We answer your (gamedev) questions | Q&A
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- čas přidán 11. 06. 2024
- We recently reached 15.000 subscribers, which is pretty nuts. To celebrate, Thomas and I sat down to answer your questions for us, both gamedev and personal.
Join our Discord: / discord
One-page Game Design Document template:
1drv.ms/b/s!AuLPQ2qt2swWgZoKc...
Forge Industry GDD:
1drv.ms/b/s!AuLPQ2qt2swWgaJwJ...
Thank you to our Patrons:
Jesse Carrigan
Dobrx
Kyling X
Alexander Presthus
Mattias Lundell
Faldano
Adrian Rosario
Jesse Segun-Oside
Lucas H. da Silva
Jacob Rutter
Bart Mamzer
Lolicide
Kyle Gilliam
Jonathan E.S.P.
Dj S
Game Dev With Michael
Florian Alushaj
gageperrygames
NeatWare Grzegorz Kiernozek
Do you want even more content regarding making your own studio and getting an in-depth look at how we run BiteMe Games? Or maybe even get some dedicated coaching? Check out our Patreon:
/ bitemegames
Wishlist our next game, Songs of Everjade: store.steampowered.com/app/25...
Timestamps:
00:00 Guess you like us
00:52 Writing clean code
01:37 Manage motivation
03:13 Reusing custom libraries
04:49 Getting game ideas
07:00 Game idea drift
09:16 Graphical commit
12:02 Balancing work-life
12:37 SoE sales target
13:12 Inexperience and giving advice
14:04 Increasing programming skill
15:07 Recruiting season?
17:04 Efficient marketing?
19:03 Keep working on game
19:43 The Day Before situation
21:18 CZcamsr life
22:37 Great games, bad Steam page
24:02 Roblox
25:15 Hair secrets
25:54 Changing tools
27:37 Good game ideas
28:05 Company name
29:23 18+ games
31:29 Max bench?
32:00 Project management
33:08 Why the eyebags
34:45 Closing
---
Get Forge Industry now on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/21...
In need of some Unity Assets? Use our affiliate link to support us, it's free, and we get a small kickback: prf.hn/l/wzGa15G
Want to reach out to us? Send us an email at hello@bitemegames.com - Jak na to + styl
heh the abrupt cut at the end, I'm guessing you edited the first draft and sized the sequence, then added some extra section and forgot to resize it. It's happened to me a few times!
Congrats on 15k!
That is exactly what happened... Luckily it was only 8 seconds so nothing important was lost. Thanks for watching the video to the end, hope you enjoyed! -M
Congratulations on 15K guys and Happy new year 🎉🎉
Also, a video idea - your office / setup tour.
As a solo game dev, i find it quite interesting to see people who work in teams together and create amazing games.
Check this out czcams.com/video/Gjw3kiNdDx0/video.html ;) -M
I love having max bench in the thumbnail 🤣🤣
Asking the REAL questions. -M
@@bitemegamesexactly! How can you expect to publish a successful game with a weak bench
12:05 yes we love you guys and your detailed answers ❤ also love your open honest approach to your videos
Been enjoying these videos as a first time indie dev learning godot. I really appreciate your honesty and transparency about game dev, especially the sales side of the project you published. Thinking of picking up your game Forge Industry, keep up the good work guys!!
Congratulations, that's a nice way to start 2024!
Thanks for this cool video.
Your detailed videos and answers are much appreciated, thank you good sirs
Very nice Q&A, I just discovered you guys today through CZcams recommending your game engine tier list video to me, so far this is only the third video I've watched but I really like your content; you guys do a great job of being informative and helpful and are also very charming. I'm excited to give Forge Industry a try, and congrats on 15K subscribers!
It's good to listen to it during dinner, I've started the portotype stage, I'm still learning, and I like to have relatively clean code, but I'm not thinking about it at the moment - as long as it works. Taking notes in my notebook helped me a lot. (when I learn something new) or when I think about something, and the video with the "roadmap" for 2024 changed my plans a bit (from co-op to single player), even though I had learned a lot of new things before, I had the impression that I was standing still, and now it's different! Thanks guys, realy, like n sub.
Congrats on 15k! Really insightful video and full of great reminders for me as I work on my first commercial game. Keep up the great content!
Working 24/7 on games only sounds like such a dream.
13:44 yes. You guys are actually doing game dev right now. You’re experiencing all the challenges right now. That makes you well qualified for what we your audience need to know right now.
You guys have such a nice calming aura. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for giving us so much content. i watched so many of your videos and tryed to implement as much as possible in my game from what i have learned from you.
I just released my Game on Steam, its for free (Karina Katana).
I wish you and the community a very good 2024.
And i look forward to more of your nice videos :)
I took a look at your Steam page for Karina Katana. Looks good. I have a Mac so I can’t try it out :(
Well done getting your game out 👍
thank you :)@@kellyrodgers9326
@@kellyrodgers9326 oh wow, i didnt knew mac steam users are such a big thing, but in these 2 days, 5 people asked me for a mac version. i will try to get up a mac version a.s.a.p
We love you for the long answers
12:00 this reminded me of the Extra Credit video that also talked about failing fast, and it's probably the most common problem new indie devs have.
We've all got the "perfect game" we wanna make, but no one makes that on their first try. Finishing a dozen crappy micro-games in a month is leagues better than struggling for years on an ambitious idea for your first game, then giving up game-dev because it was too difficult.
You guys say about keeping the video short a lot. Honestly I think pretty much all your content is great and I'd watch 4 hours of this if you have that much to chat about. Love getting the advice and hearing your thoughts.
I'd love it if you made more in depth videos about songs of everjade too. I get that they might not perform as well but it would be great, if you had time, for some overviews of concepts/techniques used, implementation of new features, etc.
Keep up the great work
i really hope there is trains in the new game ....
Me too buddy, me too... -M
@@bitemegames at this point you guys should have a little train easter egg on all your games just for the memes
Congrats on 15k guys!
Congrats on 15k! Happy New Year
That marketing tier list would be great! I’d love that video
Watching you learn and grow. You guys have a lot to learn!
You guys are great. Sober views of game dev. Subbing.
Great content as always! Some very interesting and surprising answers :) Also congrats on 15K 🎉
This was very enjoyable and helpful. (Also, BiteMe Games could already have some adult connotations to it... 😏)
Language, Thomas, language….! 1:14
Your videos are so helpful!
Im not even a game dev. Im a 38 year old woman that just finds this interesting
I love you guys
I once made a mod, that has itself mods. But that only works if the base game has a large enough community for people to be interested in even downloading mods for it.
"Yeah but the people love us for giving detailed answers" - Yes!!!
Silky-smoothness should be a privilege to the bourgeois no more, we say!
Incidentally, if I were you, I'd buy some stonks in Garnier right about now.
Noice QnA, Where are u guys getting this charts and data from? can u guys do a video on market research please?
howtomarketagame.com/2022/04/18/what-genres-are-popular-on-steam-in-2022/ -M
Awesome catchup, candid and sounds like you guys enjoy the feedback as much as we like hearing about BiteMe. Good Luck guys, awesome content as always and congrats on 15k
I feel like buying Forge on my 3000 Steam accounts just to make your goal harder ;P Thanks for the great contents! L
ありがとうございます -M
the nice thing about being an indie developer is also the worst thing. you have to do everything. so you're sick of coding? there's plenty of art to do. even when i get burnt out and cant touch the computer, i have a notepad by my bed for ideas.
Congrats on 15K! Curious on how you split the workload, is it 'equal' even though you work on different things? And is that reflective on the revenue/profit split?
Ok, this is going to be a long-ish answer, buckle up.
We're with 4 people in the BiteMe Games team, with different equity stakes:
- Thomas, 39%
- Marnix, 28%
- William, 23%
- Jamie, 10%
After Forge Industry, Jamie decided gamedev wasn't that much for him, so he reduced his shares from 17% to 10%, and now works in a support role (he manages our server infrastructure, and helps whenever there are events, but doesn't actually work in Unity/on our games directly).
William & Thomas are both programmers, and I believe they have somewhat similar splits in terms of work done, except Thomas also has to combine gamedev with a fulltime job. Both of them work about 40h/week for BiteMe Games. One difference is that Thomas also has the role of co-founder, so part of his responsibilities outside of programming is stuff related to the business development, so I often drag him along to events. William didn't want to deal with this part of gamedev.
As for me, I was the worst programmer of the team, so my role started as 3D artist (which I sucked at), and has now shifted more to producer, creative director, business developer, content creator,... I do pretty much everything that's not strictly programming. So you'll find me doing the nitty gritty project management, accounting, making SFX, comissioning freelancers, doing coaching on Patreon, submitting grants,...
I do think I am the most hardcore in terms of hours worked purely for BiteMe Games (I'd guess 60-80h). I personally don't care as much about the exact equity, and am not paying myself out, reinvesting all of that into the company again. We currently are profitable enough to pay out William once every 2 months. Thomas is not taking any pay currently as he still has his main job.
We are currently not that focused on the exact payouts, as I am a firm believer of reinvesting, especially since I still have enough runway to survive from my previous job for some time. We've been having some pretty fast growth in terms of revenue, so I do believe in 6 months, we will be able to afford regular wages.
Since we were all very tight before we started BiteMe already, we have a high amount of trust, so aren't too focused with one of us taking all of the money / working too little (although the rest of the team complains I am working too much).
I'm not too worried about the current earnings, we've been able to grow quite well the past months through AdSense, Patreon, sponsorships and Steam sales. On top of that, I am a lot more fulfilled right now, which is also why I am able to put in so many hours.
-M
@@bitemegames Appreciate the detailed answer, really interesting to hear how you've split it. Reason for asking was because it's hard to know what the 'right' way to go about the business side of game dev. Love the trust you have with each other! Can't wait to see more about your new game 🙂
Exceptions to all the game dev money rules: Flappy Bird, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors and FTL. All of these games had a stupid low initial investment as far as I can tell and made millions or billions of dollars.
The answer to how to increase programming language:
1. Use interfaces.
2. Learn inheritance.
3. Learn component architecture.
4. Learn about design patterns.
Very important.
35:05 the video did end early...
Oh shit, seems like my export died. I won't be reuploading though because nothing really important is said anymore (it's another 12 seconds of outro). Thanks for letting me know, I'll need to be more thorough with future videos. Thanks for watching until the end! -M
@@bitemegames Now we missed the 'bye' , I thrive for the 'bye's' at the the end, especially when they are in sinc.
Hello! Could you say please how you are finding each other? My answer about how to find reliable partners for programming things and not be conmaned? (sounds like good theme for a new video xD)
Thanks in advance!
We met when studying computer science.
-T
I'm thinking about making short first person horror games. I feel it's the best genre according to my skills, time and budget, besides just being something that I'm interested in. Also, I feel like games of this genre have a higher probability of going viral. But I have one worry, which is, games like this are very sought after by youtubers and streamers, and they dont really have much replayability. I fear that maybe even if it gets a lot of interest and traction, many people would just watch content creators play it, and not be interested in buying and playing it themselves.
When it comes to multiplayer, I think there has to be a distinction between games that use P2P connections like fighting games and co-op platformers (for instance), and games that require servers like shooters and MMOs.
I love you my love
100% Support Waifu Industries
is it viable to make 1 game a year? (small 1-4 hour indie games priced at 3-5 dollar mark?) or does it usually takes more than a year on average?
although with all the legal bureaucracy hell of actually opening a company and managing accounts/taxes i doubt i will ever try gamedev for real.
that timeframe sounds completely viable and I think biteme made a video that covers the basics of it. Its called starting gamedev in 2024
That's probably a very fair and realistic timeline, I think once you've done 1-2 you'll get the hang of it and be able to do it in even less time (6 months). Look into the studio Sokpop, that's basically their entire strategy. -M
@@bitemegames thanks a lot! and congratz on 16k subs!
Going to Japan? Come over to Taiwan for a visit, I'll invite you for a beer in Kaohsiung :)
eh! I made it in the vide
"Mom, i'm on TV!"
Me too ^_^
Im sad to hear my first game will not succeed :'( Damn I quit
Thanks for answering my question! Also my username is kinda shit because it's hard to say but it's pronounced 'dough-brix' lol
we love you biteme gamedev... but you should try to have Godot content in the future you will worry about Unity because its private now
26:29, which wiki hoster is that?
WikiJS
-T
Ur Discord link was expired
18+ games when??
29:23 -M
You wouldn't hire a cybersecurity specialist to ensure you game doesn't get pirated? 🤔
Look at what Thor did with using the achievement system as a save file for example.
It's not worth it for small indies like us.
Also, one big issue that Thor has with his achievement system is that it only works for linear games. You can't undo a Steam achievement, so once it's at that stage, you can't roll back. This definitely wouldn't work with a game like Forge Industry. -M
@@bitemegames Certainly makes more sense with linear games but couldn't you also consider the achievement counts for various things? Either way, it does sound like a cumbersome system to work with and I believe it could also be difficult to implement for more platforms than just steam.
Regardless I was just making the point that there are creative solutions to these sorts of problems that a cyber security professional may consider beyond what a dev may consider.
Good video but don't follow the drink energy drink advice, that will shorten your lifespan. The correct way is to take care of your body, meaning eating healthy, regular exercise, and getting enough sleep. Follow this and I promise you your energy will skyrocket.
35:04 i hope its what...?
* burning with anticipation *
Very abrupt ending
Yes, seems I messed up something in the edit, the last 8 seconds were lost (nothing important was said, so not doing a re-upload) -M
Integrity? No saucy artist?
I say those are nothing but excuses.
There is AI for a reason and Steam just Updates their AI rules. It would be so funny if you make an eroge or a fun 18+ rouge-like
They still don't allow AI generated 18+ content they stated. Luckily some artists have answered the call we put out in this video. -M