Being a solo dev is HARD

General
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Hello!

Putting this on general as I have no idea if it actually fits any other categorie better.

Exactly the title, I’ve worked on 2 game jams until now, and they DESTROYED me both times:

  • the games were buggy messes;
  • the concepts weren’t well thought and executed even worsely;
  • they tired me a lot mentally as programming for many consecutive hours tires me up (even though I love doing it).

And I’m here wondering, would this all actually be at least slightly easier if I weren’t doing it alone?

I unfortunately right now don’t know any one else who knows how to program (and that is then interested on working on a game so) and everything is so overwhelming every time, as I have to work on sprites and music by myself too (and I don’t really like using premade assets too much as it’s really complicated to find different asset packs with similar styles, and I some time need odd niche things which no one ever made so I stress myself working on sprites) without wasting too much time risking of not being able to finish the project on time.

It’s really really hard and I’m confused on whether I’m doing something wrong or if for now I’m just this bad on working to my projects.

Especially on the asset thing, since I wanna start working on 3D, as I have in my mind stuck a horror type game (which I would somehow have ideas to make an odd metroidvania too?) and unless I manage to capture the style I wanna get with low poly (I’ve yet to learn that too) it’ll be impossible for me to work on that.

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Try it. Find a jam, post and join a team. Godot Wild Jam is always a good one. All Godot, and a week and a half long.

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Hmm,all of these are the best idea I ever had..and I am trying hard to make it but I can’t,
It’s mostly about the big scope.you should join a game jam.
Everything u said matches to me xD I used to use premade assets but recently I stopped soo game dev is a lot harder now lol

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I am currently doing the Godot wild jam! making Da GREAT BLOCK OF CHEESE!

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Post a link when you’re done!

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Yes, being a solo dev is hard. It’s easy to bite off more than you can chew. Your scope is likely exceeding your commitment abilities. Most of us suffer from scope inflation.

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It is very hard! And it takes alot of time.

Currently working on ‘Promotion Protocol’, and it has been 3 months, and not even half way there yet! Game Dev takes a lot of time when you solo. And there is so much to do, with even a small scope.

The strange thing is that whenever I play a game now I am noticing details I would never have noticed before, and my mind is always working out how they did that, or what they used there. And on the triple A games I play, the amount of detail they have is just mind blowing, in terms of things like this pulsing, or that animated, or this out of the way screen has these touches to them. Honestly, my appreciation has gone through the roof! (Also the ‘why did they do that’ happens more now, or ‘that is a bit weak’.) So appreciation of the effort and a more critical eye now.

I have never done a game jam, I want to, I just can’t see how I could possibly be fast enough. Also time is stretched at the moment anyway (work, family, social stuff) I struggle to find 4 hours on a good day.

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“Who ate my beans” is a great name BTW.

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As a beginner, I never felt the need to join a game jam - I feel it just adds unnecessary pressure and I’d rather take my time learning things.

Making a game on your own is hard and time consuming for sure, especially if you’re still learning.

I agree with your statement about premade assets since I’m very much in the same situation. Had to learn making assets myself and ended up making over 500 custom assets and various character models and animations myself.

In regards to programming being tiring, what worked for me was simply finding a certain work routine. When I get bored of programming, I switch to blender and make new assets or rework old ones. If I’m tired of that, I dabble a bit in making music. If I’m not in the mood for that, I look over my story script and do some writing - work rotation helps a lot.

And unless I’m super motivated and want something done stat, I usually do my dev work in little bursts: Finish up a scene, level or a script and then I just do something else for a few hours, just to reset my brain, if that makes sense. Otherwise I would’ve gone insane months ago. :woozy_face: Sometimes it also helps to step away from the project for a day or two.

I also feel like the ‘low poly’ approach is kind of a ‘beginner trap’, if that makes sense. When I started out, I fell into it, too. Low poly seemed easier in my mind, because there is less geometry involved, but at the same time it was also kinda difficult for me to make things look good with such limitations. And making nice assets that are a bit more advanced isn’t really as hard as it seems. In less than a year, my skills improved fairly well, and I found myself going back and replacing all my low poly models with more advanced ones.

That being said, low poly can look really good, it all depends on the game, of course.

But yeah, it is hard and it also takes a long time, too.

I hope that helped at least a little bit. I wish you the best for your project!

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I may try searching for a team on a Jam, wild jam looks fun seeing how it’s structured ngl, and it’s longer than other jams I’ve seen.

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My ideas are always mostly a banger ,it’s shame to tell my own ideas are cool but man,they are cool : D but I never finished any of my banger game ideas xD many of em are
Decks.bat,CatNip neighbour,who ate my beans,pigeon express,stepleshots(I didn’t made because I thought kiddos will fight with staplers after playing it xD )

yeah! but first I have to make the physics work xD the main mechanic barely works lol

And I want to bring up an out of topic thing.That is people love assets FLIPS! Like I submitted Restarting in 20 seconds but it’s just sitting on the bottom of the jam page bruh! and some asset flips are on the top?This is odd! and people only play the top games on the jam because these are submitted early and they get the tag POpUlAr!

bruh!

at end of the day,game dev is hard,it takes 100s of attempts to make something that gets 25 browser plays and 1000s of attempts to get a 100…

well, if you are a guy who is known mostly because of odd jokes and silliness ,and you make devlogs more then making the game then …u are called what? i dunno.

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Well… in this exact moment I have no scope as I’m not working on anything, but maybe you’re right I’m may be thinking to big for a jam.

Right now I’m preparing to work on Shadowshift a sit-n-survive horror game in which you play as a guy working in a gas station while having hallucinations, that he is able to fend off with pills or other techniques that he has to manage for the whole shift (kinda similar to Fnaf in a way).

I’m planning to go for my first 3D game, it’ll have low poly PS1 graphics (and this game is unrelated to the metroidvania if you’re wondering), even though I originally planned a 2D pixel art game.

It looks kinda simple to do (on a programming perspective) and I’ve got a really interesting story for it so uh, we’ll see.

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Well, it doesn’t always depend on difficulty.

I have a laptop with integrated graphics, no money to get one with a dedicated GPU nor the space to get an eventual desktop.

So low-poly is the best I could do on a hardware point.

And for the game I’m projecting right now (Which I talked about on an earlier reply) low-poly is perfect, I can feel it like that style is made for this project rn.

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Related to music, I always felt I had to make the music when making a game but, it really is another skill set that takes a lot more time than what I really like doing (art and programming). I just started look around on https://opengameart.org/ for music to add to my game jam games, which reduces some of the pressure off solo deving.

Just accepting that some parts aren’t going to be up to my personal standard is really tough when soloing.

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Oh that’s cool, even though as a musician (and a musichead) I think that making the music myself (at least some simple beats) is a part I really enjoy.

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What’s an asset flip?

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An asset flip is a type of game that just uses premade codes,assets and maps etc.the hardest thing a asset flip dev can do is vibe code and move some objects around the map, export the project xD

Just like the name suggests Assets Flip, he flips a model in the z axis and boom his game!

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Huh. So basically you join a game jam with a game you’ve already made but new assets?

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No, if i get your context then I meant a guy who buys premade assets(some times WHOLE GAME TEMPLATE) and resells it

The asset flips are mostly played by kids.

And the game jam one is, he will just take a premade game like maybe a platformer from a tutorial and then add traps(just move em around) and boom! He made it! 100 % legit!

Most of the time they take old assets because people will think they made the art!
Even I saw many people saying that the art is good while he took it from an old template

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Afaik it’s a game made with premade assets thrown around randomly with some premade scripts.

A popular example is Only Up, which went viral a few years back.

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Ah ok.