Red pill me on being an indie game dev

Its not only my examples stupidtard I know many others from collegues and gamedev communities from different countries. Even doing a better job than me. Its not impossible but it's a small percentage of success even with a good game.

I am currently falling flat on my face right now and I even know what I am doing.

If you think you have something good offer an exclusive to Microsoft they are desperate

I got a question. How difficult is it to develop something like undertale or even a pokemon/ zelda tier game for pc?

thanks to things like unity / unreal engine and the vast amount of communities and tutorials out there for these engines, creating games is quite easy on a coding / level building side

the actual creative assets are still hard to accumulate... the story, characters, artwork, music, everything that makes a visual experience, ch'yea kno

Its all dependant on your personal ability. If you have at least a basic coding background and a decent understanding of UX design and understanding of what is needed to put together a game its not impossible.

If you have never created a game before then the chances of making one on your first try is probably about zero.

why tho i have some experience with 3D design i used to craft weird shit on blender, and i have experience as a php/javascript developer how hard would it be for me to create a game if i already have an idea in mind also i could just hire some pajeets to do the 3D design of characters based on pictures from pinterest it doesnt seem hard

cheers. Web dev comfy with python and OOP, dabbled with java(android) so a bit off game dev but generally fine with programming. Not sure how vastly different it is. But not averse to learning a new language/paradigm anyway. Just seems more interesting as a side hobby building a game.

Mostly because once you start pulling things apart you will find yourself lost in the details rather than paying attention to the big picture. Then you will make the most common mistake.

You will probably fuck up on scope. I assume you are human. It happens to all of us. The next step will be when you are a bit further into the design then get a different idea and begin working on another idea instead.

The only way to solidify a design is when you have both feet on the ground and are ready to just do it rather than necessarily learn the ropes first.

>Just seems more interesting as a side hobby building a game.

Its great for that especially if you can keep your games small. Also dont rule out making levels for games that already exist as well. Mod communities are awesome for this.

But a real life hack if you want to get into the groove of things is learn blueprint scripting in Unreal 4. Get good at that and you will be able to build a Zelda style game with relative ease.

Don't listen to anybody whining about the indiepocalypse. Those are spoiled soyboys who don't know how to manage a budget. You can still make a decent living developing indie games if you follow some simple rules:
1. Be a programmer or have a parter who is one. Forget about hiring a freelance programmer.
2. If you're a programmer, most likely you won't be able to create the assets yourself (unless you're one of these whackos who spend 5 years working on one game). It's important that you pick an art style, that doesn't require too much work (pixel art, minimalist 3D, etc)
3. Do market research. Find an underserved niche, but it also has to be something you enjoy playing yourself.
4. If you think you need spend money on marketing, think again. All you have to do is hustle on social media, forums, etc. It can be time consuming though.
5. If you can, try to make a game that works also on mobile devices without too much effort. Apple is very eager to promote paid indie games on the App Store, which can be a nice source of additional income. Stay away from Google Play, if you want to release a paid game.
6. Use Unity as your engine. It has it's flaws but the amount of tutorials, assets, etc will help you a lot.

I agree with everything but the unity part.

What if you have a genuinely unique game?

so you get lost in the branches i get it something like that happens to me when i try to develop a project on my own, seems that a strong vision and a sort of documented roadmap is absolutely neccesary and i am used to respect deadlines for others but is hard as fuck to respect your own deadlines

you make shitty games for neckbeards

>hiring pajeets
Terrible idea user. If you need cheap freelancers go with Eastern European or Asians who speak English. Pajeets are very dishonest and often unnecessarily combative.
Also making 3D characters is not that trivial. You have to know some basics in order to distinguish the good designer from the bad one.

If you are a solo dev, have fun and just try shit. Documenting and GDDs are for people working with teams. cut that red tape and enjoy the process.

I tend to work harder for myself than I do for others actually. which sucks. I have been trying to do the indie thing for a bit now and I dont want to think of the hours spent so far. But I have a cool game and its not being ripped to shreds on early access. yet.

But yeah the most common mistakes will be to mess up on the scope of the game first. You will learn something cool like how to build levels or how to animate characters and just get so involved you forget about the rest for a month or 3. Its so common.

thanks man, gonna look into it

Last bit of advice, a halfway decent game completed and for sale on steam will probably put you above 99.99% of all other people when looking for a job in the game industry. So make sure you don't just try to make a game, make a portfolio.

>documenting and gdds are for people working with teams
I am a sort of hippy i only respect deadlines when they are documented i think i absolutely need a sort of organization for example i wasted almost a month researching between vps clouds hosting and selfhosting i searched hundreds of companies just to find the right one to host my projects
> You will learn something cool like how to build levels or how to animate characters and just get so involved you forget about the rest for a month or 3. Its so common.
Kek i wish i had the time and money to spent 3 months animating a character for 5 seconds, i am currently a full time wagecuck the second my shitcoins moon i will quit it and be a full time hippy indie developer

> i only respect deadlines when they are documented

Haha too each his own!

>the second my shitcoins moon i will quit it and be a full time hippy indie developer

I did the same thing and the current market has me pretty worried. hahaha

Gamedev makes for an excellent programming project (assuming you don't use a babby engine like GM), but if you're in it for the money, it is strictly a terrible decision.

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I created a mobile game
I raised funding

its different from many games, and I had some decent success but ended up tired and bored of this game. so I stopped managing it

Users are begging me to go back at it. Im gonna stop my wagecuck and go back at it. You might not believe me but it has a billion dollar potential.

Im doing what everyone is telling me not to do but I dont give a fuck, I know the potential is there and I refuse to give up

I dont know much about the indie scene or whatever you call it. As everything in life: its possible.
People are using words "game dev", "game scene" as if its something closed and unique from the rest of the businesses/creations out there. It's not, you can make your own mark just like anything else if you have the right angle

godspeed user

I'm 18, been playing android games since I was like 14 and there was always another game that I liked, but for past 2 years there has been a shortage of quality games imo. So many reskins are in the top charts and bs simulators and whatever. So I started learning 2 years ago programming and I made a game with physics, but the execution wasn't very good. The graphics where quite bad like the pixel art contrast was shit because I didn't hire a "proffessional" for $100. Although I learned a lot from it.

Now I made a game with Unity, paid a guy $150 for all the art, genuinely love the game, because I always wanted this kind of a game and I never understood why there wasn't a single game like mine. Now I'm getting 2k downloads a week, 4-5 star reviews and people actually LOVING, not just like "eh good i guess". Getting like $4 a day and like 8k total downloads atm so a lot of room to grow and still a lot of updates to do to my game. Got many more ideas as well.

That's really cool congrats!

Not a trap.

good job and good luck