AuroDev | This is Why You Need to FINISH and RELEASE Your Game @AuroDev | Uploaded April 2021 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
Being able to Finish and Release games is what I consider to be the most important skill for an indie game developer to have. In this video I will go through:
-Why finishing and releasing a game is so hard
-Why finishing your games is so important
-Tips for how to finish your indie game
Game Development with Full Time Job: youtube.com/watch?v=OgLM1ZTVVEY
⚔️ Mortal Glory 2: store.steampowered.com/app/2216660?utm_source=yt
➤ Chambers of Devious Design: store.steampowered.com/app/1650860?utm_source=yt
➤ Mortal Glory: store.steampowered.com/app/1097530?utm_source=yt
➤ Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/RedbeakGames
➤ Patreon - Support to gain perks: patreon.com/redbeakgames
0:00 Intro
0:45 Why Finishing is So Hard
When you first start working on your game, you are in the honeymoon phase. You got all these cool ideas in your head and there are endless possibilities where the game could go. The game doesn’t yet exist in the physical world, so it can live in a happy wonderland world within your mind. At this point your game is in its ideal form without any faults.
But as you keep developing the game, it will start taking it’s form in the physical world and so it will also need to start following the rules of the physical world. Maybe some feature is impossible to get working properly, maybe you are not able to afford the kind of art you wanted or maybe the gameplay loop just isn’t as fun as you thought it would be.
Now your game is no longer in its ideal form like you pictured it. It has faults. This is inevitable. You might even have expected it, but it can still feel very disappointing and eat away your motivation.
At this same time, you have these other cool ideas running around in your head. They are new and exciting. And best of all, they do not have any faults.
So, it is very normal that you will be tempted by these new and exciting ideas. But you must not give in to that temptation as those ideas too will at some point have to take their form in reality and then be burdened with the faults that come with it.
As you can probably see, this is a vicious cycle. In the worst case scenario you will give in to the temptation every time and in return you will never finish a game.
It doesn’t help at all that finishing a game is boring. In the beginning it is exciting when you are implementing all the big features and you are making great noticeable progress every day. But at the end you are left with fixing persistent bugs, creating endless UI buttons and generally doing all sorts of small finetuning. There is no amount of motivation that will make this part fun.
Since the game is getting closer to its final state, it has nothing new to offer to you, no surprises that would excite you. Because of all this, you might feel like your game is dull and not that much fun to play.
As you get closer and closer to finishing, you might also start dreading something unpleasant. Maybe you have been putting off marketing so far and the irrational part of your brain keeps telling you to ditch the game just so you can avoid marketing. Or maybe you are afraid that your game is not good enough. Afraid that when you release it, the players will make fun of it and other devs will think less of you.
5:01 Why Finishing your Game is Important
Let’s start with the most obvious reason for finishing: Money. If you are a hobbyist, money might not concern you and that is ok. But I think most indie game developers dream of doing game development as their main job. You need money to make that dream a reality so you will want to start generating income from games as soon as you can.
When you finish a game, you can also proudly showcase it in your portfolio if you are out looking for jobs. It will indicate that you can get things done and that you can actually push things to the finish line.
By finishing and releasing your game, you will gain experience on marketing your game, setting up a store page for your game, optimizing that store page, player communication, receiving critique - both just and unjust. And if you put a price tag on your game, you will also gain experience on game monetization, how to handle the business side, how to handle taxes and so on. If you don’t release your game, you skip on all this experience and a huge learning opportunity.
9:19 Tips for Finishing your Indie Game
Choose a small game idea rather than a big one.
Don't be afraid to cut features.
Set a deadline for yourself.
Get external feedback.
If you have bit more than you can chew and feel like you might never finish your game, try to break it into parts and think if you could salvage at least a part of it and turn it into a smaller game.
And finally, really commit to finishing your game. Vow to yourself that you will see the project to the end and release the game - no matter what. This is a simple tip, but it will require tremendous willpower from you.
Being able to Finish and Release games is what I consider to be the most important skill for an indie game developer to have. In this video I will go through:
-Why finishing and releasing a game is so hard
-Why finishing your games is so important
-Tips for how to finish your indie game
Game Development with Full Time Job: youtube.com/watch?v=OgLM1ZTVVEY
⚔️ Mortal Glory 2: store.steampowered.com/app/2216660?utm_source=yt
➤ Chambers of Devious Design: store.steampowered.com/app/1650860?utm_source=yt
➤ Mortal Glory: store.steampowered.com/app/1097530?utm_source=yt
➤ Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/RedbeakGames
➤ Patreon - Support to gain perks: patreon.com/redbeakgames
0:00 Intro
0:45 Why Finishing is So Hard
When you first start working on your game, you are in the honeymoon phase. You got all these cool ideas in your head and there are endless possibilities where the game could go. The game doesn’t yet exist in the physical world, so it can live in a happy wonderland world within your mind. At this point your game is in its ideal form without any faults.
But as you keep developing the game, it will start taking it’s form in the physical world and so it will also need to start following the rules of the physical world. Maybe some feature is impossible to get working properly, maybe you are not able to afford the kind of art you wanted or maybe the gameplay loop just isn’t as fun as you thought it would be.
Now your game is no longer in its ideal form like you pictured it. It has faults. This is inevitable. You might even have expected it, but it can still feel very disappointing and eat away your motivation.
At this same time, you have these other cool ideas running around in your head. They are new and exciting. And best of all, they do not have any faults.
So, it is very normal that you will be tempted by these new and exciting ideas. But you must not give in to that temptation as those ideas too will at some point have to take their form in reality and then be burdened with the faults that come with it.
As you can probably see, this is a vicious cycle. In the worst case scenario you will give in to the temptation every time and in return you will never finish a game.
It doesn’t help at all that finishing a game is boring. In the beginning it is exciting when you are implementing all the big features and you are making great noticeable progress every day. But at the end you are left with fixing persistent bugs, creating endless UI buttons and generally doing all sorts of small finetuning. There is no amount of motivation that will make this part fun.
Since the game is getting closer to its final state, it has nothing new to offer to you, no surprises that would excite you. Because of all this, you might feel like your game is dull and not that much fun to play.
As you get closer and closer to finishing, you might also start dreading something unpleasant. Maybe you have been putting off marketing so far and the irrational part of your brain keeps telling you to ditch the game just so you can avoid marketing. Or maybe you are afraid that your game is not good enough. Afraid that when you release it, the players will make fun of it and other devs will think less of you.
5:01 Why Finishing your Game is Important
Let’s start with the most obvious reason for finishing: Money. If you are a hobbyist, money might not concern you and that is ok. But I think most indie game developers dream of doing game development as their main job. You need money to make that dream a reality so you will want to start generating income from games as soon as you can.
When you finish a game, you can also proudly showcase it in your portfolio if you are out looking for jobs. It will indicate that you can get things done and that you can actually push things to the finish line.
By finishing and releasing your game, you will gain experience on marketing your game, setting up a store page for your game, optimizing that store page, player communication, receiving critique - both just and unjust. And if you put a price tag on your game, you will also gain experience on game monetization, how to handle the business side, how to handle taxes and so on. If you don’t release your game, you skip on all this experience and a huge learning opportunity.
9:19 Tips for Finishing your Indie Game
Choose a small game idea rather than a big one.
Don't be afraid to cut features.
Set a deadline for yourself.
Get external feedback.
If you have bit more than you can chew and feel like you might never finish your game, try to break it into parts and think if you could salvage at least a part of it and turn it into a smaller game.
And finally, really commit to finishing your game. Vow to yourself that you will see the project to the end and release the game - no matter what. This is a simple tip, but it will require tremendous willpower from you.
