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@midniteoilsoftware

7 ай бұрын

Parsec is awesome!

Something I picked up from when I was working as a software engineer is to have regular "stand-up" meeting with myself. This allows me to check my progress on my current tasks but also to remind myself of what my overall scope is and whether it needs to be changed. It's a great way to pop your head above the water to see if you're still going in the right direction.

Yay, you've discovered self-sabotaging due to fear! That's very relatable. I applaud you for noticing it's happening and applying strategies for keeping yourself on track, but you haven't addressed the root of the problem (at least not in this video). So, seriously: what if your game is 'just another' 2D pixel puzzle game? What if it doesn't go big? How will you feel? What will you do? You'll be disappointed, possibly even crushed, but what happens next? If you don't actually address the fear that is causing this self-sabotaging behavior and plan for that possibility, your fear will just find another way to cause you to self-sabotage. By the way, maybe you're doing all this out of sight and it doesn't make it into your videos, but how much do you know about the indie game market? Like which genres sell, and how to set you and your game up for success? There seems to be a misalignment with your stated goals and your actions. You've stated that you need to produce a game that is a commercial success or you'll need to get a regular job. But you don't seem to know much about what factors impact whether an indie game is a commercial success or not. Instead, you seem to be making a game that you want to make and hoping it will be successful. That is... concerning.

Hi Brandon, I have followed you since the beginning of your KZread venture. I was also a “Hall of Fame” supporter on Patreon as I wanted to see you and Niki succeed. So, I do not say this with any ill will - as I wish you only the best. I decided to stop supporting you on Patreon when you completely switched from developing the “Veil of Maya” to “Samurado.” When you decided to make Samurado, it was supposed to be a 90-day challenge. However, you fell victim, like so many others, that at about mid-way of your initial project (Veil of Maya) you found a reason to quit (delay). It’s a common tale, the game gets harder to develop at about the mid-point, so you switch to a different project. It’s like you said, in the beginning everything comes together so quickly. It’s fun, it’s new, it’s a challenge. And, once the grind sets in it becomes boring and you move on. I even know what’s going to happen next. At some point you are going to go back to the “Veil of Maya,” and I guarantee you the first thing you do is refactor all of your code. You will make it more modular, decoupling systems, you will make it cleaner, more performant, etc. And, I have no doubt it will be all of that. You can see in just the short time you have been producing your KZread videos how much better your code has gotten; you have made huge strides. But in the end, none of this, will substantially push the game towards release. I really hate saying the next part, but you need to prepared, “Samurado” will get lost on Steam. And, what’s worse, I think you know this. With 10k games released annually on Steam, many with AAA graphics and systems, your game will have a difficult time succeeding. I have played several iterations of Samurado and other than your loyal followers (me included) sales will be difficult. That would have been okay if you stuck to your initial reason for doing this game…as a temporary break from your main project and as a testbed for your first Steam release. However, your development time has run far too long, and your ROI is not going to be offset by more development time. Again, this would be okay if you were making the game for fun and to gain valuable experience, but this is not the case. Game development is now your fulltime job, and the ROI needs to be a factor. IMHO you need to wrap up Samurado. You need to do what you initially said and develop this game as a more polished and professional version of a GameJam game and move on. Whether you go back to Veil of Maya or spend some time coming up with an original game idea, one that would stand out and be commercially successful, is obviously your call. Samurado is not it. I know what I am saying is harsh but it’s the truth - again, I wish you and Niki only the best.

@TESkyrimizer

6 ай бұрын

holy shit my soul just left my body and im not even the intended recipient. everything you said reasonable though

@sasquatchbgames

5 ай бұрын

Appreciate the honesty, I wish you all the best as well!

I have a game keep delaying even worse than yours. It's a 3D action game with working combat mechanism, parkour system, vehicle driving, big map support. But I'm no artist, I have no proper artist assets, I only got settings of boss, story lines, basic tone of map. But it's going to take a big fortune to invest into that. I show it to some of my game developer friends and got some positive feedback, but I keep polishing thing like how does it parkour with IK support, blahblahblah.It's been 4 years anyway. And I keep convincing myself, "I got a day job, I shouldn't rush." But sometimes I feel terrible because I still want it to be released.

You just basically summed up my current gamedev experience

What happened to Veil of Maya?

Oh boy, this is so true. Fantastic video!

Something that helps me with motivation and to set my priorities straight is to have a playable prototype and ask people to test it. I am lucky to have really straightforward friends and family, so the feedback they give is extremely helpful. Learned a lot on what to improve from watching family, friends and other beta testers play the game.

@DOSRetroGamer

4 ай бұрын

That's the way to go! Have something that is fun early on even if it looks like ass, looks can always be improved, fun not so easy

Bro, what you're literally describing scope creep. You need to get a manager or maybe ask your wife to manage your time because you keep trying to inflate your original scope. A manager can help you stick to a schedule because you've already failed at sticking to a timeliness on two games now.

I do love your videos but I am not sure what is actionable here. I think you're saying that you need to have well defined scope, goals and then perform task decomposition and track current work against task to meet the MVP rather than deadlines? Having an imaginary manager that you're accountable to is odd - it depends on an individual's experience of bosses. I think the underlying checking in that your work is moving you toward the end of the current task and that the remaining tasks meet the goal of the MVP is wise but that requires a plan, which you eschew as a solution. I also think saying "change your mental perception" is very easy to say but not easy to do. It's like saying to a depressed person "just think happy thoughts". Deadlines are more about running out of money than they are about completion of work. So I agree that setting dates based of arbitrary estimates are nonsense - knowing when you need to next make rent is not. Lack of accountability for solo dev is a problem. It's the same accountability that any self-employed person has - but for many watching your videos will be hobbyists. If someone is making rent with their game dev, they already know how to do what your video. Making YT devlogs is one way to remain accountable but that can become a pressure of numbers, so I wouldn't advise that. Joining a community can be fun but again a lack of progress can feel like a weight when you see others doing it. Pairing up with like minded people in similar situations can work if you can find a dev buddy on a similar journey. That's what I'd recommend for you. I'd imagine you're actually accountable to your partner as across all your streams of work you're trying to pay your bills. You don't mention that, which is odd - does your partner do the editing? Keep the videos coming, they're very enjoyable!

@hornetsilksong

7 ай бұрын

I've been a longtime subscriber and I've noticed a trend of video content leaning from devlogs towards hopium and motivational talks about how to finish a game yet they keep getting sidetracked with gamejams and side projects. I hope I'm wrong but the prospects don't look good for their financials if they don't have a clear cut plan how to actually finish Veil of Maia.

This is the first commercial release, right? Need to get it out and take the lessons learned into the next project. No point in trying to be the 0.001% miracle success game.

Great video! I definitely feel the same way now that you’ve pointed everything out. Thanks for the advice!

Great video. I think a lot of people go through that at some point like aimlessly wandering through the forest kind of thing for a while. Game jams are a good learning tool however they don't prepare you for releasing a full commercial game. I think game jams are a bit deceptive in that way. I think once you get to a point where you start to feel like you're getting 'diminishing returns' on the work you're putting into a commercial game: it's time to set a deadline, wrap things up and just release once it arrives. I'm literally about two months-ish away from releasing and I think just having that definitive deadline really helps you go "Ok, so what's important and needs to be done in time?". As they say "art is never finished it is just abandoned". Although by the sounds of it you still have quite a bit of content needed? Focus on what's important and worry about polish later - it could end up getting re-done all over anyway but at least you have the full picture when you have all the content to realise what's needed in that regard. The musician I work with gets stuck in the perfectionist loop all the time. It's a trap, Push forward. Good luck! Been watching the content for a while now!

"Priorities mean that two things cannot be equally important." ~ Alex Hormozi Learning to say no is hard, but important. Learning to say "finished, not perfect" is hard. You need a product, not a project. I think you might have to return to your Minimum Viable Product and assess whether you met those requirements or not. In terms of adding polish and content, we fortunately live in an age where you can apply patches and updates to games post-release, so knowing that could help remove some of the pressure of perfectionism.

I'm currently working on the game server for my idle/incremental game from scratch. I thought it would take like one or two weeks to accomplish. But here I am, 2 months later. ))) So, I can totally relate to what you are saying.

Hey you two! Been watching y’all grow for a while now! Keep up the awesome work =] Are you setting sprint goals at the beginning of each sprint? I’ve also found that it’s very easy to get distracted by little things while working on a larger thing. Setting and having a sprit goal is something, I found, to be an easy way to ask, “is what I’m doing in alignment with that goal?” The hardest part for me still is just leaving a note or filing another story when I find something I want to change that wouldn’t impact the goal. You certainly have a lot to plan wrt producing videos and a game and the shots of that happening look cool; a livestream of one of your sprint-planning sessions is def something I’d love to watch 💚 Thank you both for sharing with the world!

@SpaghettiOhh

7 ай бұрын

oh yeah, also wanted to say that when I started working on my game early this year, it was helpful to set smaller milestones that must also go in front of a player other than yourselves/close friends/family/etc. in addition to “launchable on steam” I have a “playable demo” (specifically, something you might see on a PS1 demo disc), “playable flight test,” and other similarly sized milestones for other features I’m planning. the last one i set for myself to be done as a birthday present to myself over the summer 🎉 it also let me put it down for a minute, though I think you said in another video you chose to no longer have that luxury… anyway, getting something in front of people by some specific date has helped a lot, and I hope it helps y’all! 😎

@sasquatchbgames

7 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for the kind words and the support! I think some of our sprint goals could be more clearly defined which would help.

thanks for the great video and for sharing your experiences. i think the failure of many indie games is not the lack of skills in art or programming, but rather the project management

Every minute of this video was SO RELATABLE! Thank you so much! I love your channel.

I'm over here "noodling" and moving pixels around in a lot of my sprites this week when I was recommended this video. Your videos are great and your games look like they will play great when released.

Knowing that you sold your house and have about a year deadline of funds, you really need to focus 100% of your attention on getting the main metroidvania project finished rather than trying to spread yourself thin working on side projects and gamejams. You've lost 3+ months of progress that could've gone into Veil of Maia. Maybe use this period of somewhat financial stability and fulltime gamedev to create a kickstarter or pitch to publishers.

@DOSRetroGamer

6 ай бұрын

I imagine the overwhelming fraction of his time goes into KZread

@TESkyrimizer

6 ай бұрын

really hoping that financial leap of faith was just clickbait marketing at this point and an exaggeration of the truth. a year's worth of funds is a hell of a gamble for a self-sustaining indie dev career. and now its looking kinda bleak ngl. i've been looking at the follower count for both games on steamdb for months and its not looking particularly rosy even if both games were finished tmrw without some powerful art upgrade and marketing hype imo. easier said than done.

@DOSRetroGamer

6 ай бұрын

@@TESkyrimizer i bet it wasn't clickbait only. People do crazy sh*t like that. Live the dream, go all in, don't listen to the naysayers, don't have a plan B; as you hear so often. I was the same (But I still own my house 😅) I know Brandon hated the job he had before. And, exactly like I did, he decided to take it as an opportunity to completely change his life around, instead of, you know, look for a different job.

@edward3190

4 ай бұрын

@@DOSRetroGamer Clickbait for sure, house is not cheap. at minimum, selling a house is enough to support 10+ years of living ;)

@DOSRetroGamer

4 ай бұрын

@@edward3190 but how can you do it, owning property is something I'd never sacrifice for something as frivolous as game development (even though I love it)

The one thing I picked up from work that I use on my personal projects: The Backlog! Every time you have an idea or something you want to work on (like tinkering with shaders) you have to put on the backlog first. As you get nearer to the deadline (or past it), you have to seriously be honest with yourself. Is this a version 1 feature, or a version 2 feature? (or v1.1, or v 1.0.1) Pick whatever task seems most interesting to you from the list in the v1 pile. This can be done in azure devops, github, gitlab, microsoft word, notepad, or even pen and paper! The satisfaction of crossing things off of your list, even as you're adding things to the bottom of it, is amazing! And as long as you're honest with yourself about what can wait until after launch, be it a DLC or free update, you will reach the "done" state. And the best part is, you don't need milestone deadlines. The closer you get to the real deadline, the more aggressive you have to be with not letting things go in the v1 pile. Let me know if you want to talk about it more, I'd love to chat!

OK, first off you're 3 month planned game is never going to measure up to a 5+ year game like stardew valley. Don't compare you're game vs that, if anything compare you're game to another quickly made game in the same genre. The reality is you're game will likely not make waves and will fade away much like all our indie games do, only a very small set make big waves on the industry. These are literally 1 or 2 out of every 10 thousand games. It is easier to expect you're first game to fail, and hope for you're 10th game to do well. Then any success you do find is a welcome thing. For me personally I keep a list of stuff I need to do, and I attempt to check something off every day if possible (some things take multiple days due to complexity). Try to wait for the small polish / tweaks until the game is basically content ready, then you can try to raise awareness, get wish lists, and promote the game everywhere while you work on improving the experience that already exists. Don't work on minor details in the middle, just aim for bug free content rich and complete then shine up that game with polish. Stay motivated, stay dedicated, and stay disciplined. You got this.

Im quite like this as well wanted to make a simple game with a small scope, i ended up adding plenty of features and developping engines and now making test for something quite différent, in a way each Time im close to a release state im ending adding plenty of things and i dont even know where im going with it. Lol but i think its very common actually. I never Saw any Book or video by anyone telling this is the Magic game design formula to have something good in a fixed Time, seem lot of studios even in AAA Space struggle with this.

Great insight! You’re very self aware.

I think the why we self sabotage like this is less about caring too much and more about fear and anxiety, but either way the solution you came up with is a good move. A lot of small teams or individuals in the creative field underestimate how much they could benefit from a producer/project manager, just having that extra accountability step is so helpful. And if you can't afford or find one, roleplaying as one is not a bad solution 😄

I really love this series, it helps me just prepare and make more effective business decisions. thanks Brandonnn P.S: I don't really keep up, what happened to Veil Of Maia? Do you guys work on one game each? Or is this some sort of interlude from working on Veil Of Maia?

@sasquatchbgames

7 ай бұрын

yep it's an interlude sorta deal. I realized it was like a 4 year+ project and wanted to work on somthing I could release sooner than that

I hear the message loud and clear: stop caring. got it.

@sasquatchbgames

7 ай бұрын

Lol!

@sealsharp

7 ай бұрын

Hi, I'm a an HR manager for Activision. Our employee detection software found you to be a great fit for our company.

@RobLang

7 ай бұрын

AI in the username; response checks out. 😉

5:50 Yes. And I'm going to be brutally honest here as it is the only way to give you REAL advice: you can't finish the game because you think your game is average. You want to make a great game but for a game to be great it's elements (or the most important of them) have to be great by themselves. Your mechanics must be great, your art must be great. And the only way to get there is to forget everything you are told on the web about making games. What makes great developers is obsession, it's not "making 10 small games". There is no work-life balance, there is work-work life imbalance. And that is not only on you, if your wife is doing the art, it's imperative that she obsesses over doing the best art she possibly can for the game. It's imperative whoever is doing the art overthinks and redo the game characters, or whatever that looks average, dozens of times until you feel like it's great. I know this is hard to hear for someone with children but like I said, the only helpful thing I can tell you is the truth. 8:38 yes it is a lot of pressure, it's a lot anxiety and all sorts of feelings of overwhelm and very few people can take it and pull through and that is why most game on steam are "shovelware". Very few people can make great games.

Godddd , if i had a nickel for every time I caught myself spiraling into new tasks that haven’t been planned or fully fleshed out 😭

always happen to me too

My planning has been intentional so far because I'm not just writing a wishlist of features, I'm writing the psudo concept of the code execution. Most devs plan features they can't promise and that can send them into debugging hell. I'm not perfect though, freestyling is a good plan B sometimes.

This problem is so real. I'm gonna try your solutions tho

Have you been doing play tests at all?

You forgot when the deadline was, hahahaa. Omigod. You keep making me say that. I.. once forgot the time and day of a midterm exam. I had to beg the professor to let me take a make up exam, which he very kindly did, thank goodness. I was the only one in the class who missed it just because of getting my mental wires crossed. I think I'm the only one I ever met or heard of who has done that! I'm not stupid, I probably aced that exam. I just. Have a few screws loose.

Totally falls in line with a thing Thomas Brush said. "Your game is not your baby."

Thanks!

@sasquatchbgames

7 ай бұрын

Thanks so much for the support!!

Golly, my experience with projects is just the opposite. At the beginning it's like quicksand because I don't know what to do, but once I have the rules and stories of the world defined, everything flies fast. At a certain point of worldbuilding the stories just tell themselves, because you know the motivations of everyone.

That's usually one of the reasons people start Dev logs. You tell your audience what they should expect to see in the next video and they hold you accountable, kinda 😅

hmm, this could be a good idea for a custom GPT. Make an AI Project Manager that you have to check in with every day.

Also I'm going to be a bit harsh after watching a few of your videos and hearing how you sold everything to start your studio. Trying to make a game like stardew Valley is such a foolish comparison. Concerned ape worked on it for five years. It was so successful because the entire game was his dream, he didn't care about the end result, only that it lived up to his expectations. He also WORKED HIS NORMAL JOB while making the game. It becoming ultra successful was not the plan. You made the studio into the job. You decided you wanted to make games for money. That is totally fine but you can not compare yourself with stardew valley as you're not working on a dream game like that. You also want a high quality yiutibe channel ar the same time. You need to produce something and stop worrying about being the greatest ever. You're putting so much pressure on yourself at this point it's cray. Tldr you really need to reevaluate what it is you want. It really isn't clear at all to me as you're trying to spin a lot of plates and just expecting success.

@sasquatchbgames

7 ай бұрын

You raise some fair points, thanks for your honesty!

"It's me. It has to be me." Omigosh. I have done work for.. a number of small business owners, and spoken with quite a few people who have worked for quite a few others. I cannot tell you how amazing this simple admission sounds, coming from one of them. That.. never happens. Congratulations. You broke the mold. You're a Hero.

First

Still, as a game dev who has published close to half a dozen games on Steam and a long time gamer myself, I feel the gaming industry is no longer lucrative nor worth delving into. Not trying to pour cold water but I've seen my share of entitled, rude and downright toxic gamers out there, so yeah, take it what you will but I'm done.

@Dailyfiver

7 ай бұрын

That’s not a good attitude man

Hi! Thanks for a video. I think the main difference is money. When you don't expect do make a profit everything comes out esily. Can you make a honest video with your thoughts on fulltime gamedev vs regular job plus hobby gamedev in turms of money and enjoyment balance?