(How To Succeed) At Indie Game Development
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- In this series I'm always sarcastic and pointing out how to fail, but for this special episode, I say it like it is, and show you how to succeed. This time there is no sarcasm (okay maybe a little) and only helpful advice.
Discord: / discord
Twitter(x): / theartindi
itch.io: artindi.itch.io/
Contact:
artindigames@gmail.com
Music:
Doh De Oh by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.fi...
License: filmmusic.io/s...
Imagine the video being ten seconds long where he just says "if you'll never try, you'll never fail, and that's how you fail at failure" and that's it.
ha ha.
@@Artindimake this an april fools / joke upload
👍
And 1 more second for "Be creative"
azumanga gang
One monitor, playing games; the other monitor, TH-cam open with How To Succeed premiere.
This is peak.
crazy
@@jonathanjohnjohnson that's how it's done! :D
A third monitor for decoration and you can call yourself a Lead Project manager
Four: one for discord, one for music/YT, one for emails, one for code....
100% distraction, 0% work. (:
Left eye: gamedev tutorials
Right eye: concept art + gdd
Left ear: engine documentation audiobook
Right ear: chris marketing guy podcast
Third eye: future possibilities
this video is a monumental moment in the gaming industry
@@Lampshadecollector of course...
I initially expected the "how to fail at failure" to be you trying to give sarcastic advice that accidentally loops around to being good with you constantly going "oh wait... that's good advice!"
buuut, here it being actual straightforward advice while still having funny visuals and other usual sprinkles was a very welcome surprise!
The fun thing about this is I didn't draw a single new frame, it was all stuff from past episodes. :)
@Artindi I noticed that as I person who watched all the series 😂
@@Mustfa-cb7tl me too
But that’s all his videos.
@@immortalsun babdabduplon
Some more tips:
Game feel: A good game feel can also double as a the invisible UI. Screenshake can be used to notify something happening offscreen, loudness and punchiness of a sound can indicate damage, enemies showing damage removes the need for health bars as focusing on the enemy itself gives you an idea how much health they have left etc..
Art: While I don't recommend using generative AI to make art for you (tech is not there yet), it still can be very valuable for prototyping, placeholders and trying to decide in which direction you want to take your art.
Music: You can often use genres others don't expect to make your music more memorable. Also, if you don't want to use few-note riffs as leitmotifs to tie the soundtrack together, you can use other elements such as soundfronts, instruments or even time signatures.
First game: Tile-based puzzle games are also excellent at being first games as it makes it very easy to see how different mechanics interact. Plus they're much simpler to code.
Arcade game: If you add scoring system, ensure the game rewards the most skillful play with the most points, meaning that try to avoid situations where you can farm points.
Puzzle games: While adding extra fluff consistently to make your levels more complicated than they appear, sometimes adding some extra steps outside the "main trick" in the level makes the player think about which parts of the puzzle are the hard parts. This avoids the problem of players becoming too complacent to the puzzle elements shown to them.
Story: Generally, try to avoid the situation where gameplay and story are extremely segregated. For an example, if you beat the boss with a gun to pulp, the following cutscene shouldn't involve the player surrendering to the same boss pointing the gun at the player.
Level design: Even if a level gimmick can feel out of place at first, you can still make it work in a way that makes them use at the style of your game . Think of the jumpscare and golf levels in Pizza Tower.
Horror: Not every horror game needs to have danger of death. Sometimes horror can be found in the most unexpected places. If players don't feel scared while playing the game but still get scared when they think about the game afterwards, you've succeeded.
Survival game: Consider whether base building actually adds or removes to the survival element of the game. If filling meters feeling like routinely taking pills once the base is established, perhaps you should get back to the drawing board. Three main routes: Add more dangers, force the player out of the base from time to time, or remove the base building altogether.
Roguelike/Roguelite: RNG: Bad roll, now adapt! = good idea. Bad roll, game over = bad idea!
First-person shooter: Add a separate volume slider for gun/explosion sounds.
Looks like I have a script ready for part 2! :D nice. Lots of helpful stuff here. :)
That watermelon was animated very well!
why thank you. :)
I remember you from lighting stream
This is revolutionary! Holy crap, i love failing at failure!
It's kinda fun to fail at failure sometimes, instead of just failing. :)
how to fail at sneak peeks
lmao thats so niche tho
A more general "How to fail at advertising" might be better.
reveal the whole game, or the main plot twist inside of the sneak peek/teaser
It's a reference to yesterday's stream ppl smh
how to fail at changelogs
I love how the fromsoftware games do the cardinal opposite of what should be done in bossfights but still make them really fun somehow.
Yeah, every "rule" I suggested can be broken and be awesome if done right. :)
@@Artindi to be fair most souls bosses have an expected 2nd phase at half health or once the first healthbar is down, very few bosses have actual surprise 2nd phases, only 2 examples that come to mind rn are friede and ons
I am so used to hearing this voice and mentally mapping the opposite of what they are saying that this video started tripping me up
Time to fail at failing (succeed)
get going. :)
Splatoon pfp W
@@graycatsaderow thanks!
This advice definitely helps, also there is something I feel would make a good episode: Multiplayer
Co-Op and Competitive
Also, a funny short would be How to Fail at Microtransactions: “Include them and make them needed to progress.”
these good ideas. *writes them down*
how am i supposed to know how to fail now
now you must succeed!!!!! HA HA HA
Betrayal
Good stuff! I'm very pleased by the tacit implication you don't plan to quit any time soon with the mention of "episode 50"
The end bit should have been "that's how you fail (guy with head on the desk) at failure (guy smiling at the screen)
Ha. That would have been good. :)
i expected that too
So much good advice in one video wow 👍
My wife watched it and said there was so much so fast she missed most of it. Lol
@@ArtindiI could follow, but if others can't they can always set the playback speed to 0.75x or so
As a person who likes the original videos but sometimes got stumped trying to unsarcasm it, thanks for this
This is Great, i already liked your advice but now its neatly packaged into one video and I dont have to think backwards
I'm so thankful for content like this. I've always wanted to tell just 1 story in life, whether through writing or an RPG game. This is so helpful in making that goal possible!
This seems like the final boss to the How to Fail series
Nice. There will be more episodes though. :)
@@Artindi that's just post-game content
I guess this is the final episode then ?after failing at everything there’s just one more thing to fail at ,and it’s failing at failure
@@2ndspringtube708 nope. Just the 25th, a special. :)
@@Artindi so you mean to tell there’s a lot more to fail at ?damn
No, he's going to make
how to fail at failing failure tutorials
@@Artindi Yeah tbh that was pretty scary at first
But on another note I could imagine one of these every 25 episodes could probably work
9:53 kinda struck a nerve in me. I always try to add one final boss in my game jams to spice up the ending. I never thought of the boss arena, so I just made a big box that was nicely decorated, but still a big box at heart. I’ll definitely try to change that next time around.
Probably a good idea! It will will things interesting. :)
-Now I need to watch the previous videos to see the head hit the desk at the end.-
I learned a bunch of these in my game dev classes at college, and they make sense. People look at successful games like Minecraft, Fortnite, Super Mario Bros., etc. and think about the money they could make if they could only make games like those. They're more likely to make mistakes because they want what the big games earn from the good design choices they make without having to go through all the effort the big game designers went through.
happy 25th episode! Thank you for making this series, always super helpful and entertaining, I look forward to more.
Also I watched the other episodes so many times that my brain is now confused hearing your voice giving advice and it not being sarcasm lol
Thanks! And ha ha. I figured I would trip up a few people. ;)
0:11 Please make a video on Play Testing
I had to check that we weren't on april 1st when I saw that title pop in my notifications
Dude. It IS April 1st.
At first I thought (because of the thumbnail) that it was going to be a video about how to learn from failure, or how to deal with the consequences if you had failed something, but this is great too
I thought about doing that. But decided a 25th special was hard to pass up. :)
I loved your new sarcastic video! I'll be sure to do the exact opposite of all of this so I actually succeed!!
Perfect... heh heh.
This is an awesome video. As a person person who is new to being a game dev, im still learning a lot and have a long way to go, but i love your videos, both sarcastic and non sarcastic.
Thank you for all the good information.
Please don't do any of this stuff.
Obviously that's what I'm going to say. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Got it👍
I did the stuff
4:37 Another thing to consider is prioritizing what sounds to make louder than others. You don’t want a character’s footsteps to drown out audio cues for an enemy attack that’s hard to dodge
1:49 This advice I took to heart. The thing I did that had my game stand out is that it's one of the few retro 3d mecha games where the player is a combining giant flying mecha kaiju that can eat his enemies invading his lair to regain his health along with being overpowered when near water since the level takes place in his lair which is a water level but the core of this mechanic is his fuel management while his energy recharges every 3 seconds his more powerful abilities are costly and if empty is game over.
Edit: Also as a subversion of a boss game the player is the boss itself defending his lair from other boss monsters the Gargabeasts enforcers from a rival empire Voltitan protects.
Love the art style. I'm glad this channel popped up in my feed.
Man, I was on the edge of starting to do stuff because I have practically no experience with any of the computer side of things and very amateurish writing experience. I appreciate the straightforwardness of just doing it. Sure, I've heard it before from others, but somehow I actually feel like I'm ready for it today.
The one that finally got me to feel I should start was the metroidvania section. I have an idea of a time loop as a way to gate off sections due to the schedule of the environment. Guess it's time to start with the basics and work up to that idea. Thank you.
Another important skill you acquire from game jams is finishing games! Great video.
I know a lot of people say not to make your own game engine, but I personally find it helps me keep my games scope in check, while also fending off feature creep.
I’ve found game engines like godot tend to allow for more complicated games that I don’t realize I’m not ready for.
love the roguelike/lite point
Especially love how the assets were used in this one. It all ties together perfectly!
Ah yeah, and the fun thing: I purposefully didn't draw a single new frame. I only re-used old stuff! :D
@@Artindi Yet it felt fresh to watch. Nice work!
Yay new video! I've been binging this series all week!
Nice! Just in time! :D
No way! I'm so stoked!
@@jaredjones6570 me too! :D
5:45 Interesting thing about Visual novels is that when there are hybrids most of them tend to mix with dungeon crawler, RPGs, Shoot em Ups and Beat em ups for example Rance, Baldr Sky, and Danganronpa trigger
Thankyou for the video! I love how you explain every genre in gamedev
As a -degree student studying game dev and only have few weeks left to finish my game solo- "indie game dev", this video really help me get through my scope creep -time pressure-
Thank you so much for this series 🎉❤
Thank you! :D
Instructions unclear.
What does "Succeed" mean
I'm not actually sure.
it means failing at failure
uhhhh i think its "fail but slightly less and fancy" but i might be wrong
You are right, time management is the hardest part of indie game development. (Mainly if you are working along side it)
Very relateble and inspiring, thank you for making this video. You are an absolute legend.
No u.
Chapters :
00:00 intro
0:26 1 - Game Ideas
0:45 2 - Game Engines
1:09 3 - Your First Game
1:43 4 - Platformers
2:23 5 - RPG's
2:55 6 - Roguelikes
3:25 7 - Game Feel
3:47 8 - Tutorials
4:15 9 - Music & Sound
4:43 10 - Arcade Games
5:02 11 - Puzzle Games
5:29 12 - Interactive Novels
5:58 13 - Game Art
6:22 14 - Game Story
6:50 15 - Level Design
7:12 16 - Horror Games
7:37 17 - Tower Defense Games
7:56 18 - Open Worlds
8:15 19 - Survival Games
8:42 20 - Metroidvanias
9:04 21 - Game Jams
9:22 22 - First Person Shooters
9:43 23 - Boss Fights
10:04 24 - Time Management
10:32 Conclusion
@@Erfan_Al yeah. I forgot to add these. I'll have to do that. Maybe I'll just copy paste your great work here. Thanks! :D
@@Artindi HAHA! I'd be happy to help!
Amazing video bro! Def saving this so I can keep these tips in mind for my future games
Awesome! Glad to hear you found it helpful. :)
years ago I saw or read someone who compared gamedev to learning to cook,
you dont start making unique imagined foods, you start by make something others already made, and learn the craft by doing that.
Well this is quite a surpise...great video with great advice! (I never had a problem with the sarcasm)
I’ve worked as a lead on a 70 person game and I still learned stuff from this video👍
6:48 I agree what matters isn't the amount of ending but the quality of the player's decisions and the consequences of those choices that leads to the endings this is what Visual novels excel at.
I was early for this MASTERPIECE
Me too. ;)
Read the title twice, couldn't believe it
ha HA, gotcha! :D
"And if you follow all these steps carefully, you will succeed... at game dev."
could have been the outro
Can wait to learn how to fail at failing at faliure :D
I feel like I'm about to defeat a great evil. (The great evil being bad game development, of course)
You are the chosen one.
that great evil better have good gamefeel and properly indicated attacks and mechanics
In my country's launguage evil and bad are the same word.
Holy crap first time seeing your channel but I love it! Now when talking bout what I do and don't like in games I'm just gonna link this vid cause you knooow!
Dude it's not April Fools yet
You see, but the thing is... is IS April 1st. (Read this on April 1st.)
I now wanna make a satire horror game called “Walking Simulator”, which is basically just a big maze, a children’s animatronic toy thing that is possessed by a dead child, and it has very necessary jumpscares, oh and you see the threat all the time despite it being very very dark :D
we got evil artindi before gta 5
Baldi is so happy in the thumbnail
rare Artindi sarcasmless video
I wonder if a good way to learn video game development, is to make games that are similar in complexity to the very first games made. And then you create games that mimic the complexity of games after that, and so on.
So you might start by mimicking an arcade game complexity, then a gameboy's, then a SNES's
Not a bad strategy, But only complexity in style/design, no need to simplify for external reasons like limitations of hardware, these are hardly a thing any more. But otherwise yeah! :D
10:00 i disagree, second and third phases should indeed be hidden because it's supposed to surprise you with "ha! this boss is thougher than you think!", however don't add second and third phases to every boss or players will expect them and not be surprised.
How to fail at a good demo that doesn't reveal too much but also incites players to buy/download the full game
Wow. That's so weird. Just, not trying to interprete what you say. My sarcasm radar was active all the time, it felt weird. Good video
ha ha, I've gotten a few people so far! :D
if someone tried to steal my game ideas, i would be happy that it got a chance for someone possibly more skilled than me to give it a chance.
Every time the guy with a pipe shows up with that one classical song playing it makes me audibly laugh I am an infant
guys.... this video is actually really good for failing, if you do the opposite of what the video says, then you can fail at game development! happy failing everyone!
Yay, he finaly explained episode 12
I did. :D
Finally, How to Succeed
Wow 25 videos on failure. What a success!
@@Skeffles yeah! Wait a second...
a million game dev videos stuffed into one
God damn bro thank you
Awesome content
re:Sarcasm I spent 13 years in the U.S. can therefore love and appreciate your humor! Though, I traveled a lot and feel that elsewhere away from that corner of the world, senses of humor can be very different: dry for British, absurb for Taiwan and Japan, insults for Vietnam..
I take it as a sign that many of your audience aren't Americans, and that's not a bad thing!
That a pretty fair point. I always do my best to explain things when people don't quite get it. But understandably it can be confusing, I even confuse myself sometimes. :)
I love the formula "How to succeed at failure" because learning from mistakes is indeed the best way to learn
If you cross-out what NOT to do, it is certain that you will do the great stuff
In youtube there are all this videos like "HOW TO MAKE A GREAT FPS" but then they don't show why many FPS suck very hard
Now I'm sad that Artindi has made a video on "how to succeed". If you didn't watched the previous videos you won't know "how could you fail" and that's the most important thing to know :(
Maybe all this videos are about Artindi failing about everything and every genre of videogames and so he says he's failures so we can learn from him because he wants that devs don't make mistakes as him
If I think of it more and more, it sounds like Artindi is a broken hero that wants everyone to be better
We shall remember you Artindi for all your teachings about succeeding
At failure :)
Thank you, this episode will absolutely help me
Nice! I helped someone for once. ;)
1:09 What about if my dream game is something smaller in scale and not a huge project that would take years to finish, akin to flash games?
flash devs make prototype flash games before they manage to understand how to actually code in flash.
What a lucky break for you then. :)
Holy, I did not expect to see ya here.
Dang I usually fail at failing at failing. Thanks for the tips though, maybe I'll succeed at failing at failing at some point
This is so much to learn. I give up. I’ll just play video games instead.
*I feel a disturbance in the natural order of things*
1:31 Very relatable
I’ve thought a lot about what could make my game stand out. So far it’s a generic RPG with a lot of attention to detail in the damage system, with many different element checks and synergies and effects. The problem is that that’s all the underlying programming, so players won’t see any of it unless they open the game. The biggest part of the game that makes it slightly stand out is a dodging system that’s so simple I made it randomized. I reworked the whole battle system from the ground up after already having one in place. The only piece of criticism I ever got was to continue with the crafting/imbuments system, which is done outside of combat.
I have been thinking of the overdrive mechanic though, where you take a turn to increase your senses to get heightened stats and a QTE that allows you to block or dodge attacks. Might actually begin implementing this right now.
Uhh thanks for reading ig. Unless you just skipped to the bottom. In which case you should know that you’ve missed basically nothing.
Sounds pretty cool, hopefully you feel inspired! :D
Say what you want, but Ganondorf messing with the boss health bar was so fucking meta and cool
I'd like to see "How to fail at indie game marketing"
For sure! (give me time to fail at it myself first, then I'll tell you how.) ;)
Hearing "You are bound to succeed" and not hearing "...at failure" right after made my heart skip a beat. Thank you for this video though, it's some great advice!
I like the usual sarcasm, but this was a nice change of pace.
Get to work! ;)
Inventing a new mechanic is difficult. Hence why inspiration is often given a divine quality, because it so difficult to think of something which hasn't been done. An easy workout is brainstorming as many existing mechanics as possible and, over time, your mind will connect the dots to spell "Eureka!".
Once you have your new mechanic, create a prototype of it. Strip everything down to the essentials and playtest it. If you can make it work, then the next step is to examine how organic it is in gameplay. If its something which can only be used in hyper specific situations and/or you're having to design around the player using it, then its likely a gimmick. If its just an overally complicated Sprint or Use Key then ask yourself if its fun to use?
Good advice!
@@Artindi It's never really been that hard in my experience. Plus most of the user feedback I've gotten gave me the impression people didn't like more than one or game mechanics that were too fresh? Is there something I'm missing?
@@DontfeelNienfeeler I think only 1 new main mechanic is more than enough, but all aspects of your game should also be adjusted to help support this main mechanic. And additional new mechanics should do so as well. Like in portal the main mechanic is portals and everything is designed around that, then even when they introduce new stuff like the gels in portal 2, these new mechanics are just to help further explore the main mechanic. But I'm sure there are more ways to help make a game with an original mechanic do well. :)
@@Artindi that's the thing though, what you've described is the exact opposite of what has worked for my projects so far.
@@DontfeelNienfeeler Then my best guess is something else is triggering the poor reviews, with the blame falling on a unique mechanic. Interesting and unique mechanics do depend on execution, even the coolest mechanics will be disliked if the overall game has larger issues.
just implemented coyote time to the platformer in my game immediately when you mentioned it
Nice!
8:36
Amen.
The amount of times Cyberpunk arbitrarily said to me, "this is a more difficult encounter, so we're not going to allow you to play the way you normally do...".
If it makes sense, that's fine. But if it is literally for NO REASON, it is VERY irritating.
Out of spite, in those situations, I try to cheese the game as much as possible. You cheat me, I cheat you.
I like your serious side,
@@passthedonuts I'm always serious.
You:
"How to Succeed at making a great TH-cam game dev Series"
@@Cubic_Gaming You:
"How to succeed at making a great TH-cam comment." ;)
WHOOOO MORE PIXEL SLOP GAMES
Gonna watch this later the day 😋
9:59 my boss will not have a vulnerability stage because it’s smart. The reason it doesn’t headshot every time is because its camera got broken so it has to use Echolocation to find the player. You survive by outlasting it until _____
That's sounds cool.
@@Artindihooray! Anyways because the boss I talked about is too boring, my next boss has 47 stages, each stage is just more versions of the previous attacks, it also is very predictable, oh and by stage 45 it becomes absolute chaos, and if your PC doesn’t break by Stage 47 you get a bad ending anyways! How fun and rewarding!
5:22 Papyrus from Undertale is my source
1:14 Ironically my dream game in development has elements of a Japanese 3d mecha arcade games.
edit: while also having the abilities to switch weapons, eat enemies, change forms, and fly along with being half visual novel for the narrative half. Baldr Bullet is another visual novel hybrid with a weapon-switching feature but in a beat 'em-up combo fashion.
the final episode
If you're looking to learn to make music, musescore is really great for learning musical theory; in my opinion though it is also kinda clunky, so it may be worth moving on to LMMS once you get the core concepts.