I adore artists with passion projects (as one myself). There's just something so personal and pure about it, so full of love and passion for the media it was made out of and art in a larger sense. I wish whomever reading this good luck with whatever they're working on, and I hope they're happy :)
There is something magical about hearing art minded people talk about project development, especially game dev. You are incredibly well spoken and communicate your perspective well .. I always look forward to your intro/retrospective looks at what you're working on.
Oh my gosh, I have felt every single last one of these things working on my project these last 3 years. Every one. The need for tools, the sense of no progress, the question of whether or not what I'm making is good, the feeling of ADHD not being able to focus on one thing. All of it. Thank you for sharing your experience. Now I know I'm not alone.
Very powerful what you said about (refraining from) setting deadlines! I recently learned how demotivating it can be to set deadlines you constantly don’t meet. I followed a course on preventing yourself from getting distracted, where I learned that it’s much more conducive to plan in time for certain activities, than to set deadlines. So instead of saying X needs to be done by Wednesday, I would block in time to spend on X, irrespective of whether or not the job gets done. Making progress is not about meeting deadlines, but about making sure you keep spending time on the project. If you keep doing that, we inevitably meet our goals. But making those goals time-dependent, and punishing ourselves for not finishing the jobs within naively thought-up timeframes, is a powerful formula for burnout.
Thank you for this. I’m a solo dev who’s been working on my first game for about 4 years now (just started working on it full time now) and I needed to hear the part about not being able to predict how long certain tasks will take you as a first time dev. I’ve tried putting deadlines so many times and they’ve only caused injuries and disappointment. Your game is looking amazing, keep up the good work!
I know this video is a year old, so few people will see this comment, but still...I've finally got really close to finishing the sprite for my first character after 3 years...something like this that tells me to work at my own pace is nice, and now that I've got the first, I think I have the motivation to keep shortening that time as I take things on the fly. Thanks Adam!
The big methods in architect versus gardening is "planning" versus "improvising." Stephen King apparently just writes whatever he makes up at the moment, and allows his characters to guide the plot. People like George R. R. Martin, on the other hand, create very detailed outlines that specify every scene from the beginning to the end. Of course, the truth is that Stephen King did plan some things, and George Martin didn't plan everything, so when you say that it's not an either/or situation, but rather both methods are used, you're absolutely correct. I'm a highly detail-oriented outliner, creating multiple passes of the outline, each with additional refinement and detail; however, when I write these scenes, almost invariably my imagination in the moment, and perhaps the strength of a character, will cause me to diverge or expand whatever scene I'm writing. It's said that people who plan tend to have weaker characters, while people who write extemporaneously tend to have worse endings. That might not be completely wrong. Certainly I've struggled with characterization, and not because I don't understand people, or struggle to develop characters' personalities, but rather I think visually. Most scenes appear to me as anime sequences, or art, and I make the mistake of attempting to transcribe into written language something that was specifically designed to be seen. There is a way to do it, but it requires one to know that the medium of writing is not one of visual spectacle, and the emotional incitement that a writer generates comes not from visuals but of impressions conveyed in words. As an example, this sentence: "The giant was tall." This is the equivalent of a sketch artist drawing a scene of a tall man at a flat angle with almost no perspective. It's not that words cannot convey a sense of tallness, but that writing techniques are required to do so. It might seem that pictures can convey things better than words, but the question is, "What are you trying to convey?" At the core of almost every work of art, be it writing, drawing, animation, games or film, is the attempt to elicit an emotional response by conveying something that the viewer reacts to. "Wow, that guy was fast!" "This forest scene is beautiful." "What's that thing over there?" "I can't believe that jackanapes just did that!" All of these are different emotions that you want to make the consumer feel. When you think of it that way, you can understand that your art form has its particular ways of doing that, and focus on improving your ability to use your art in the way that it works. This turned into a bit of a writing tip, but anyway. . . .
The tools you created are pretty impressive, I'm a huge fan of the scene graph! I feel like these tools would be really valuable to the Unity community. You mentioned you wouldn't necessarily have the time to support them if you were to sell them. Have you considered making them open source? I guess it's a trade-off, no direct revenue but the community could support/contribute to/improve the tools.
Thanks for sharing your hard-fought experience and lessons! I really appreciate your keen mind, vulnerability, and creativity… it’s all very inspiring as I set out to make my own game!
The "How to stay on course" section was really great. I have fallen into the trap of needing to quantify everything and when you have never done something before it just doesn't work like that. Thanks for the honesty! Great video.
You're doing something like what I was thinking about doing. Basically just sharing your journey in making a game, and in doing so, creating content makes enough money to support you. Congrats on your success! *Adam,* there is one thing I'd like to share with you, and it's that I think one of the most important aspects about your game that would make it successful, is that the world invites you in through the characters making you feel loved (or hated, in some cases). I want to give some examples. One example is how in Star Fox (SNES) your team is always talking to you, making you the Captain. In Halo, people make you feel like you are "Master Chief", and talk to you in a positive light. In the Sims, people constantly talk to you (although in a less inviting way, I think) In Terraria, NPCs speak to you positively, and make you feel invited (they do so enough). In Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the "annoying" fairy Navi constantly bothers you, reminding you of what you need to do, and that you are the Hero of Time. In Super Mario 64, Peach tells you that you are Mario and invites you over for food, Toad and Red Bob-ombs speak to you in a friendly way and help you out and remind you of what you need to overcome, while Bowser makes himself the evil guy who is fun to win against. The loving NPCs and NPCs that oppose you fill the world, otherwise I think games have an "empty" feel to them (I was thinking about this last night for myself). So, maybe what I'm saying is, that whatever you do, build a group of friends and enemies that make the world feel like it's alive, and you're a part of it.
Thanks for your thoughts... For me personally, long projects can be very soul sucking, as over time I come up with new ideas, and I'm "stuck" working through ideas from years ago... I've moved to a faster cadence and have stopped multi-year projects, and am targeting 3-4 months now. If I have a larger idea, I need to find a way to ship a game with part of that idea, so that I can continue building on it for the next release. I'm certainly no expert, this is just where I'm at.
I always admire people who put commitment on long projects and get there. That kind of perseverance is always inspiring. Also I love that you are always open and generous in sharing information. I have learned so much from your videos.
Man, I would love the technical challenge of making tools like these someday, can't wait till I reach a point where a project warrants such a task! They look so fun and interesting to design and build, and their finished product creates such an amazing workflow if done properly.
Thank you for this video. Working as a (mostly) solo dev for four years, I have learned these same lessons, but never really said them out loud. So hearing them articulated by someone else is confirming that those lessons are real and valid. I hope that my shared experience is further validating for you as well
"How do I actually write my requirements in advance, in a way that I know they won't change. And ultimately... you can't!" I so needed to hear that, this is my greatest struggle in my game dev journey so far. Thank you Adam
Well Adam. You're a mighty individual! I'm a big fan of how succinct you can deliver your knowledge. It's actually refreshing. Being one who gets stuck in 'tutorial hell' from time to time, your ability to get the point across is appreciated. One thing I struggle with comprehension of is the myriad of nuance involved with coding. I know you're a busy man but would you consider doing some coding tutorials? Like a series showcasing all the necessaries to release a minimum viable product. I watched you're Ludum Dare - Project Apollo video and thought it'd be swell if I could see the entire process, start to finish - all the coding involved as well as the rest, audio, etc, to get it to submittal level, the whole shebang! I went looking to see if was on your Twitch channel, figured you might have it archived but I couldn't find it. Anywhos, see what ya reckon. Top notch stuff lad. Big fan! Thanks a million!
Thank you for sharing this behind the scenes video. It’s encouraging to see you work on this game for as many years as you have. I’m working on a pixel game with a small team and we all work full time jobs/school, so it can easily feel like not much progress is being made. However it is important to just remember that progress is progress and if you’re working and moving forward and learning along the way. Thanks for sharing your journey with us!
@@mikaeleugh546 Thank you so much! I’m mainly the pixel artist, but since it is a small team, we will all do a little bit of everything. However everyone is assigned a main role. Mines being the artist
You are one of my mentors on CZcams helping me figure out things in developing my pixel game. As you can see from the comments you are helping us all! Thank you so much and don’t feel bad about not releasing your tools (although we all know we would love it lol) for sure understandable it’s too much work and that’s not your passion! Cheers ❤️
Really appreciate your channel Adam. Been working on my big game for over 5 years now as well and its been a difficult road at times (we're finally close to finishing!. You inspire me to still make a game solo one day, even though I know how hard it will be. Wish you the best of luck with your games!
The game looks so great, and It's super cool you've worked on it for 5 years without quitting it! I can hardly work on one for 2 months without getting tired of it XD
That just means you haven't found a project you are truly passionate about. And no doubt this guy takes breaks and works on other things from time to time. I've always found that if you have to discipline yourself to work on the game, it becomes stressful and a source of negative thoughts that progressively gets worse until you finally quit. Whereas with passion projects it is difficult to NOT work on it!
I just finished watching. As a solo developer who usually works on projects that only last a few months, I loved the insight from this. I won't address every detail you shared (they're all excellent), but I especially loved the part about placing myself into a rough version of the world as a player so that I can "feel" it and know what to do next, I completely agree, and I appreciate the insights greatly! And thank you - some would split this into 5-8 different videos, but you've put the effort into giving us a long yet concise video, you always go the distance to give us quality content - and I love your videos for that, cheers!
I have only got partway through this, but it's really cool to see the progress of your game dev, as well as inspiring to get back into coding / game design as a hobby. Way back in my teenage years, I used to dabble in QBasic with the lofty, still to be fully-realised goal of making my own 16-bit console style action RPG engine. I got as far as a very crude working pixel-scrolling engine with smooth camera tracking, some test maps and a character that you could control walk around the scene. I also made my own utilities : A map editor, plus a sprite drawing tool (Think a primitive Aseprite) which included a palette editor and spritesheet creator. I mostly put programming aside long ago when other things in life came along, however these days I'd like to pick up where I left off, except this time using C / C++.
I think as for the "What to do, where to start" bit isn't really all that important as long as you have a plan/decent to-do list and a good grasp on measuring progress. Unless of course you have a super tight deadline for some reason. I feel like where you start in that entire creative process depends heavily on motivation and inspiration and what you feel like you can work with and where you know how to make good progress. You'll know what you CAN build on next, so you can pick what you want to work on. Sure, you'll make mistakes and end up doing some things that end up being useless or thinking "I should have done that afterwards, now I've made more work" occasionally, that's how you gain experience. But precisely if you are alone you don't have other team members that need to coordinate with you and can't work if people aren't pulling in the same direction at the same time. It's much more problematic to get stuck spending 50% of your time thinking about what you should work on next.
A really interesting, worthwhile video! Some brilliant stuff in there about the architect vs gardener. Someone once told me, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you'll be amazed at where they can take you. Can't wait to play your game when it's ready!
Love the idea of saving sprites in the engine and just exporting to the same spot if you modify it. Also the "How to stay on course" section was insightful. I never set a deadline since I learned quickly that it just caused stress that I would then associate with making games. Made me burn out. Just moving forward at all, no matter the pace, ends up relieving stress. You start seeing your smaller wins rather than worry about finishing it.
This was so helpful. Even though many of the things you cover are things I'm already doing or similar, it's so helpful to have that validation from another dev. Watching your videos is also part of the emotional side of my game dev journey. I think that's the part I liked most about this video (although all of it was fantastic) - that we are not robots and we need to care as much about our motivation to continue the project as the project itself. I realised early in my game dev journey that it was important in the early stages of making a game to get as much of the base content on the screen and playable as early as possible. Not polished necessarily, but just to get an early feel for what the game might be like. Otherwise things can remain "coming later" and motivation for the actual game can dwindle before it ever comes together. And now I'm learning that this same idea applies at a more granular level with new scenes, features, and story. It's far easier to get something in and refine it over time than it is to try to build it right all at once.
Thank you for this video, this was a fascinating watch. I am working on a multi-year project myself and your process put into words exactly what I have been doing. Keep at it.
holy crab cakes with extra frosting on a Monday! that is insane dude, I never would have had the motivation to do this, seriously good work man! I hope you keep to it and I wish you the best of luck and health!!!
Hey there! I'm new to your channel as well as game dev myself. Thank you for doing this video! Really valuable information for me getting into this game dev world. Also I'd like to mention that you can be sure I'll be picking up your game day one of release. Really looking forward to it!
I agree with your idea of attacking the project from all angles, moving on when it seems like you can go no further on the art, or the story, or the gameplay. I sometimes draw for a few days, then i will go in and make a rough idea of the levels, work on movement. and then make assets for the areas im focused on. Helps keep your mind fresh and give it time to think of ideas for other aspects. Im just starting, and couldnt imagine a project this large, ive given myself about a year and a half to finish my project but this video is great perspective.
King is nototrious for writing increduble characters in fantastic scenarios, and then the ending ends up being kinda... meh. He's definitely a gardener; he doesn't know how the stories will end, he just writes what the characters will do every chapter. If I recall correctly he says as much in his book "On Writing." (might be projecting on that). Anyway, I *love* your content, Adam. Subbed and liked. You've inspired me to dig myself out of the doldrums and try to finish my game.
That's some dedication. I originally started my first project thinking id release something rough in 6 months. However, only the first alpha released in that time. Ended up that I wanted to create something I was proud of in case it's the only thing I ever release. It's now been 1 year and I think I have 6 months to a year left on the project since it's a hobby.
I look forward to playing your game when its finished I'm not a developer but your thoughts on project management are really interesting and I think valuable for anybody working on a long term solo endeavor
Thank you very much for this wonderful video as a Solo Developer this isn't easy to achieve at all so many many obstacle to encounter you make us inspired so much and the game is too great! this game will be successful after the day you will release it may the most high bless you brother!
Looks great! I have a ton of respect for your commitment, and that art looks amazing. When the game's ready, if you're looking for a LPer to show it off, hit me up!
Keep it up! I have many thoughts and ideas floating in my brain and sketchbook for creating multiple games! I am having trouble of where to start! Thank you for your comments on your experiences, opinions, and advice! You are an inspiration, sir!
This is such an invaluable insight into something like this, thanks a lot man! I'm a couple months into a personal Unity project right now and I'm encountering issues deciding what should take priority, what I should spend time on, etc, this is a big help.
I am not a game developer (not even close!) but so much of what you said I can apply to my work/ life. Thank you so much for the look into your mentality!
You talked about not including Source assets within the project folder originally. What I recommend you do is you have a Version Control folder and within that folder you have two sub directories, one to store The Source assets and another one to store the unity project.
Around 42:00 mark. The discussion around deadlines and progress is really the difference between progression and accomplishment. The different between activity and a goal. Focusing on the former grant motivation, focusing on the later is management tool towards completion
Great work! I don't know how you've managed to work on the same project for so long. I had a one-year project, and it felt like a slog toward the end. Ofc, I'm a full-time teacher, and I don't do it for profit, so this is just a hobby! 😅
Oh man, I cannot imagine making tools to better my game design, haha... but like, my game probably took me 6 years due to knowing about the scope creep, but not doing anything ABOUT the creep. I just kinda... kept going at the same pace. So realistically, this opened my eyes to a better route and for my future big projects, I'll revisit this video. :)
Firstly, thank you for sharing the process. Making good tools makes great games. But by your own numbers, your game is going to take 7 years to make. Personally I want to make more than 5 games before I retire. And I also want to make a sustainable income. Deadlines are still important even if you don't know how long things take. It means you need to cut back and scope down, to get food on the table, and often the game is better for it when you slim it down. It also means you get faster at making games as it forces you to look at where you're losing the most time.
@@verybarebones all well and good, but for everyone else who is not Tolkien or Rowling, we have to be pragmatic about how we pay the bills. If you just want to make games or write books as a hobby, you can take as long as you want, I don't care. Glad you brought up book writing. You can look up indie authors and you will struggle to find any who are releasing 3 books a decade and are living off that income.
The metaphor of 'freeing the sculpture' is actually really close to the way Stephen King (who is sort of a textbook 'gardener') describes his own process. He talks about writing like archaeology, like unearthing a root system and then brushing dirt out of ever-finer details over succeeding revisions. I also think he really starts out on each project with zero 'architect' forethought and that encouraging new writers to engage in long projects with no roadmap is maybe not the most helpful example to set.
I love your channel and this video was great! As a writer, I just want to add a comment to the "architect vs gardener" idea though. Gardener vs Architect is basically Discovery Writing (or pantser) vs Outline Writing. The gardener "plants seeds" by creating a cast of characters and maybe having some idea of the character arc or some ending and then just starts writing and sees what happens. The outliner will likely have specific bullet points for every single chapter that they need to achieve. For game design, I would think of it more as Backend Work (Gardener) vs Upfront Work (Architect) - do you zip through the game and build a rough draft organically and then come back for a few passes or do everything much more top down? Also, not important, but Stephen King AND R. R. Martin are very much in the gardener camp. If you want to listen to a more architect focused writer, check out Brandon Sanderson's fantasy writing CZcams lectures! They are fantastic. As you mentioned, it's not strictly either / or and both approaches and ideas are tools we can use. Thanks for the great video!
For Insignia's story, I have the plot written beat for beat, except because it's a game there's a point at which I relinquish control over the expression of certain events to the player. At that point, the details that relate to those beats are left to be explored while testing them. I know the logistical and emotional start and end point of a scene, but maybe in the moment it would feel more appropriate to make the dialogue light hearted, or sombre, or to use animation instead of words, etc. So yeah, definitely trying to employ both.
Regarding storing design files; it's not so much about the space (you can use Git LFS for storing large files in git), but more about conflict resolution. If you're working alone one a project this is not such a huge problem since you're likely not going to make changes that conflict with others, but working with multiple people on the same asset can lead to conflicts which aren't easy (or possible) to resolve without losing or having to manually merge changes. So unless the software you're using can deal with merge conflicts (e.g. how merge conflicts in Unity project files can be resolved inside Unity), it will be difficult to resolve, especially for binary files.
Great video, I am working on a project that has now spanned 10 yrs... so I can totally empathise with a lot of this, especially not giving yourself deadlines anymore.. and feeling like you arent making progress, I estimate 1% progress == 1 month of fulltime development for my game. Unfortunately I also have to work on freelance gigs at the same time :-(
I have a passion project myself, have been chomping at the bit for this sort of content. Thanks! I have the same priority. I understand the story and narrative I want to deliver... getting there... ugh.
I’m also on a solo multi year game dev journey. Probably year 6 or so. Try not to count. Main thing I learned was to identify what’s important and focus. Sounds simple, but looking back I spent too much time fiddling with gimmicky distractions. Trying shaders and funky lighting which in the end would have been a bad choice on top of a time waste. For me, it’s 98% about crafting compelling gameplay. If I’m stuck on a visual, I just put it off or hire an artist (as I say this I spent all day being OCD making pixel art bricks)
I think my part time project would just take couples of years, wenn all goes well in the end of 2022 i will have first alpha, but without any video content and i need stuff like voice over, ambient music, sfx sounds , video fmv and test test test and promote stuff, if you interested my indie game is SOE 2500. My type of development, i do separate project for any main game feature and i use version control on my local version control server and always checking in a working version always push a working version. Seeing 150 Scenes in one project my initial reaction: was like oh my god how this even loading ;) My respect Adam and you have my sub. I am all about software quality testing, i written lots of unit test for my game and you know people its fun....
I was gonna say you should release that tool on the market i would most likely buy it lol. I totally didn't think about what it would take to support it. I mean you could throw it up for cheap and just tell people this is the base tool you built for people who want it yada yada and you dont have time to support updates etc. Id still buy it honestly, save me a lot of time starting from scratch either way.
I'm a storyboarder who recently made a short film, and I got so frustrated with trying to write scripts for it. I felt like ideas only flowed when I started drawing, even if it was the longer way round.
Adam, I don't know if you've done this already on a stream or something, but how do you get your 2d Platformer behaviour working properly? could you show us how you did it? I'm absolutely dazzled by your work, and your pixel art creation process is so organic, and feels so natural! You are awesome!!
Also to comment on your path of least resistance section, I am assuming you have never been formally taught how to paint? People are typically taught not to "get sucked in". People have a hard time when untrained to not hyper focus on one section. You really need to work the entire canvas, otherwise the whole picture gets all jacked up. Its funny because it tends to be overlooked in a lot of other mediums but I personally believe it is one of the core principals of all creative mediums. Doesn't matter if you are making an airplane a chair or a painting.
Really interesting video. You mentioned your reticence on putting out your own tools on the asset store, but I wondered if there were any assets you still use from the store that helped shortcut development? Or whether you started using any before replacing them with your own systems? Thanks for the content & keep up the good work progressing those milestones.
I was fairly confident from the beginning that building my own tools would be more practical than using ones made by others. That said, there are a few tiny packages I use for things I would call "utilities". SuperTiled2Unity, for importing tilemaps. SerializableDictionary, for saving dictionary structures. SceneReferences for putting scene objects into components in the inspector... Little things that do very specific jobs that don't relate to my game per se but make unity more usable for me.
This month I decided to start developing my own game. And I only have a little java programming experience as Adam himself. This video explains a lot of difficult things and it would be logical if this information would at least slightly facilitate "things" for me, but... for some reason after watching it I feel down and depressed, mostly from the fact that I don't know anything about how to use Unity. All of Adam's stories about tools he created feels like something that I will can never understand or achieve... Thanks a lot for the video, however. I don't know why I talking about all of this things :D And sorry for my bad English
I adore artists with passion projects (as one myself). There's just something so personal and pure about it, so full of love and passion for the media it was made out of and art in a larger sense. I wish whomever reading this good luck with whatever they're working on, and I hope they're happy :)
You are a good person.
Thank you kind stranger.
I’ll totally make mine!!!
I remember when the "Art" in Electronic Arts meant something to that company. For EA, those days are long, long gone...
Couldn't agree more! They're awesome and a whole heck of an experience :D What is your passion project?
@@razeezar Not defending EA but there are occasional gems that sneak out between the behemoths. That Star Wars single player game was pretty good.
There is something magical about hearing art minded people talk about project development, especially game dev. You are incredibly well spoken and communicate your perspective well .. I always look forward to your intro/retrospective looks at what you're working on.
Lol
@@hundredchaos7831 lol
come back :(
@@Metadaxe Real
Oh my gosh, I have felt every single last one of these things working on my project these last 3 years. Every one. The need for tools, the sense of no progress, the question of whether or not what I'm making is good, the feeling of ADHD not being able to focus on one thing. All of it.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Now I know I'm not alone.
Very powerful what you said about (refraining from) setting deadlines! I recently learned how demotivating it can be to set deadlines you constantly don’t meet. I followed a course on preventing yourself from getting distracted, where I learned that it’s much more conducive to plan in time for certain activities, than to set deadlines. So instead of saying X needs to be done by Wednesday, I would block in time to spend on X, irrespective of whether or not the job gets done.
Making progress is not about meeting deadlines, but about making sure you keep spending time on the project. If you keep doing that, we inevitably meet our goals. But making those goals time-dependent, and punishing ourselves for not finishing the jobs within naively thought-up timeframes, is a powerful formula for burnout.
100%
Thank you for this. I’m a solo dev who’s been working on my first game for about 4 years now (just started working on it full time now) and I needed to hear the part about not being able to predict how long certain tasks will take you as a first time dev. I’ve tried putting deadlines so many times and they’ve only caused injuries and disappointment. Your game is looking amazing, keep up the good work!
What are you working on? :)
@@MrImportantGuy top secret stuff it would seem
I know this video is a year old, so few people will see this comment, but still...I've finally got really close to finishing the sprite for my first character after 3 years...something like this that tells me to work at my own pace is nice, and now that I've got the first, I think I have the motivation to keep shortening that time as I take things on the fly. Thanks Adam!
The big methods in architect versus gardening is "planning" versus "improvising."
Stephen King apparently just writes whatever he makes up at the moment, and allows his characters to guide the plot.
People like George R. R. Martin, on the other hand, create very detailed outlines that specify every scene from the beginning to the end.
Of course, the truth is that Stephen King did plan some things, and George Martin didn't plan everything, so when you say that it's not an either/or situation, but rather both methods are used, you're absolutely correct.
I'm a highly detail-oriented outliner, creating multiple passes of the outline, each with additional refinement and detail; however, when I write these scenes, almost invariably my imagination in the moment, and perhaps the strength of a character, will cause me to diverge or expand whatever scene I'm writing.
It's said that people who plan tend to have weaker characters, while people who write extemporaneously tend to have worse endings. That might not be completely wrong. Certainly I've struggled with characterization, and not because I don't understand people, or struggle to develop characters' personalities, but rather I think visually. Most scenes appear to me as anime sequences, or art, and I make the mistake of attempting to transcribe into written language something that was specifically designed to be seen.
There is a way to do it, but it requires one to know that the medium of writing is not one of visual spectacle, and the emotional incitement that a writer generates comes not from visuals but of impressions conveyed in words.
As an example, this sentence:
"The giant was tall."
This is the equivalent of a sketch artist drawing a scene of a tall man at a flat angle with almost no perspective. It's not that words cannot convey a sense of tallness, but that writing techniques are required to do so. It might seem that pictures can convey things better than words, but the question is, "What are you trying to convey?"
At the core of almost every work of art, be it writing, drawing, animation, games or film, is the attempt to elicit an emotional response by conveying something that the viewer reacts to.
"Wow, that guy was fast!"
"This forest scene is beautiful."
"What's that thing over there?"
"I can't believe that jackanapes just did that!"
All of these are different emotions that you want to make the consumer feel. When you think of it that way, you can understand that your art form has its particular ways of doing that, and focus on improving your ability to use your art in the way that it works.
This turned into a bit of a writing tip, but anyway. . . .
Thanks for writing that comment. As someone who's a bit intimidated by writing, I found it pretty insightful.
The tools you created are pretty impressive, I'm a huge fan of the scene graph! I feel like these tools would be really valuable to the Unity community. You mentioned you wouldn't necessarily have the time to support them if you were to sell them. Have you considered making them open source? I guess it's a trade-off, no direct revenue but the community could support/contribute to/improve the tools.
Thanks for sharing your hard-fought experience and lessons! I really appreciate your keen mind, vulnerability, and creativity… it’s all very inspiring as I set out to make my own game!
The "How to stay on course" section was really great. I have fallen into the trap of needing to quantify everything and when you have never done something before it just doesn't work like that.
Thanks for the honesty! Great video.
You're doing something like what I was thinking about doing.
Basically just sharing your journey in making a game, and in doing so, creating content makes enough money to support you. Congrats on your success!
*Adam,* there is one thing I'd like to share with you, and it's that I think one of the most important aspects about your game that would make it successful, is that the world invites you in through the characters making you feel loved (or hated, in some cases). I want to give some examples.
One example is how in Star Fox (SNES) your team is always talking to you, making you the Captain.
In Halo, people make you feel like you are "Master Chief", and talk to you in a positive light.
In the Sims, people constantly talk to you (although in a less inviting way, I think)
In Terraria, NPCs speak to you positively, and make you feel invited (they do so enough).
In Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the "annoying" fairy Navi constantly bothers you, reminding you of what you need to do, and that you are the Hero of Time.
In Super Mario 64, Peach tells you that you are Mario and invites you over for food, Toad and Red Bob-ombs speak to you in a friendly way and help you out and remind you of what you need to overcome, while Bowser makes himself the evil guy who is fun to win against.
The loving NPCs and NPCs that oppose you fill the world, otherwise I think games have an "empty" feel to them (I was thinking about this last night for myself).
So, maybe what I'm saying is, that whatever you do, build a group of friends and enemies that make the world feel like it's alive, and you're a part of it.
Thanks for your thoughts... For me personally, long projects can be very soul sucking, as over time I come up with new ideas, and I'm "stuck" working through ideas from years ago... I've moved to a faster cadence and have stopped multi-year projects, and am targeting 3-4 months now. If I have a larger idea, I need to find a way to ship a game with part of that idea, so that I can continue building on it for the next release. I'm certainly no expert, this is just where I'm at.
This is a good approach, Ive had the same experience.
I always admire people who put commitment on long projects and get there. That kind of perseverance is always inspiring. Also I love that you are always open and generous in sharing information. I have learned so much from your videos.
Loving the behind the scenes a ton! Really motivating to see how far this went
Your videos are always inspirational. I feel the exact same about my project and I hope I will be able to work on it full-time in the future.
Man, I would love the technical challenge of making tools like these someday, can't wait till I reach a point where a project warrants such a task! They look so fun and interesting to design and build, and their finished product creates such an amazing workflow if done properly.
Reminds me of when I used to make little editor ultilities back when I used to code in QB.
Ready for the ride. Keep up the amazing content man. Your tutorials are inspiring
Thank you for this video.
Working as a (mostly) solo dev for four years, I have learned these same lessons, but never really said them out loud. So hearing them articulated by someone else is confirming that those lessons are real and valid. I hope that my shared experience is further validating for you as well
Very amazing work! I've taken on a game project (with a 1 year time limit), and I really admire these longer time commitments!
"How do I actually write my requirements in advance, in a way that I know they won't change.
And ultimately... you can't!"
I so needed to hear that, this is my greatest struggle in my game dev journey so far. Thank you Adam
Well Adam. You're a mighty individual! I'm a big fan of how succinct you can deliver your knowledge. It's actually refreshing. Being one who gets stuck in 'tutorial hell' from time to time, your ability to get the point across is appreciated. One thing I struggle with comprehension of is the myriad of nuance involved with coding. I know you're a busy man but would you consider doing some coding tutorials? Like a series showcasing all the necessaries to release a minimum viable product. I watched you're Ludum Dare - Project Apollo video and thought it'd be swell if I could see the entire process, start to finish - all the coding involved as well as the rest, audio, etc, to get it to submittal level, the whole shebang! I went looking to see if was on your Twitch channel, figured you might have it archived but I couldn't find it. Anywhos, see what ya reckon. Top notch stuff lad. Big fan! Thanks a million!
Thank you for sharing this behind the scenes video. It’s encouraging to see you work on this game for as many years as you have. I’m working on a pixel game with a small team and we all work full time jobs/school, so it can easily feel like not much progress is being made. However it is important to just remember that progress is progress and if you’re working and moving forward and learning along the way. Thanks for sharing your journey with us!
Good luck with the game! May I ask what your role is in the creation of it?
@@mikaeleugh546 Thank you so much! I’m mainly the pixel artist, but since it is a small team, we will all do a little bit of everything. However everyone is assigned a main role. Mines being the artist
You are one of my mentors on CZcams helping me figure out things in developing my pixel game. As you can see from the comments you are helping us all! Thank you so much and don’t feel bad about not releasing your tools (although we all know we would love it lol) for sure understandable it’s too much work and that’s not your passion! Cheers ❤️
Really appreciate your channel Adam. Been working on my big game for over 5 years now as well and its been a difficult road at times (we're finally close to finishing!. You inspire me to still make a game solo one day, even though I know how hard it will be. Wish you the best of luck with your games!
The game looks so great, and It's super cool you've worked on it for 5 years without quitting it! I can hardly work on one for 2 months without getting tired of it XD
That just means you haven't found a project you are truly passionate about. And no doubt this guy takes breaks and works on other things from time to time. I've always found that if you have to discipline yourself to work on the game, it becomes stressful and a source of negative thoughts that progressively gets worse until you finally quit. Whereas with passion projects it is difficult to NOT work on it!
@@tristunalekzander5608 Thanks for the advice! :)
I just finished watching.
As a solo developer who usually works on projects that only last a few months, I loved the insight from this.
I won't address every detail you shared (they're all excellent), but I especially loved the part about placing myself into a rough version of the world as a player so that I can "feel" it and know what to do next, I completely agree, and I appreciate the insights greatly!
And thank you - some would split this into 5-8 different videos, but you've put the effort into giving us a long yet concise video, you always go the distance to give us quality content - and I love your videos for that, cheers!
I have only got partway through this, but it's really cool to see the progress of your game dev, as well as inspiring to get back into coding / game design as a hobby.
Way back in my teenage years, I used to dabble in QBasic with the lofty, still to be fully-realised goal of making my own 16-bit console style action RPG engine.
I got as far as a very crude working pixel-scrolling engine with smooth camera tracking, some test maps and a character that you could control walk around the scene.
I also made my own utilities : A map editor, plus a sprite drawing tool (Think a primitive Aseprite) which included a palette editor and spritesheet creator.
I mostly put programming aside long ago when other things in life came along, however these days I'd like to pick up where I left off, except this time using C / C++.
I think as for the "What to do, where to start" bit isn't really all that important as long as you have a plan/decent to-do list and a good grasp on measuring progress. Unless of course you have a super tight deadline for some reason. I feel like where you start in that entire creative process depends heavily on motivation and inspiration and what you feel like you can work with and where you know how to make good progress. You'll know what you CAN build on next, so you can pick what you want to work on. Sure, you'll make mistakes and end up doing some things that end up being useless or thinking "I should have done that afterwards, now I've made more work" occasionally, that's how you gain experience. But precisely if you are alone you don't have other team members that need to coordinate with you and can't work if people aren't pulling in the same direction at the same time. It's much more problematic to get stuck spending 50% of your time thinking about what you should work on next.
Extremely thoughtful. Thanks for having the humility to open up your project and show us the process.
A really interesting, worthwhile video! Some brilliant stuff in there about the architect vs gardener. Someone once told me, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you'll be amazed at where they can take you. Can't wait to play your game when it's ready!
Love the idea of saving sprites in the engine and just exporting to the same spot if you modify it.
Also the "How to stay on course" section was insightful. I never set a deadline since I learned quickly that it just caused stress that I would then associate with making games. Made me burn out. Just moving forward at all, no matter the pace, ends up relieving stress. You start seeing your smaller wins rather than worry about finishing it.
This was so helpful. Even though many of the things you cover are things I'm already doing or similar, it's so helpful to have that validation from another dev. Watching your videos is also part of the emotional side of my game dev journey. I think that's the part I liked most about this video (although all of it was fantastic) - that we are not robots and we need to care as much about our motivation to continue the project as the project itself. I realised early in my game dev journey that it was important in the early stages of making a game to get as much of the base content on the screen and playable as early as possible. Not polished necessarily, but just to get an early feel for what the game might be like. Otherwise things can remain "coming later" and motivation for the actual game can dwindle before it ever comes together. And now I'm learning that this same idea applies at a more granular level with new scenes, features, and story. It's far easier to get something in and refine it over time than it is to try to build it right all at once.
Thank you for this video, this was a fascinating watch. I am working on a multi-year project myself and your process put into words exactly what I have been doing. Keep at it.
holy crab cakes with extra frosting on a Monday! that is insane dude, I never would have had the motivation to do this, seriously good work man! I hope you keep to it and I wish you the best of luck and health!!!
Hey there! I'm new to your channel as well as game dev myself. Thank you for doing this video! Really valuable information for me getting into this game dev world. Also I'd like to mention that you can be sure I'll be picking up your game day one of release. Really looking forward to it!
I agree with your idea of attacking the project from all angles, moving on when it seems like you can go no further on the art, or the story, or the gameplay. I sometimes draw for a few days, then i will go in and make a rough idea of the levels, work on movement. and then make assets for the areas im focused on. Helps keep your mind fresh and give it time to think of ideas for other aspects. Im just starting, and couldnt imagine a project this large, ive given myself about a year and a half to finish my project but this video is great perspective.
I know what it's like to spend 5 years working on a project but also to come up with such a great video... Thank you!!!
King is nototrious for writing increduble characters in fantastic scenarios, and then the ending ends up being kinda... meh. He's definitely a gardener; he doesn't know how the stories will end, he just writes what the characters will do every chapter. If I recall correctly he says as much in his book "On Writing." (might be projecting on that).
Anyway, I *love* your content, Adam. Subbed and liked. You've inspired me to dig myself out of the doldrums and try to finish my game.
that scene graph really helps
That's some dedication. I originally started my first project thinking id release something rough in 6 months. However, only the first alpha released in that time. Ended up that I wanted to create something I was proud of in case it's the only thing I ever release. It's now been 1 year and I think I have 6 months to a year left on the project since it's a hobby.
I look forward to playing your game when its finished I'm not a developer but your thoughts on project management are really interesting and I think valuable for anybody working on a long term solo endeavor
Thank you very much for this wonderful video as a Solo Developer this isn't easy to achieve at all so many many obstacle to encounter you make us inspired so much and the game is too great! this game will be successful after the day you will release it may the most high bless you brother!
Looks great! I have a ton of respect for your commitment, and that art looks amazing. When the game's ready, if you're looking for a LPer to show it off, hit me up!
Keep it up! I have many thoughts and ideas floating in my brain and sketchbook for creating multiple games! I am having trouble of where to start! Thank you for your comments on your experiences, opinions, and advice! You are an inspiration, sir!
This is such an invaluable insight into something like this, thanks a lot man! I'm a couple months into a personal Unity project right now and I'm encountering issues deciding what should take priority, what I should spend time on, etc, this is a big help.
this is so raw and real, we really go through the same thing
Love to get a look at peoples serious and long-term projects. Thanks!
I am not a game developer (not even close!) but so much of what you said I can apply to my work/ life. Thank you so much for the look into your mentality!
This video has been so helpful to me. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.
Another video! Glad to have you back, awesome work as usual
Awesome to see your project & It's a lot of fun to see the tools you have created
Why did I just tear up @37:36 ??? This whole thing is so beautiful!
"you don't get back the feedback'. What you are doing is awesome! Keep going!
Not the type of video we asked for, but exactly what we needed. Thanks!
Incredibly insightful and informative. Great work!
You talked about not including Source assets within the project folder originally. What I recommend you do is you have a Version Control folder and within that folder you have two sub directories, one to store The Source assets and another one to store the unity project.
love your videos ive been keeping up for a while!!! i would love to see more of the scriptable objects and tools that you have/recommend
For a moment I thought that Yannis from Foals was now into Game Dev. Great video btw!
The dedication is so impressive. Be proud of yourself
Around 42:00 mark. The discussion around deadlines and progress is really the difference between progression and accomplishment. The different between activity and a goal. Focusing on the former grant motivation, focusing on the later is management tool towards completion
Wonderful, thoughtful video. Thank you so much for your perspective, and your content!
7:12 doggo run lol I see you have sense of humor even in your professional life.
Great work! I don't know how you've managed to work on the same project for so long. I had a one-year project, and it felt like a slog toward the end. Ofc, I'm a full-time teacher, and I don't do it for profit, so this is just a hobby! 😅
This was amazing, thank you so much. I appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts. You're an inspiration!
Oh man, I cannot imagine making tools to better my game design, haha... but like, my game probably took me 6 years due to knowing about the scope creep, but not doing anything ABOUT the creep. I just kinda... kept going at the same pace. So realistically, this opened my eyes to a better route and for my future big projects, I'll revisit this video. :)
Firstly, thank you for sharing the process. Making good tools makes great games.
But by your own numbers, your game is going to take 7 years to make.
Personally I want to make more than 5 games before I retire. And I also want to make a sustainable income.
Deadlines are still important even if you don't know how long things take. It means you need to cut back and scope down, to get food on the table, and often the game is better for it when you slim it down.
It also means you get faster at making games as it forces you to look at where you're losing the most time.
Thatd depend on your goals. It's like writing a book, you can write a high fantasy trilogy in a decade or two harlequin novels per year.
@@verybarebones all well and good, but for everyone else who is not Tolkien or Rowling, we have to be pragmatic about how we pay the bills. If you just want to make games or write books as a hobby, you can take as long as you want, I don't care.
Glad you brought up book writing. You can look up indie authors and you will struggle to find any who are releasing 3 books a decade and are living off that income.
The metaphor of 'freeing the sculpture' is actually really close to the way Stephen King (who is sort of a textbook 'gardener') describes his own process. He talks about writing like archaeology, like unearthing a root system and then brushing dirt out of ever-finer details over succeeding revisions. I also think he really starts out on each project with zero 'architect' forethought and that encouraging new writers to engage in long projects with no roadmap is maybe not the most helpful example to set.
I love your channel and this video was great! As a writer, I just want to add a comment to the "architect vs gardener" idea though.
Gardener vs Architect is basically Discovery Writing (or pantser) vs Outline Writing. The gardener "plants seeds" by creating a cast of characters and maybe having some idea of the character arc or some ending and then just starts writing and sees what happens. The outliner will likely have specific bullet points for every single chapter that they need to achieve. For game design, I would think of it more as Backend Work (Gardener) vs Upfront Work (Architect) - do you zip through the game and build a rough draft organically and then come back for a few passes or do everything much more top down?
Also, not important, but Stephen King AND R. R. Martin are very much in the gardener camp. If you want to listen to a more architect focused writer, check out Brandon Sanderson's fantasy writing CZcams lectures! They are fantastic.
As you mentioned, it's not strictly either / or and both approaches and ideas are tools we can use. Thanks for the great video!
For Insignia's story, I have the plot written beat for beat, except because it's a game there's a point at which I relinquish control over the expression of certain events to the player. At that point, the details that relate to those beats are left to be explored while testing them. I know the logistical and emotional start and end point of a scene, but maybe in the moment it would feel more appropriate to make the dialogue light hearted, or sombre, or to use animation instead of words, etc.
So yeah, definitely trying to employ both.
great video! And also, great use of the phrase "to wit" early on. Haven't heard that in a while
You deserve a lot more attention. Thanks again.
that mossy elk boss character design is so sick
"I don't set deadlines, I just set milestones" Definitely me! I do this all the time.
You are such an inspiration, and I learnt a lot from you! Thank you!
Regarding storing design files; it's not so much about the space (you can use Git LFS for storing large files in git), but more about conflict resolution. If you're working alone one a project this is not such a huge problem since you're likely not going to make changes that conflict with others, but working with multiple people on the same asset can lead to conflicts which aren't easy (or possible) to resolve without losing or having to manually merge changes.
So unless the software you're using can deal with merge conflicts (e.g. how merge conflicts in Unity project files can be resolved inside Unity), it will be difficult to resolve, especially for binary files.
Great video, I am working on a project that has now spanned 10 yrs... so I can totally empathise with a lot of this, especially not giving yourself deadlines anymore.. and feeling like you arent making progress, I estimate 1% progress == 1 month of fulltime development for my game. Unfortunately I also have to work on freelance gigs at the same time :-(
PS WARNING TO ALL DEVS, BEWARE DVT, get up and move every 2 hours.. nearly killed me.
I have a passion project myself, have been chomping at the bit for this sort of content. Thanks!
I have the same priority. I understand the story and narrative I want to deliver... getting there... ugh.
I’m also on a solo multi year game dev journey. Probably year 6 or so. Try not to count. Main thing I learned was to identify what’s important and focus. Sounds simple, but looking back I spent too much time fiddling with gimmicky distractions. Trying shaders and funky lighting which in the end would have been a bad choice on top of a time waste. For me, it’s 98% about crafting compelling gameplay. If I’m stuck on a visual, I just put it off or hire an artist (as I say this I spent all day being OCD making pixel art bricks)
I needed this, great video, great project and very interesting tools!
Ok take my sub. Can't handle much more great content !
I think my part time project would just take couples of years, wenn all goes well in the end of 2022 i will have first alpha, but without any video content and i need stuff like voice over, ambient music, sfx sounds , video fmv and test test test and promote stuff, if you interested my indie game is SOE 2500. My type of development, i do separate project for any main game feature and i use version control on my local version control server and always checking in a working version always push a working version. Seeing 150 Scenes in one project my initial reaction: was like oh my god how this even loading ;) My respect Adam and you have my sub. I am all about software quality testing, i written lots of unit test for my game and you know people its fun....
This was a great video. Thank you for posting it
I was gonna say you should release that tool on the market i would most likely buy it lol. I totally didn't think about what it would take to support it. I mean you could throw it up for cheap and just tell people this is the base tool you built for people who want it yada yada and you dont have time to support updates etc. Id still buy it honestly, save me a lot of time starting from scratch either way.
Going on 8 years with mine lol!! This should be an interesting video!! :)
Love your reasoning! The top should get the feedback from the bottom. It applies to art just as well as to other endeavors.
you should make a dedicated post on scene graph
Great video. I particularly liked the Artist V Gardner bit.
I remember watching you on Twitch a few times, hope the game works out for ya!!
I'm a storyboarder who recently made a short film, and I got so frustrated with trying to write scripts for it. I felt like ideas only flowed when I started drawing, even if it was the longer way round.
A great insight, thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom again!!
Adam, I don't know if you've done this already on a stream or something, but how do you get your 2d Platformer behaviour working properly? could you show us how you did it? I'm absolutely dazzled by your work, and your pixel art creation process is so organic, and feels so natural! You are awesome!!
Love your graphics, in particular the buildings. So, do you use Aseprite exclusively now?
What a great artist
Beautiful workflow, nice thanks for sharing
Fu* legend. How someone can keep the motivation for such a long time is something future civilizations will study.
Also to comment on your path of least resistance section, I am assuming you have never been formally taught how to paint? People are typically taught not to "get sucked in". People have a hard time when untrained to not hyper focus on one section. You really need to work the entire canvas, otherwise the whole picture gets all jacked up. Its funny because it tends to be overlooked in a lot of other mediums but I personally believe it is one of the core principals of all creative mediums. Doesn't matter if you are making an airplane a chair or a painting.
Really interesting video. You mentioned your reticence on putting out your own tools on the asset store, but I wondered if there were any assets you still use from the store that helped shortcut development? Or whether you started using any before replacing them with your own systems? Thanks for the content & keep up the good work progressing those milestones.
I was fairly confident from the beginning that building my own tools would be more practical than using ones made by others. That said, there are a few tiny packages I use for things I would call "utilities". SuperTiled2Unity, for importing tilemaps. SerializableDictionary, for saving dictionary structures. SceneReferences for putting scene objects into components in the inspector...
Little things that do very specific jobs that don't relate to my game per se but make unity more usable for me.
REAAALLY good video, enjoyed it a lot and relate a lot !
This month I decided to start developing my own game. And I only have a little java programming experience as Adam himself. This video explains a lot of difficult things and it would be logical if this information would at least slightly facilitate "things" for me, but... for some reason after watching it I feel down and depressed, mostly from the fact that I don't know anything about how to use Unity. All of Adam's stories about tools he created feels like something that I will can never understand or achieve... Thanks a lot for the video, however. I don't know why I talking about all of this things :D And sorry for my bad English
a scene graph tool - what a greath idea