Are You Scared Of Starting Your First Game? – 3 Fears and Their Solutions

If you haven’t started your first game and you might be a little bit scared we’re going to talk about how to overcome that, coming up. What’s up guys Tim Ruswick here from Game Dev Underground helping you build finish and launch better games. Today we’re going to be talking about something that’s really cool because I think it holds a lot of people back.

(Video Transcription)

And this is being scared of starting. Now I posted a video a while back called are you right when do you know whether you’re ready to start and I’ll link that above. And that was basically the premise of start now start now. But there were a few comments and messages that I got about that and a lot of people are still scared like they I think they understood the point of the video but they didn’t quite they just assumed that it was different than you know their situation.

And and they were scared to start. So I figured I’d make a video kind of go through it and go through some of the top 3 reasons on why people are scared to start and how to overcome them. So number one and this is the biggest one– I have my my notes here— you don’t know where to start. I remember when I first got back into game development after taking a few years off doing my marketing company like I’d always loved building things and I kind of kept involved with technology but I got so wrapped up in my marketing company that I just kind of forgot about everything else.

And when I got back into game development it was like oh my god where do I where do I start. Like this this landscape is so different than anything that I’m used to. The engines had changed that the the landscape had changed the the popular popular titles were different new genres had emerged all kinds of stuff had happened. And for me to come back into that I had no idea where to start. But mostly like on the engines which engine do I pick which would like how do I go about this and how I actually got past that was I thought about the concept of like how each engine would help me individually.

And I realized going through this thought process of if I use Unity, Unity has this then I can go do this and I go to that. If I use Construct then I can use this and I can use that. I realize every engine is the best. Like every engine has does pretty much the same thing they all have different features and stuff but the important thing isn’t the individual features the important thing is starting and making games.

And ultimately I just decided to go with 2D games because I love 2D games more than 3D games these days. So I just picked Construct 2 and I just started I actually started with GameSalad before that and it wasn’t working out I had some issues with it I couldn’t publish off of their platforms so I just switched the Construct 2 to like it I realized that I was making such a big deal about which one to choose that I didn’t really have to. If I just picked one if it didn’t work out I could just switch.

Like it’s not a big deal. I mean you it’s a lot of these all these engines used the same technologies anyway like if you’re on Unity and using javascript that javascript can carry over to any other type of game you understand programming logic understand like loops you understand like all the basics of programming. Not only is the same syntax very similar some of these little program I use but Java scripts pretty versatile in itself right. Like it doesn’t so especially if you’re going to start on like Construct 2 or one of these other like drag-and-drop or like Game Maker or something.

Dude, the the concepts that you learn there can be applied everywhere else it just may be a different implementation and so it’s nothing to worry about. So if picking an engine is stopping you from starting just pick one and go with it. I know that’s easier than it sounds I know you’re scared I know it’s it’s crazy everything seems so overwhelming but trust me. Like just pick one and it’ll all work out. And if you have trouble we have a very helpful Discord group you can join links in description and those guys are awesome.

So number two a lot of people are afraid to start because they’re afraid to fail. And I was I was afraid too. I especially me running gamedev underground it was an additional fear because not only would was I scared of failing a game but I was scared of failing game with a bunch of other developers watching me.

And if I’m teaching marketing and this stuff online and I fail and all you guys are watching like shit now I’m I failed but I also fell in front of you guys. Like that’s that’s twice as scary right. But I realized that like failure the things that we consider failures are not really failures because always teach us stuff. And I think a lot of failures come as a result of false expectations right.

So if your expectation for your first game is that you’re going to sell a million copies and you put it up online and you don’t sell any yet you might feel like a failure because your expectation and reality are so drastically different. The solution for me to this was to manage your expectations a little more properly right. Like that’s what I ended up doing. And in this example specifically like dude your first game is not going to be a hit. You’re not going to make millions of dollars.

Shit’s not going to get out that you should not plan on your first game being your Monalisa you know. Like Mona Lisa wasn’t his first painting like shit dude you got to do a lot of other stuff before you get to that point. And making games for fun that’s why I love the idea of game jams that’s why I love Krister’s one game a month idea. I love I love concepts like that because they take the pressure off of making a game.

When you’re working solo and you want to be a game developer so bad and you want to push this out there it’s really easy to like fantasize about oh well what if I get a million sales I could be a millionaire you know off of making games and then it’ll be awesome and I’d be like to travel the world and do everything and make games from a laptop like it’s pretty easy to get lost in those fantasies.

But if you manage your expectations or you just say hey this is my first game you know I’m going to release it and I’m gonna make five people happy ten people happy. I’m gonna get you know I’m gonna see what people think I’m gonna learn something. If you set your expectations right you got your goal properly set you can you can have success on your hand right. So your first game if you expect to get a million sales and you don’t get any it’s a failure.

But if you expect five people to play it and you get ten people to play it you’re twice as successful. I know it sounds like a cop-out I know it sounds like weird but for me managing my psychological expectations is really important because it affected my mood, it affected my motivation levels, it put me in this wave and thought I should share that with you guys.

So number three you’re scared to start cause you don’t have the time money or resources. This is a lie you are lying to yourself if you say that you don’t have the resources because as a lovely person by the name of Tony Robbins would say it’s not about resources it’s about resourcefulness. And I would add to that that if you say that you don’t have the time what you were really saying is that you’re not prioritizing this is high enough on your list to come before other things that are taking your time.

So I don’t mean to be mean about this but like you’re not anybody special right. Like you have the same amount of time in your day as Bill Gates as Elon Musk as Richard Branson as any of these other famous dudes. Same 24 hours. We all get 24 hours in a day. It’s just that some people know how to prioritize the things that they do better than others. And if you say you don’t have enough time what you’re really saying is that I put other things before this.

Now I know this gets complicated when you get family when you got kids when you got full-time job when you got all this stuff but it’s still possible. And I know that I don’t have family and kids and full-time job and all this other stuff. And so I’m kind of preaching to you. But I’ve seen guys that do it I have friends that do it like I know some of the most driven people on the planet and these are guys that I I don’t know how they do it.

I don’t know how they fit all this in. But they do and they tell me all the time it’s about priority and so that’s what it is. And if you are scared to start because you don’t think you have the time you do you got to find the time. If you don’t think you have the money you don’t need money you just have to start you have to start making games. And if your schedule all the resources well it’s about resourcefulness.

You can find the way you can find the opportunity it’s up to you you just got to make shit happen. That’s it for today guys I hope you found it useful if you have any comments on this please leave them below. If you have other barriers that have held you back from starting please leave them below because I think a lot of people can learn from them.

But once again I’m Tim Ruswick and I’ll see you guys next time.