It’s been quite a while since I started tinkering with game development. I joined my first game development forum in 2005, and had something to show for it in 2008. If someone were to tell me, back then, that I would make my first honest attempt at a complete game in 2016, I would have probably given up (lucky for me I don’t know any seers).
In 2009 I got my first Mac, and the app store was just a click away. A new market where anyone can make it big, and I wanted in. For some reason it was easier for me to create an app instead of a game. So I made one and am still making them today as a full time job. Not that I regret that decision, but in the back of my mind I still feel a need to make games.
Last year I dove in and started a game in Unity. A few months later I realized that I have bitten off more than I can chew in my free time. The scope of the project was simply too big for my level of experience in game development. The amount of work still left ahead paralyzed me, and I stopped working on it and went back to what felt easy, making apps.
In the intervening time I made an app that took too long to finish (for reasons I won’t go in to in this post) and that didn’t do so well on the App Store. Fortunately the effort was not a complete waste since it brought me to this point and taught me a few valuable lessons:
One: You don’t need to be 100% finished to start showing other people your work, or even ship. Perfectionism is my enemy, and I have to keep reminding myself of that.
Two: Making designs and churning out code is not enough for success, people need to hear about you and what you’re working on. Although I’ve always known this, I was still stuck in the golden days of the App Store where you could simply post something and get some users with no marketing.
With that in mind here is my plan. Create a small game, prevent feature creep (or at least postpone it for the second version) and share the process. If you are interested in following my journey you can do so here or on any of the other social media outlets (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). Here’s a preview of what you can expect there:
So here’s to persistence, failure is temporary.