Feeling overwhelmed with game development. Help needed!

Hello reader,
I am building a 2D tower defense game that will hopefully launch on steam(btw for FREE) in a few months.
I always thought programming would be the biggest challenge but its turning out to be the easy part of a tower defense game. I have like 70% of core gameplay code done. But now starts the real work:

Creating more enemy types (currently have only 4) -> would be nice to have atleast 20 or more for variety
Creating more tower types to upgrade to -> also 20 or so needed to give variety and replayability
Creating Sprites/Textures/Images for enemies, towers, UI and more
Creating good looking UI and making a good user experince (polishing the current buttons and what not)
Playtesting -> balancing -> adjusting values -> repeat (this alone could take 100 hours+)

All of this game design work is so hard. I really want to finish my game and not give up on it like I did previously on all my other prototypes.
I picked a 2D tower defense game because I thought that it would be a achievable game but as it turns out it is still a huge project to undertake if you want to polish it and make it ready to ship.

So my question is, how do I continue working on this game? Should I quit and make an even simpler game for like android?

 

Don't quit. It's like hard drugs or crime. You do it once, easy to do a second time.

Come up with a plan for how you can finish. Look at some competitors. It doesn't matter if big studios made the games with millions of dollars - right away you'll see that in order to get the thing done, a lot of compromises were made.

Everybody is having a hard time and creatives are never satisfied with their work. 100 hr's is not that much time to make a game. You can do it.

Get as much help as you can - compromise creatively until you can envision an end, and then just try to enjoy yourself as you crank out the work. Game development is a lot of fun if you let it be.

extra:

One extra thing - I'd suggest forget the numbers and let playtesting guide what the game really needs. Adding 20 unit types will do nothing if each one doesn't meaningfully contribute to the game. In other words, only add one really good thing at a time and see just how much fun you can generate by getting creative with a minimal kit.

Give yourself time limits for making decisions. WHen time has run out, just go with the best decision you've made, even if you hate it. Momentum is important, try to get to some little victories so that you are feeling good before you take a short break to reconsolidate and reorganize.

 

I find the graphics and UI design the hardest too.

If you really get stuck on something you can't or don't wanna do yourself you always have to option to bring in 3rd party assets
Either as a temporary plug until you make your own asset or as a permanent asset.
But if you use 3rd party assets permanently make sure they all go together stylistically or your game will end up looking cobbled together.

100% percent!
you're much better off with just 4 or 5 really good enemies rather than 20+ color swapped bullshit

First time hearing that one, hahaha
I'll be sure to use it.

 

Quit, and go full force into enterprise software.
Games programming is mostly pain and no profit.

 

And enterprise software isn't? Why do you think they get bigger salaries?

Personally, I don't find texturing, modelling and animation time consuming at all.
I just refuse to do them.

I do programming, sound, UI, and maybe setting up scenes. Those are the things that I do. I focus on those, I don't want to try to be a Fullstack games developer. I'd rather just be better at a few things. That's true for most games developers too. Fullstack is more web app dev than anything else, and those people spend a lot of their free time just trying to keep up with all the changes.

 

They get bigger salaries because there is money around.
It works the same way as for the worker in poor country who get less money for the same job as worker in richer country.

To some degree I have done both, and I say enterprise software is mostly easier.
Easier to program, easier to test, easier to get job, easier to make money with.

It is more boring, but at the same time there is less stress.

 

Nah, game devs get paid less because programmers would rather work on games, or at least, they assume they'd rather work on games.

And if you're earning a SALARY as a games dev, nobody actually expects you to do everything.
Last I checked, you had job titles like Game Designer, Gameplay programmer, AI programmer, Texture Artist, Animator, Music Composer, Sound Designer.... Nobody is getting hired as a "Game Maker".

 

What are you talking about, I don't know where you get your info from, I was never assuming or titled myself as an Texture Artist/Animator/MusicComposer/Sound Designer or even Game Designer even thou I did some Modeling Animation and Game Designing.

I'm using Gimp/Photoshop/Inkscape Blender/Sculptri/Freecads and Audacity (and even more) but this are my secondary skills that are just useful when I'm doing associated tasks.

I consider myself a programmer and yes I can do AI programming / game-play programming /graphics programming or actually everything related to programming you will throw at me with understanding that some tasks will be completed slower than other.

I don't know what triggered you to make it so personal, whatever you know about me I would like to ask you to keeping it to yourself. I prefer to share my privacy by myself when I see fit.

 

The reason game developers get paid less is simple and has been the same for a long time over many careers, not just game development. It's a passion job. Most passion careers come with an average of lower salary.

Enterprise software developers don't get paid more because it's "harder" (which I disagree with), they get paid more because very few wake up and get excited about working with enterprise, relatively speaking.

- This doesn't mean It's a passion job for everyone though.

more here: Passion pay - Wikipedia

 

Apparently you're the one getting triggered, because you think I talked about you personally, except that I didn't.

"You had job titles like" in casual English has the same meaning as "There are job titles like" within that context

Nothing to do with you.

 

Huh, keep it civil.

 

What motivates you? In my case it's a combination of factors like getting paid for my work, learning new platforms and technologies, working with others, etc and I try to focus on these when I hit lows in my motivation.

If there are tasks that you enjoy performing spread them out across the entire development process that way you always have something to look forward to when things become a drag. In fact you could take this even further by working on simpler projects in-between periods of working on this one.

Don't be afraid to use assets from the store. Contrary to what people want to believe developers are almost always the only ones able to tell that you're doing it. If you're still worried you can always just open the assets in an art app and make minor modifications. That will reduce the chance that even they can tell you've done it.

What are you thinking of when you say "quit"? There is no rule that says you have to either abandon or complete a project before starting additional projects. If you're worried that you won't understand the project if you return to it months or years later write down notes to quickly refresh your future self.

 

One of the big parts of game dev is figuring out where you can design scale into your game, so that you can get more output with decreasing amounts of effort.

For instance, you said you've got 4 enemies but you want 20. One way which many games have bulked up the number of enemies they've got is simply by having a light / regular / heavy / boss version of each enemy. All that's different between them is colour tints (cheap art change), scale (super cheap art change), and numbers (health / damage / armor). Doing that will get your 4 enemies to 16 with far less effort than if you came up with 12 more enemies. Similarly, don't make 20 unique towers, make half a dozen or so and give them numerical upgrades.

Whenever I'm thinking about game design stuff I'm always categorising things based on how much unique human effort they require.

High effort stuff requires a human being to spend time and effort to create and/or test something for every player interaction. Story content is an example of this, because someone has to write it, someone has to integrate it into a level, and any related change means revisiting both. I want as little of this as possible in my work, because it's hard and it's risky. You will always need some, otherwise your game will probably be really boring, but you want to keep it to a minimum.

Low effort stuff is where a programmer can write a tool which does the work for you. This is "low" effort because while it probably takes more work up front, after that you're basically done. An example of this is a lock-picking mini-game. The computer can just spawn a new variation based on the lock level every time the player starts picking one. Spawning enemy mobs could be another. I love having this stuff in my game because if it's designed well it's a way we can give players quite a bit of cool stuff to do without our scope massively increasing.

And there's medium effort stuff in the middle, where it couldn't be completely automated but we're still able to get the computer doing most of the work. I'd say that the light / regular / heavy / boss versions of enemies falls into this, because you still have to set each one up by hand, but afterwards your mob spawner (assuming you have one) can just be told to use them.

I don't know any game developer who thinks of this stuff before being bitten by it at least once. So, for future design additions or changes you make, think not about "how much effort will it take to get this working?", instead think "how much effort will this require during the rest of the project?" and "can I get the same effect with less effort?"

It's not "lazy". It's "how projects get finished".

- - -

Unless you're already a practiced artist, or are specifically passionate about it, I suggest not even trying to do a whole game's worth of art. However long it took you to learn to program, it'd require a similar level of effort again to learn to make art.

As Ryiah already suggested, buying stuff off the shelf is an option. I'd do that for as much as I could, because it is by far the cheapest way to get stuff.

Another option is to hire someone to make you stuff. I recommend only doing that once you've got a little experience, because you need to know what to ask for. A little bit can go a long way, though. You don't need custom art for everything. Building on Ryiah's point about off-the-shelf assets usually going unnoticed, even big budget games use them. It took years before someone publicly recognised that Half Life 2 uses the same barrels as some other game, because they both purchased them from the same other person.

- - -

Other than that, my main bit of advice is to revise your design and cut every single thing it doesn't need. A completed project with less stuff in it is far better than an incomplete project with loads of cool ideas. Your audience can't play an idea.

And if people play your game and their main gripe is "I wish there was more of it" then that's awesome because you know the game worked and it's worth making more, time to do a sequel.

 

Plus I think when you follow that formula it gives players a pattern they can recognize, and that is a good thing. Makes game feel like a safe space where they are in control, they understand how things work, they can confidently take on whatever challenges come, etc.

 

As a beginner myself, I can absolutely relate to the feeling of wanting to quit. The only thing that stopped me was that fact that I had quit other projects before (such as trying to code a huge website from scratch ) - so I wanted my game to be something that I completed. Personally, game development isn't for me so I'll probably be done with it in a few months once I publish my game - but that's my point, once I publish my game. Having the resolve to go through with it and work consistently is something I struggle with a lot, but in my opinion, it's the most important part of the process which I now realize. As other people in the thread suggested, cut down the scope for now at least- finish your core mechanics, then add in the necessary features, art and such. After that, you can add the unnecessary features that make the game fun, more enemy types, different towers, etc. Once I finished the core mechanics and art, I had a lot more fun adding those extra features because I knew that I had something to fall back on. Again, this is just my opinion, and I am a beginner so you can ignore it if you wish, but your post reminded me of one of my previous questions in the forum, and the most helpful advice I got at the time was limit the scope.

Good luck!

 

Get an MVP and build from there.

 

Sometimes it helps to step back and take a small break.

 

Personally, I find it fun to make a game that I would enjoy, just to play it a bit and learn something new when I'm bored of working on my current game. It's just a nice breather and when I come back I usually am inspired again to work on my main game. Definitely would not recommend focusing on the future too much, a lot of times when I'm in the middle of making a game I realize how long it's gonna take for me to finish it, and how hard it's gonna be and it demotivates me a ton. So focus on doing one tiny step at a time.

Also when you're close to finishing a game it might feel like you have to get it out as fast as possible, but don't rush it. I did this with a couple of my games and it ended up with a lot of major bugs that broke the game. And like the other person said, the only people who will care if you use stuff from the asset store is other developers. And it might be smart to sell the stuff you make in your game on the asset store yourself for some extra cash.

 

If I were in your position, I would just wrap it up. In other words, just take all of the content that you have now and finish the game as it is, without adding anything else. Maybe just a "Yay! You win!" cut scene, if you haven't already.

Release it on itch.io and get some feedback. People may have suggestions on what to add or what direction to go in. Alternately you could just call it done and move-on to the next thing. At least you'll have a finished game, even if it's short.

You can always go back and more content when you get the inspiration.

 

Dang! I was going to post that.

 

The taboo secret of game making is: release bad games.

The more you release game, the better you get at doing them. Nobody expect their very first drawing to compete with trained artist, but for some reason they expect their games to, lose the ego.