I Failed my Goal for 2023
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ธ.ค. 2023
- #gamedev #gaming #newyear2024
Last year I set out to accomplish a very ambitious goal, to create 12 games in 12 months. Sadly I was not able to do this, so I want to talk to you and explain what happened and why.
Play the TOO MANY TEETH Demo!
greenboxgames.itch.io/too-man...
Check out @LukeCreemers
Check out @munkiebeets6289
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Twitter: / green_box_games
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What I use:
Gamemaker Studio 2 as my game engine
Autodesk Sketchbook for environment sprite sheets
AseSprite to cut up the sprite sheets
Krita for animated character sprites - บันเทิง
![How To Make A Game - Step By Step Tutorial [1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mckuSpr8vio/mqdefault.jpg)
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Hello - I just want to say that it does not matter if you succeed in your goal. You set yourself an ambitious goal and that's step one. Life gets in the way and don't let it dishearten you. You have a long career ahead of you. I believe in you
I also had big goals for 2023 and even labeled it the "game dev year" for myself. This would be the year I'd finally make some fully fleshed out games and participate in as many game jams as possible. Well, some things went wrong as I had some hard artistic and motivational blocks.. mainly because of my high expectations and lack of knowledge.
But all this was not for nothing! I learned a lot from my mistakes and I'm (definitely xd) ready to accomplish my goals this time.
To all my fellow game devs out there: Don't give up! Remember where you started this journey and why it's so important for you :D
Nice to get an update from you! Sometimes the goals you can't achieve teach you the most.
Very very true
You’re such an inspiration, to me and so many others. Thank you for everything you do, and I’m looking forward to 2024!
Your art style is very cool :)
Thank you!
I subscribed to this channel because I like seeing people create and grow, and you sure delivered. Looking forward to what your future has in store. KEEP IT UP CHAMP!
Thank you!! I’ll keep trying my best 💪
Bro the first couple years of indie game dev is BRUTAL! So much ambition and learning as you go is extremely draining, especially when you don't know how to pace yourself and you try to marathon sprint the whole way! I'm glad you failed your goal, imagine if you succeeded and the rest of your game dev career was pure crunch time 💀 I'm maybe 1 year ahead of you, I'd highly recommend making a weekly schedule that includes your game dev after work. Having start and end times every day helps me focus on my game while also reminds me to go to bed by midnight and not feel burned out at work! Best of luck to you and good luck with your current project!
The goal was already absolutely insane lol, the fact you lasted 5 months non-stop is impressive in itself. Like you said, you made 4 complete games this year... that's amazing.
I failed my goal for 2023... My goal was to learn programming and release my own small game. A very simple and obtainable goal.
First off I didn't have a PC in Jan.
Spent Feb learning programming and game development.
Spent March recreating arcade games,
then hit my first roadblock, I realised finding a job was gonna be a lot harder than i thought and vouched not to open my game engine until I get my Learner's Permit so I can start learning to drive in order to open my range for job opportunities... I couldn't find the motivation to do said thing that would only take a single day... it took me 3 months.
July starts and I'm excited to get back into game development, what better way to kick stuff off then with GMTK Jam 2023! My game was absolutely horrible lmao (doesn't count towards the goal. Spent the month revising everything because taking a 3 month break immediately after learning a skill is stupid. Spent the later part of the month planning my first game.
Finally in August I began development on my roguelite game and by the end of the month I had Implemented a proper weapon system that would allow me to easily create hundreds of different weapons if I wanted to.
September hits, I start off trying to come up with some sprites and started trying to make a stardew valley like character customisation but unfortunately I'm a Unity dev and the that's when the massive drama began. It crushed me. Looking back I should've just stuck with Unity but nope, I decided I was gonna learn Godot instead...
this whole decision took me til November to finally commit and so I spent November learning Godot's different concepts and engine. December... last month of the year to reach my goal... I just couldn't come up with idea... I still can't. Out of 12 months in the year, I only spent 4-5 months doing any sort of game development. I wanted to be able to say I have a year of experience but I am basically still a newbie and I won't consider myself an actual game developer until I release a game. Even now, I'm here watching other game devs instead of coming up with ideas.
I've been through similar stuff as well. My motivation for gamedev hit a downward spiral last year and I couldn't finish my goals. I was supposed to make three games and I only made one, which is still incomplete and full of bugs. I spent the last 4 months switching between unity, godot and unreal instead of just choosing one and making a complete game. I've finally decided on godot since it's the one I know the most and I'm ready to give it my all this year.
A year of trying is a year of learning. My first 5 years of gamedev had less going on.
Do you mind some corrections, so next year would be better?
1. Best job opportunities in the beginning of the career are found online. Best pay is freelancing, always. Getting a driving licence doesn't increase your job opportunities unless you live in the US and HAVE to work on-site. If you're in Europe use trains to get on site, it's 10x cheaper.
2. First 'horrible' RELEASED game COUNTS. I have 6 'great' UNRELEASED, they don't count. But the experience of making them still does.
3. Consider sticking with Unity and getting Playmaker. This will get you familiar with game architecture and allow you to experiment freely and complete bigger/better projects solo.
I am an Art Director on an indie game and also developing my first game (3rd attempt on this one, 4794926629 overall attempt) and I swear I can do more in a day with Playmaker than our team of programmers. Took me a month to learn, a year to master. Our most experienced programmer recommended it to me, I was skeptical because of my ludicrous ideas of 'purity' but I freed myself from them and now I'm 1.5y into making Killspace (look it up on youtube).
4. You've spent March recreating arcade games, I've been trying to recreate Asteroids since 2020. Ouch. Overinvestment of time into my first game, still learned a lot. Don't give up. If it's too complicated simplify. Cut, cut and cut. Less is more. Etc. Don't be overly ambitious, my first 83926659 failed projects are because I was overly ambitious. I think this time I am as well but with Playmaker I have a chance.
5. A third of a year doing development is great. You're beating yourself up for it, so I presume you're young, under 21? Probably you were scared into the FOMO rat race minmax grind early success by influencers and such.
Don't worry, they don't care about your success only that you panic and keep watching them for advice (they will just scare you more).
Engine Drama was overinflated by influencers too.
Let this be lesson and ignore them.
Good luck in 2024 and after!
@@namesurname624i know this wasnt directed at me but thanks anyway. I needed to see this
@@namesurname624 Great advice however pretty much all of it doesn’t apply to me lol. I’m only a hobbyist being the major differing factor here.
@@cheesymcnuggetshow does that make my advice not apply?
Don't be too hard on yourself. I think the lessons learned are waaaaaay more important than finishing the 12 games.
Keep it up, this year is gonna be amazing!
When you put things in perspective you've released a bunch of games this year and inspired a lot of people (myself included)... Even though the challenge went awry I hope you don't look upon yourself too negatively as you've achieved a lot. It's heartening to know your channel is still going and you have things in the pipeline. Whatever happens you're a great dev and whatever content you put out will be appreciated!
Honestly I'm glad that you learned something from all of this I just hope from going on forward you try to keep your own health in mind. We aren't going to get upset at you or anything haha
greenbox crunching for 6 months straight : "i don't know what went wrong ! xD "
nice to see your stupid bright face ! gg for this year. hf for this one.
other me : SHUT UP AND GIVE US SHADOW HUNTER DEMO !!!!
Thank you lol, maybe Nightmare Hunter revival will be the next big project 👀
Dude sounds like a though year but like you said you figured a lot of stuff out about your limits. Take your time and be careful not to burn out! Good luck and love to see what else you will be making ;)
Thank you :) I’m really hoping I can make this year better!
Dont put yourself down over it, be happy with what you did because its a crazy amount, even if you didnt meet your goal
Hey man, you're doing great! Glad that you were able to recognize the burnout and deal with it accordingly. Wish you luck on completing your current game project and a happy new years.
Happy New Years 🎉 Thank you, I appreciate it!
I'll check out the new game's demo.
It's nice that you admit your failure. And it's good you keep moving!
Such an awesome video and it's amazing to actually see the man himself! Very excited to try your game and I wish you the best in achieving your Game Development goals!
I cannot BELIEVE you made all of these polished looking games in a single month, this is an INCREDIBLE achievement! I also started this year with a similar idea, but mine was mostly to complete a polished prototype of a game in a month, and then develop it further if I saw potential in it. Now I'm 4 months into the development of Crumble Miner, (but I definitely could have crammed all of this in 2 and a half months of work, but I got lazy) and I must say, I want to do this a lot more often and become faster. I love working on new projects, and keeping the scope simple and small I think I could realistically make 4 games a year, each taking up three months and getting a proper release on steam, scope creep is always around the corner and I am a perfectionist which isn't good in this case, but I do want to make more, and stress less. thank you for this video, it has inspired me to eventually come back to what I wanted this year of development to be for me, hoping the best for you and your projects, they all look lovely and creative! :D
I can relate to this
Honestly all games you made where soo polished
Can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for your channel! Especially opening up so many possibilities for videos with the face reveal. (you’re incredibly handsome btw wtf) Here’s to a great year!
Nice video
Yes. Setting goals is good, but the most important thing is that you keep working on the skills that slowly push you towards your dreams. Don't be too dejected because of some failed missions, and just keep doing what you love to do!
=)
Played your current project on itch. Got to level four. What a cool, unique concept! Looking forward to playing more!
Great video! Your artstyle is super polished and top notch!
Keep it up :)
This is a fantastic video, very motivating for a fellow dev
The demo was a lot of fun! Your art style is also beautiful, keep up the amazing work dude :)
I think you approached this style of video well.
Good job. Keep putting in the effort.
That's a new sub from me mate
I think this is a fantastic lesson to why arbitrary goals are typically unhelpful, also if there's one thing I've learned about gamedev; However long you think it is gonna take, double it.
Just WOW! This is the first time I saw you pop up in my feed. And I got to say I am impressed. I am on the path to make/publish 6 games in 3 years. AND YOU TRIED TO DO 12 IN A YEAR! Even though you didn't accomplish it, doing 4 (In 5 months too) is mighty impressive. You definitely inspired me to think my goal is obtainable and hopefully one year, you do take up the challenge again. Remember, Failure isn't failure if you are learning from it.
I'm excited for your future awesome stuff!
I'm glad this came up on my feed because I've had this idea for a while. Breaking down further I realized that to make 12 games a month for a year would require much more than just game dev skills. It would require a really good time management system that works for you among other things such as consistency & full-time effort to make it worthwhile (marketing & talking to other ppl, making videos etc etc). Burnout is inevitable for 90% of the people who attempt to do this. I thought 6 games in 12 months or 4 games or even 3 games in 12 months would be more do-able realistically.
Personally, 3 games in 12 months would work best for me, but at the moment I'm focused on growing on TH-cam.
My advice to anyone who want to do such stuff is to take part in Game Jams. It will teach so much about time management, scope creep etc etc that you'll be much more equipped to do challenges like this!
Still, what you achieved is pretty pretty cool & something I can only imagine at the moment. Congrats on the published games and don't beat yourself up as you did better than most people could including me haha. Burnout is a serious issue in game dev which can lead to serious issues, glad you took the time for yourself to come back healthier! :D
Thank God this channel didn't die
The idea of making a game a month was really inspiring to me and made me consider it for my game Dev channel
And this year I'll be working on something similar, though it won't be a game a month though
🙏 I wish you luck with your idea!
Tumble Tundra frankly has one of the best art styles I've seen out of most indie games. Doesn't matter if you failed your goal. You made an ambitious goal, committed to it as best as you could, and made some cool shit. That's amazing. Keep it up because you're doing great.
Well done man, you are on the path.
Great video! I tried doing a 12 games in 12 months back in 2021 and hit a lot of the same walls. The burnout, work / life / game dev balance, 2am nights. I ended up doing most of them as game jams as a way to have a hard deadline. Best of luck finishing "Too many teeth"!
hoping for the best!
I would absulotly love to do a game jam, great job on making 4 games! In a year no less( I am so freaking jealous )! I have just started game dev and you are seriously an inspiration to me. Thanks a ton for your spectacular content. Keep it up!
I had a very similar goal for 2023 (one game every month). I started the goal on April and made 9 games. But my games were no where as polished as yours. Out of the 9 games, 3 were completely garbage that's basically follow a tutorial and add minimal original content, but they kept me going. Collaborating with others is always great but don't expect it to shorten the timeframe. I had about 3 small collaboration projects with different artists last year and only 1 was completed. The other 2 projects are still going. Some artists need lots of time to do their art (and that's totally fine and expected).
I played some of your games, and they are really fun and polished! Too polished to be made in one month non-stop haha. Amazing!
Amazing effort. Good job. Great video.
Don’t worry. We’ve been trying to make one game every 3 years and it hasn’t gone well 😅. In our books you’re crushing it!
Hahaha thank you! Love your videos btw, Atrio is such a cool game
Damn the video quality is insane on this one
That was perfectly said.
Four (and 1/3) great games in one year is a feat unto itself, especially as a hobby.
i was thinking about you yesterday because i just got back into learning game dev, but couldn't remember your YT name
Don't sweat it! That was a tough challenge and burnout happens. I look forward to when you are skilled enough to take on that challenge!
Thanks! One day I’ll hopefully run it back
I Fkn loved tumble tundra, simple but just so fun
Yeah, definitely don't be hard on yourself. My goal was to release one game this year...which I did manage to do. But it was a super simple game that honestly I think could have been made in a game jam. It started a lot larger but I fell off the wagon a bit with doing game dev because of life changes and when I went back I decided to down scope the game. And yeah...I'm happy that I accomplished my goal, but I'm not sure that I'm really happy with the final result.
All of the games you released this past year felt very high quality and I hope to be able to achieve that with my own games one day in the future! Even if you failed your own goal, your journey and videos helped inspire a lot of people including myself. I'm really glad that your channel isn't dead and you're still going at it! I'll try Too Many Teeth soon and leave some feedback on Itch. Happy New Year, man!
you are young, very talented, and insanely prolific, it's not worth it to wear yourself out over a self imposed goal.. make a point of enjoying your life this 2024 and l'm sure everyone will be here supporting you
Awesome video! It was clear that you were a bit nervous since you talked a bit quietly but I have no doubt you will get more natural on camera with more practice! From one youtuber to the other: keep grinding, you got this!
man, you inspire me!
I'm not a rage quit game player but I did watch a playthrough of Tumble Tundra. The environment designs and world building were incredible. A worthy accomplishment!
❤
I love your art style, and you mentioned you figured out a good workflow for getting your art style into development. Would you mind sharing that workflow?
Those games look awesome fella, dont worry if you dont complete da mission, you managed to make some good games, in my case i havent succefully made a single one 😅
You should add invisibility frames in your game too many teeth. I found myself getting comboed by the enemies.
man, tumble tundra is so good. so is super rocket monkey. so is jumpwig. so is big chicken. so are all of your games. 12 games in a year is insane for anyone, especially when your games are so good.
also face reveal pog
great vid but i really like that wizard game idea i hope that ur new workflow gives u the idea to make it
I also really liked that idea, It would definitely be cool to revisit!
that green screen key is clean
I was just playing "TOO MANY TEETH" and it crashed on the 4th level, I'm not entirely sure why but I thought I'd let you know here in case its bug related. I really love the art style and the premise of the game is incredibly unique and has a lot of charm! Also, who made the music? I really love the soundtrack so far.
Sorry! I did an oopsie and published with a fatal error in the HTML5 version, but it’s all fixed now!
Munkie Beets did the music :)
m.th-cam.com/channels/kzN0qEj2Iik4WZIZymuexQ.html
Such good content and great editing but the volume is so weirdly balanced. You need to turn the sound effects and background music down so I can hear you properly.
this video is so real and relatable
Stand pround youa strong
thats a face reveal isn't it? love the confidence - and the green sweater :)
A game jam would be awesome. If you could make it long for the people who generally don't have much time, that'd be awesome.
Will do! I was thinking I’d maybe run it over a week or two?
is it just me whos game crashed when the 3 am appointment started on too many teeth?
Not just you, there was a game breaking bug but it is now fixed!
im going to play right now!@@green_box_games
Maybe the 12 games were the friends we made along the way 😁
A great, honest, brave roundup and I liked the Apple Mac advert style sitting on a stool.
Given all you've learnt, do you think that you're 2/3 the way through #5? Can you complete it without crunch such that the game that follows it isn't such a struggle?
Thank you :) I’m really hoping I can!
Glad to hear you're doing better. Burnout is a sneaky thing, once you think you got over it, it sneaks back on you. Hope you can keep your schedules free from arbitrary deadlines in the future. Please know that you owe nothing to your viewers/subscribers. Also, great video and you nailed your first on camera performance!
Thank you 🙏 I appreciate that
If i may ask were your games full games or was they Game Jam-Like and another was they considered small or medium?
otherwise Good effort 🔥🔥
I think they were full - small games
You definitely should use a compressor on your audio. There are huge differences in sound pressure between different parts of the video.
...well, Nice try. let's move on, let's be better.
I failed my 2023 too, just like I did in 2022, actually 2023 was worst, I failed my target. But in another point of view, I learned some lesson, and I'll use it.
Yeah, let's start simple.
If Anyone has any idea there was a Crash in the Video Game Industry in the early 80s due to a Over Saturated Market .
Nintendo entered and limited companies it worked with to only a few games per year.
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
Is ok
11:47 exciting video content??? 🤤
😳
Ahh. A classic case of overscoping. Maybe 4-6 games in a year is a better idea if you want to make games which are as polished and charming as you want them to be?
Hey can you provide art of nightmare hunter game?
Day job, vlogging, making a game a month. Thats 3 jobs dude.
w
I can make 20 games in a year..... but they are not going to be that good. I usually stick to a minimum of 3 months for a game. Month for prototyping, month to flesh out, and month to polish. That does not even take into account marketing. But all in all, trying to make all those games has other benefits, learning new tricks, your grove, and you should have a good amount of systems you can reuse and build on.
*wa*
ok boomer
proud of u
Thank you :)
No offense, but it's a ridiculous goal to have though, unless you really stick with doable minigames. I'm talking prototype in 3 days to a week already, remaining three weeks to add content and refine features. Not impossible, but not very wise. At the same time, people often forget to do with smaller prototyping for games in preparation for larger projects.
Reduce.
Your.
Scope.
L
why the fuck would you even attempt that no shit lmao
That year you managed to finish multiples games, with is incredible ! Good job, love yours games and videos !