution… yet.
But… should I even think of converting to other platforms?
I’m not changing my mind about the engine I picked. Not that I don’t feel tempted. But my recent cooperation with
led me to some conclusions.Although both problems I mentioned are article-worthy, I will focus on the second one today.
Everyone will think about branching out to different platforms at some point (preferably when they are making money, and will want to make even more money). It’s perfectly understandable. But a solo dev starting should have one thing on their mind:
FINISH THE GAME!
It’s finishing the Godot tutorial for me, but I’m in a different phase😉
Priorities are around nailing that game. But it shouldn’t be much more.
Why crave multiplatform when you don’t earn on one platform?
Or maybe you can earn enough money to get to a different platform once you nail that one platform?
Or maybe get a publisher to handle it for you? Because once you publish the game, would you want to spend time converting it to different platforms and not fix bugs in the current version? Wouldn’t you prefer to indulge in your creative flow and just do the next game?
Porting a game is a big worry, you have to know the other platform, do a lot of debugging, and even more testing.
Focus on one platform, and earn what you need to DELEGATE the porting to another team.
Don’t think of doing too much yourself.
Don’t plan as if you’re a big company making the games you play daily.
Start small. Really small.
And adjust your choices accordingly. Including your game engine choice.
Dreaming is cool and all, but do you know what is better? Delivering! #noteToSelf