How I made my game and what came out of it
Creation of your game. I think many players have thought about or even tried to get into this business. Today, projects from independent developers are capturing an ever larger audience, videos from single authors are appearing on YouTube, and the idea of creating your own game seems increasingly attractive.
On this wave, I myself started creating my first game, at the moment it is waiting for its release in the Steam store, and below I will tell you about the path of its creation and share my experience.
So, my introductory notes were as follows. I decided early on that I wanted to work in the games industry. I tried myself in different roles, but mastering programming from books at the age of 12 turned out to be a difficult task, then I essentially switched to studying 3D modeling by method of elimination. Already at the age of 16, I got my first job as a 3D artist at Crazy Panda Games in a small department that dealt with hyper-casual games and was a kind of training school for juniors. After a year of my work there, some things happened in the world circumstancesbecause of which I and many of my colleagues were fired, and finding a job in the industry became much more difficult.
When several months of active job searches did not result in anything, I decided that it was time to try to create a horror game, as I always wanted, and break into indie developers.
Chapter 1: Wrath
So, at this stage I had some knowledge in 3D and almost nothing in all other aspects. Then I decided to start the whole thing with graphics, took a friend’s apartment as a basis (well, after all, they are afraid to go to the toilet themselves), and began to model it long and hard.
When the stage was ready, I contacted a programmer I knew and agreed to bring all this splendor to life. But the whole point is that apart from a poorly organized scene there was nothing, not a single sound, not a single animation, and what can I say, I only wrote something like a script after modeling the scene. Naturally, the matter quickly died out, nothing was implemented.
After wallowing in sadness for a couple of weeks, I decided to analyze the mistakes I had made and decided to start the next project with an idea. Played Signaliswas inspired by the retro style and in the hospital where I was fortunate enough to be admitted, I began to paint the future game.
Chapter 2: Bargaining
In a fit of creative excitement, such a sour game was planned, and most importantly for a strong 4 hours of gameplay at least. I decided that from now on I will take over all development elements and will study blueprints in Unreal Engine. Then I was completely confident that I could do all this myself, in about six months. Yeah, it might have been worth staying in another hospital, but the goals were outlined and the development began.
The game plan, its plot and mechanics were written out on paper, but there was no development plan itself. I rushed chaotically between creating models of enemies, environments and studying blueprints and creating simple light systems with switches and conventional doors. But of course, everything turned out to be not as simple as I thought about it; after a month it became clear that at this rate my game would not be published very soon.
Then I transferred the game from space to water, and decided to shorten it to a walk along the seabed with a couple of small stations.
Having somehow filled this space with objects, the question arose of what to do here? There were no mechanics in the game other than walking and pressing buttons, but this was not the main problem. There was almost no game fear as such, there was little time to dive into the atmosphere, and there were few active scares and they worked lousy. Plus, almost everything in the game was on terrible crutches, because I did it and at the same time learned to work with the engine. As a result, many bugs were fundamentally irreparable; after adding new elements, others stopped working…
Naturally, this was all no good, I didn’t delete the project, but I decided that it was worth putting it aside and thinking about what I could do during the break.
Interlude
We have already reached the final chapter of the story. At this stage, I had already gained enough experience and drawn many conclusions from my mistakes. An important circumstance will be that I had no income at that moment, I was lucky that I was still at a fairly tender age, my parents supported my endeavors and did not drive me out onto the street.
I did all the development full time, but of course, all this is not so simple, because we all love to relax, take a walk, and play. When you are left to your own devices in such circumstances, it is very important to discipline yourself and set a goal and deadline within a reasonable framework.
In the meantime, I just started implementing a couple of mechanics in a separate project for practice, and in particular I did shooting. At that moment, the idea of a new project hit my head and I sat down to plan.
Chapter 3: Acceptance
This time I carried out comprehensive planning. I used the interactive whiteboard Miro, there was a separate plan for each mechanic, plot, enemies, as well as a plan for the development of all this. The idea again grew in breadth, the project promised to be quite complex, then it was decided to make only a DEMO version in order to demonstrate the seed and scare, and in the future to make something more out of it.
The process was more meaningful, everything that was added to the game was pre-tested at a special level, locations were created in parallel. But not everything was so rosy, after all, the creation of many of the initially conceived mechanics turned out to be not very feasible for me, and many already existing mechanics did not coexist very well in the piece of the game that was made. A separate pain was the intelligence of the monsters; due to its poor performance, it did not frighten, but rather made them laugh and ruined the whole idea.
But one of the main skills in game development is precisely resistance to such situations, especially when you do everything alone. I decided to trim some things in the game, shifting the focus to staging scary moments and atmosphere, as well as change the concept of the game from DEMO into a small but full-fledged work, in order to be able to finish it and release it into the world. It was important for me to finish developing the game, release it and draw a line in the accumulated experience in order to free my head and move on in game development.
After all the rework, the game went for testing; this was the first time I had conducted such an event. There were a lot of reviews, an immeasurable number of bugs and shortcomings that had to be corrected. The reaction of those who played the game gave me new motivation and strength, I further expanded the game itself, added more lore, and connected achievements on Steam.
The final game was again not what I imagined it to be, but development is often a search for compromise solutions. Of course, some of the mechanics never became concise in the gameplay; in fact, even shooting does not occupy an important place in the game. But for the most part, the game copes with the task of scaring and creating atmosphere (everyone has a different fear threshold). Based on the same series Fears to Fathom, you can perfectly present a small linear experience and find a niche for it. In any case, you need to treat your brainchild with love; everyone started somewhere.
Bottom line
This is how the journey turned out, lasting more than 2 years. I don’t yet know its results in financial terms, but a huge technical and personal experience was gained, the first full-fledged project was made and brought to release all the way on Steam, which recently sounded like complete fantasy to me.
Now whether I find a permanent job or whether I can monetize my indie development is no longer important. In any case, I will continue to improve and make games.
I deliberately did not touch upon the purely technical aspect, because everyone comes with different levels in one discipline or another. But the easiest way to master any discipline at the required level is through practice in real life, and now there are also many opportunities to replace certain things, or simply simplify your life. In the end, I never wrote a single line of code for the game.
If you choose the path of indie development for yourself, then be patient and don’t aim for huge goals. Much more important and useful will be a small project that is brought to completion; it charges you with motivation, ideas and allows you to sensibly digest the whole experience. Don’t be afraid to start all over again, make mistakes, redo it, the main thing is not to get carried away with it and always have a clear goal and plan for your work.
You will definitely succeed, good luck!
