Are you really making a game?

Every single day I see posts that say I'm making so and so game... And then a massive wall of text with seven paragraphs and links to YouTube videos, pictures of other games, etc. People have 'company' names, logos, t-shirts and letterhead printed.

People have given themselves titles like lead designer and project supervisor.

There's a Dropbox account and a USB flash drive with at least one unity project on it. And if you doubt their commitment there's a PDF design document with sketches.

What is it that you're actually doing though?
Coming up with ideas?
Prototyping?

Even if you have a demo...
are you really making a game?

Okay then let me play it.

I know from experience that most people can't even describe what a game actually is. Even worse is the number of games that get started but are never finished because, lo and behold, people have no freaking clue how to finish them.. Which goes directly back to not even being able to describe what a game actually is.

The next time you want to say "me and my friends are making a game" you should instead consider saying "me and my friends are thinking about how cool it would be if we were making a game".

One day there will be game dev fantasy camp, and we can all pretend to be game developers. But for now, come on...

 

But i am making a game. I really am!

 

Well at the moment I'm involved in two different projects but I have no idea what the result of either one will be... But whatever. I work on it everyday, work on it 10 times how much I talk about it.

 

Well i am working on two projects and i know both will be released, so that is nice. Hey one of them is even my job so i actually get paid hehe

 

@Misterselmo I guess the question is, are YOU making a game?

 

moddb speaks volumes regarding this matter. It always starts with a pistol model... and then it was never heard of again.

 

I already answered that. I liked every post but this one. I hate this post.

 

Yep - sorry. I was too busy working on my game to read all the replies

 

Yes, several.

 

My smart-ass replies aside, I do actually agree with @Misterselmo - especially lately, these forums seem to be full of people who really haven't done much aside from download Unity and ask the rest of us to "give them some codes". It definitely does seem "trendy" right now to say you're developing games. On the other hand, I guess there shouldn't really be a barrier to entry here. Jesse Schell said something along the lines of - "You're a game developer the moment you decide to start developing games", and I do believe that's true. You're just not necessarily a good game developer, or one that's producing anything that's worthwhile.

Anyway, my point? Who knows. I'm old and I talk a lot of crap sometimes.

 

You're wrong.

Some of them aren't even installing Unity before they start posting here.

In the new game design form check out "I'm creating an overview" and "I've completed my overview" threads.

 

Been working on my monster truck game for 4 years, it's constantly evolved and I rebuilt it around mobile and free to play instead of being a PC title.

I now have a playable build ready and next week I am sending TestFlight builds out to prospective publishers

But yes, feels like its been forever, but my full time job and working on other clients games over the years has kept me sane, while improving my own personal game dev skills, and of course, my game.

 

And the game looks absolutely awesome.

 

Thanks! Appreciate the compliment.

 

I'm working on my 3rd game right now and just starting my 4th!

 

I'm working on this for school, which I posted about when @GarBenjamin asked if anyone was working on games for the holidays. The end product will contain santa claus and a snow man! And other things.



You can have a playable demo of this game in mid december when it's due. PM me and I'll add you to the google drive folder that the demo will be in.

--edit

Anyone can have a link if interested - but the demo is due in mid december and the finished project is due in mid may.

 

I'll answer this too.

Yes, I am making game, alongside my full-time stuff of what I do at Unity. Due to the nature of my role, I don't have much opportunity to put in some proper dev-time into my game, but I have a few prototypes/functional proof-of-concepts that I want to take forward into the full-game. The other day, I used up pretty much all of 2014's vacation days to book time off to actually put it together, and im pretty excited.

 

Wow, snarky thread turns into real thread. Plot twist.

 

I've often wondered about this - given the type of people that would work for Unity, I would have imagined that all of them have at some stage either made games, thought about making games, or are making games. It really brings up the question of "Game Design" vs. "Game Development". Take someone like @Aras for example - technically, he's probably better than any of us at "Game Development", but "Game Design" might be something that eludes him and therefore he works on the technical side of things only. That's only an example by the way - for all I know, Aras is the greatest game designer that ever lived. I just think it's interesting...

 

I'd like to make a game someday but for now I will settle for learning how to do all this cool stuff I figured out so far.

 

Developing modular components / classes with utility functions is the best way to go! It's great for learning, it's great for future project and you might eventually end up with something you can release as a library / sell on the asset store

 

Each person at Unity comes from different games backgrounds varying from programming to art to design to business to engineering to... the list goes on! I made games prior to joining Unity and have made games during my time at Unity (but mostly at events like Game Jams or Hack Days). My current game idea is something ive had bubbling in the back of my head for a while now, and is something I want to dedicate more time to, as opposed to hashing it together at a timed dev event!

 

No, just a large piece of software.

Edit: I'll post the Google Drive link for people that don't frequent the game dev forum after I get off the train.

Edit 2: here it is: https://googledrive.com/host/0B3UI-gS7D7IbZHBUdkN6LVhIaFU/Web Player.html

 

I imagine it would be a very "inspirational" environment to work in - being a developer yourself, and being surrounded everyday by people that make (arguably) the best development tool out there. It would be incredibly beneficial too, having folks around to bounce ideas off etc. Is there a risk though that your "day job" ends up absorbing so much of that creative energy that you're own projects suffer as a result... I often think about taking a Unity developer role as my full-time job (i.e. for a small studio), but I worry that at the end of the day I'd get home and the last thing I'd want to do is look at more game code. Anyway, I'm probably going off topic so I'll keep my pondering to myself

 

I've been working on game(s) for years.

finishing them on the other hand...

 

Out of genuine curiosity, what stops you from finishing them?

 

Time/Money/Enthusiam. Spent most of my time on Inferno. The longer I spent on it, the less time I spent on it. Got to the point where I would spend months not even opening the project... Its currently shelved. Now im working on smaller stuff and trying to get some ROI. The intention is to convert Inferno into a bunch of asset store stuff. I intend to finish the game at some point, however it will require some full time attention (as in its my 9-5).

Full time attention costs money, and its only going to get harder with my first kid only a month away.

 

I worked on this game for 4 months before. Then I ran into the worst design decision ever which I was basing my whole gameplay mechanic around. That made me trash the project (I kept the good pieces of code though). Then I started on working on my new game and I have everything worked out on paper and digitally. So yes, I guess I am making a game now haha

 

Congrats on the kid! Also, your game Hardkour is pretty freakin awesome so if I were you, I would really develop that into something bigger. I can promise you that this is something that people will like. It is close to simon says I guess and that game is freakin addicting hahah

 

Yeah there's definitely never enough hours in the day. I do think that trying to make a game in your after-hours is way harder than having the "luxury" of doing it full-time. Not only because you're working with a semi-exhausted brain, but also because the project does naturally take a lot longer and maintaining your focus for that length of time is challenging. It's very easy to become disheartened with the whole thing.

 

Its always been like that, it always will be.

Honestly, how many people found UE/UDK/Unity/CE/GameMaker/etc.. and was like "Hey, I can make a game!" and then went onto Gamedev or their engine's native forum and started a thread about their new game.

We now call them "idea guys" because they usually want to assemble a team and build their game while they contribute nothing useful, in their mind its just getting people to "help them" make it. Seriously though, most people have this mentality when they first start its just that some are significantly more ignorant than others about the reality of their situation.

Why is it like this? Because you don't need a phd to access professional game development tools and you hardly even need to program to make a pretty cool prototype. Entry is accessible to everyone, including the inept.

So are they making a game? Not in the professional sense, but technically yes, they are. Can you play it? No, but you can't play much of plenty of games that have been in development for a year because they're broken, buggy, and generally in chaos until all of the elements are aligned and balanced together.

I think in the big picture, this is just another vent thread. There have been a lot of them over the years. Just try not to get carried away and bash the beginners, thats not constructive for anyone.

 

@calmcarrots - thanks, Im pretty happy with hardkour and it seems to be well received, so yes definitely concentrating on that for the moment. Few things I want to do with it before I start considering the next project. The hard part as usual is getting an audience for it. Its building slowly with 5-20 new users/day. Once iOS is out, will be looking at contacting review site's etc see if I can get any bites.

@SteveJ - Very much agree, working in your own time when youre already working a 9-5 gets exhausting! Quite easy to burn yourself out, which I did a couple of times while working on Inferno.

 

Writing even a simple game is a massive amount of work. Time is catching up to me though, so I think that if I can't finish this one I'm probably done.

 

Yup, making a game. Couple of typical newbie false starts of going too big, now I have something not only playable but I've had coworkers (non-gamer) try it out. They liked it, so I'm continuing it.

 

Sucks.

 

Ha ha. Excellent thread. I must admit I have wondered the same thing. I see a lot of projects being announced each week in one forum or another.

Often I think people are confusing making graphic demos with making a game. I think many times the person means I am attempting to learn game development with this project (X). Perhaps not so much actually make a game as making something that looks like x and has some elements of x but really it is all about learning.

Other times it does seem, as someone mentioned, they see "making a game" as having an idea and then requesting scripts to implement it. Kind of like they see game dev ideally as an application that comes up. They choose a genre. Click a button Add some trees. Another button Add some enemies. Big button Make Game!

 

Some of them are only appearing long enough to compare engines they aren't even using.

 

It'll get done, although I hear competitive beard growing is a pretty kick-ass hobby.

 

Time as in "age"?

 

I bet there are plenty of crazy people willing to click on a link every few hours to grow their character's beard.

 

Yes, age. I don't think there's an age limit on making games mind you, but after ask these years if like more to show for it than an old hard drive full of half finished projects.

 

Sounds more fun than some games I've played.

 

Yep, i'm really making a game... but I don't really post about it until I have some real significant updates to share. Game has been in development for about a year now, hoping to reach Beta before end of the year...

htttp://forum.unity3d.com/threads/heroes-of-rune-free-to-play-browser-based-moba-rpg.258102/

 

From reading your post, I'd venture to say you are underestimating how many people are serious. I think you're also underestimating how many people on these forums are professional programmers, if not necessarily in game development, and there are probably more professional game developers lurking around these forums than you realize as well. You're correct in that, the ones posting threads about the MMO they're working on are probably not the ones doing the serious game deving.

There are indeed a lot of legit studios making games with Unity, but I'd guess not a big portion of them post on these forums. I've found people who work in an office with other devs tend to feel less of a need to be in an online community for it.

 

OMGZ, of course.. Get this right, it's about a bird that flaps right!.. But he haz like a COD battles system with an MMORPGZ twist.

On a serious note yes, I've had way too many prototypes and demos to be comfortable with in too many engines. Unity was awesome for rapid prototyping games. But I'm a tech hure and it seems to be getting in the way a tad and as @JamesLeeNZ says it becomes a grind after enthusiasm for the project wavers slightly.

But it will be finished, probably a coulple of years yet until the game is properly playable. What am I doing?

Well I'm fixing bugs, adding features to make the game playable on all but the mightiest machines. Scaling back mostly because a highly detailed performant large world rarley goes hand in hand. Too many challenges to list, but it's fun (for the most part).

 

56 published games down -- or maybe it was 58, I forget. Over 200 SKUs delivered.

No, I am currently not making a game.

I am building a couple of crappy prototypes though. I can show you my design docs and overviews if you like...

 

Hot damn! I think I just found a new game prototype I want to build and release before the end of "No Shave November."

 

Before Beard Clicker, there was Cow Clicker

For those of us writing a game (or working on some project) I've found that sometimes literally changing the music while I work can really help with burnout. Get a nice hot drink, clean your desk, put on some headphones and listen to a new indie soundtrack or some random playlist on youtube. The change in music seems to give my brain a shot of 'freshness' to counteract the staleness of a long ongoing project. Just 2c.

 

I think many do not Develop it and just post there unclear Ideas. I never post any Ideas and only post anything that is 'Work in progress' so it gives a better idea that I am working on something and also get a feedback too.

 

Oh man, this thread has really hit me in my center.

I am quiet possibly the king of procrastination and empty dreaming.

Here's a fun little thread I made when I was relatively new:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/dead-in-the-dark-working-title.132784/

If you don't feel like looking it up, basically as a new dev I was thinking that I could just up and make an online FPS zombie game with zero experience in Unity. My main experiences before then have been playing with Worldcraft, Elder Scrolls SDK, Torque, and Hammer.

Not much programming.

Well this obviously never got any where close to finished and since then I have made about a million other false starts, including:

-A first person RPG
-A first person turn based RPG
-A Civilization type game
-An RTS
-A tower defense MOBA hybrid
-A Xcom SimCity hybrid
-A top down ARPG
-A top down ARPG/MMO
-A Mario Clone
-A Team Fortress MOBA
-A Bushido Blade RPG
-A Midless Web Browser FPS Called "Blah! Blah! Blah! SHOOT STUFF!" (TM)
-Three different Metroidvania games

And most likely more that I can't even name off the top of my head.

But you know what I realized? Almost all of those game ideas sparked my interest based off of whatever I was playing at the time. Like I was playing Diablo 3, so all I could think about was making an ARPG.

With that in mind I have since attempted to play similar games to my project to keep up the enthusiasm.

I also have learned that a lot of people fail to make progress at accomplishments because there is a deep underlining fear of failure that makes it so easy to give up sooner than later. It's better to fall three feet and give up right away, than 10 stories and make a game that no one plays.

And of course it is important to pick a small project first, which I have.

I have also made a decision not to post anything about my current game until it's ready to show since this in its self is a massive time sink and distraction.

Finally, I know that it takes at least a month of consistency to form a habit and I have failed to do this because of demands at my IRL job make it easy to make excuses to slack on a regimen. So I have made a hard schedule to work on the project no matter how stressed or tired I am.

So that's what I'm trying. Needless to say it's already had some set backs as work caught up with me, my code needed some massive refractoring, and I underestimated how long it would take to do the art and sound assets.

But after all that I am confident that this will finally, finally, finally be a game I can get out the door.

I know how and what I need to do up till the end of the core game, then I just need to learn how to publish it and how to place ads in it. So like five more years, tops!