How to Make a Better Game in Less Time

I remember when I was 14 I programmed a Game in QuickBasic. Some sort of Pokemon Tamagotchi thing... I went off off the ideas in my head of what I wanted to have in a game. Raise a Pet and let it fight. It was immensily challenging, took me 2 years to complete and then, when I was finally done I played the game, showed it a friend and we realized "the game is sh*t, it's boring and lacks motivation for the things you have to maintain". I remember the moment clearly. I felt this weird mix of loneliness of two years crashing down on me and a kind of helplessness on how to actually change it. It would take another two years since what I have coded was just too much to change from ground up. And I also realized the importance of clean code. Because the biggest reason why it took so long was finding bugs that come with bad variable scoping from the Basic "scripting language style" syntax.

I'd wager that a lot of indie people are somewhere on the autism spectrum (just a wild guess) and keeping friends is hard for us. It took me a long time to get a group of friends that also game (via a coworker, now friend) - who are willing to help me test and even motivate me by asking about the game. Realize that the same character traits that make you climb Mount Everest (aka build a game on your own) might stand in your way in other ways - and that you have to learn and will learn over time how to work around them and improve your weaknesses. Good luck!

Great video! I'm currently in university for game development and at the end of every semester we have 7 weeks to create a game in a group of around 5 people. Everything you say here is 100% true. Playtesting is the most helpful tool we have for making sure our game is interesting and fun. And not only that, it is a fantastic source of ideas. We playtested our prototype after a week and the feedback we got brought us so many new ideas and basically changed the whole direction of the game since we were able to see which parts playtesters liked and then focus on those things specifically. And to leave you with some "watchtesting" feedback for the video: Great job! The pacing is maybe a little bit slow, if you haven't then try reading your script 2-3 times back-to-back. You will then quickly notice parts that feel slow or even redundant. Also maybe look into audio quality, you don't need an expensive mic, a $50 mic and some knowledge of how to record clean audio and then edit it can take you very far! But like i said, the video is already really good! So keep up the great work!

Amazing video! Thanks :) Very informed and clear , i will now get people to playtest my game

As always, it's more nuanced than the video suggests. You can easily fall into the trap of sanding off all the interesting parts of your design. The advice only holds true if the purpose of you making a game is to appeal to the lowest common denominator, i.e. you're AAA, or you're chasing a trend.

this video is SUCH A high quality content its awesome, a little bit long with repetition but overall awesome!

What an awesome and informative video! I’m looking forward to more! Subscriber #73!

thank you for all information

awesome vid, very informative <3

Great video!

Quality Content 🎉🎉🎉😊😊😊 (maybe improve audio quality)

Im making a game in RPG Maker Fes on the 3DS and it had took 4 years to make my game. I played tested it so many times and once I'm almost done I'll have people test it for me and play it. Its just a prototype. Im not done yet but it should be done before the end of the year. Thats the goal but we will see lol. To me even if I dont remake this game so people can play it I'll be fine. Im following my dream just making my game.

Yeah, that opening statement did make me cringe a bit. A well made video, and extremely well made for your channel size. I do have a question/feedback but first a warning, I am not a game designer(yet). I wondered for a moment why didn't you go into more detail about when to playtest.(you mentioned it in part 3) for instance, wouldn't a more narrative focused game that uses already successful game design(pick a relevant genre) be much further into the project when they playtest than say, a movement focused platformer where a few blobs moving on the screen after a week of work is enough to understand if you are headed in the right direction? Also things like vertical game slices etc.? Perhaps they are too late too late in dev. or outside of the video scope though. Not a bad idea to avoid getting caught in the details.

I liked this video. It was a little long though. There was a little too much emotional cheerleading / persuasion peppered throughout. I'd have preferred you keep most of the why to the start of the video and focus on the methods second, but that's just me. I think the crux is you've created a feature length dramatic documentary for a topic that would be better suited for a shorter and more dot-point based video. I would potentially be interested in more topics. One video yours reminded me of, which i thoroughly enjoyed was "Marketing is NOT Why Most Indie Games Fail" by Eastshade studios. I justed noted it was about 10 minutes.

Nice video, best to watch at 1x speed :D

Nice video, best to watch at x1.5 speed :D

Nice video

You`re briliant. Are you single? Probably not. Love you man!

Hi! Are clicker satire games your cup of tea? If so, I'd love your feedback!

Even with a digital choose-your-own-adventure?