A New Era – Making Video Games

I’ve always been a fan of trying different things, taking on new hobbies and trying out new businesses. After all, what is failure but another lesson and opportunity to improve?

Ever since I was a little kid I have wanted to make games. But there has always been other stuff that gets in the way. Mainly that it is a terrible way to make money and is seriously hard work for basically no reward. My podcast was called the lazy entrepreneur for a reason!

Well, now I have money so maybe it’s time to take the tougher road and actually fulfil that childhood dream.

I also have an ulterior motive. I reckon that as AI improves it will unlock a new era of creativity in indie games, and I want to be part of it.

This time with a plan in mind.

Five Steps To Fulfilling My Childhood Dream

• Stage 1 – Learn the basics [DONE!]
• Stage 2 – Enter lots of game jams, document my progress and meet other enthusiasts [In the middle of]
• Stage 3 – Start work on a commercial game
• Stage 4 – Hire a few people (hopefully from contacts made in stage 2) to fill in my weaknesses and create a commercially successful game
• Stage 5 – Profit?

There are A LOT of skills that go into ‘the basics’. I think game dev may be the hardest thing I have ever tried. It just encompasses so many different topics. Computer science, sound design, music, art, voice acting, complex maths, writing, storytelling. All of which are complete fields in themselves.

Over the last five years on and off I have spent a lot of time on all of those subjects (apart from music) and am confident enough to tick off stage 1. Which means I could move on to the fun stuff.

Game Jams, Community And Vlogging

For the last couple of months, I have been deep into stage two. Entering a bunch of game-making contests, both solo and in teams. So far I have done five, you can see the games I made here. They all run on web.

It’s actually working really well. One thing I struggled with, initially, is how to make contacts and friends. Globally there are many enthusiasts, but locally, I have none. The answer seems to really be these game jams. Many of them have tens of thousands of entrants and there are always teams looking for new members. Most people are in the same boat, hobbiests who want to make games.

Of the five jams I’ve done so far, three have been with groups of strangers. It’s pretty cool and gives a rapid sped-up experience of trying to build a creative project with a team.

Along with joining teams I have also started vlogging. Here is one of my vlogs about the experience of making a game as part of a 50 person team for the Brackey’s game jam. I really enjoy watching other people’s dev logs and so making my own is a no brainer.

The other cool benefit of doing game jams is that it allows me to prototype ideas really quickly and see if any of them have traction.

When I wrote and published a book in three days I left considering how it was such a good way of speed running ideas. I played with the idea of doing one a week for a year. Surely at the end of it, I’d have at least one story I could go back to and turn into a proper book.

Well game jams are similar. Short periods to do the full process of making a game. Then if any of them turn out to be any good I can spend a much longer chunk and turn it into a commercial project.

So watch this space, and be sure to subscribe to the youtube channel for regular updates.

Adios.