Like 6 months ago I quit my job to make a game

Before I start, I should point out that I live in a country with a very low cost of living and I'm pretty young, so a lot of what I've done , makes sense to me, but might be "bad advice" for people in other situations (don't do something like that without trying to plan everything carefully, and prepare ahead of time for any problems). However, many other tips can apply to most people making the game! Also, I wasn't making a big RPG, but a side scrolling 2D (story) adventure game, and a link to it can be found below! Anyway, here's what I've done and learned in the last 1 year.

I always wanted to make games, but since the game industry didn't exist in my country before, I decided to do something else. I chose architecture and after a year I realized that I didn't like it. While studying architecture, I fell in love with cinema. I made a lot of short films and music videos in 5 years and was going to go into the film industry after graduating from university. What I did was I worked on a TV show for a few months, and then I realized that I hate the process of making films. But it taught me a lot - I realized that I was happy when I worked indoors, at a desk, preferably in front of a screen, and with (preferably) a small team. Making movies didn't involve anything like that, so it didn't work for me. I still wanted to tell stories and affect people emotionally, but I was no longer sure which medium would be right for me.

So I decided to work on a regular basis 5 days a week for 9 hours at a small architecture firm to take the pressure off and find out what was going on. Again, I have learned a lot. This job was supposed to be temporary, so my next venture could have been much better planned than my failed adventure in filmmaking. I realized that I needed financial freedom so that I could spend most of my time creating something worthwhile for me. Now I have started to study entrepreneurial thinking and start thinking about the product and the industry.

My friend wasn't happy with 9/5 either, so we decided to team up (around October 2016). He offered to make a game (he would be a programmer, and I would do art and history), but I thought that if our goal is financial freedom, then this is too risky. From everything I've heard, video games are a bad idea if you want to make money and be stable. But then I suddenly realized that I have no skills in any other business - I couldn't start selling mattresses or offer some services - I don't know anything about them and it would take me years to learn anything. Video games were actually the best choice for me, because without realizing it, I learned a lot about game design by analyzing a few titles for my own pleasure, and I knew a lot about what was happening in the industry. Making an indie game is much more accessible now than it was in 2010 when I gave up on my dream. Also, my experience with films, music and other art forms, and my need for creative expression meant it was the perfect direction for me. It also allowed me to fulfill a need that emerged when I made films: to emotionally influence people and hopefully change their lives.

We started, but my friend wasn't perfect (besides that, we were in different places and he was taking university exams). For me, this was the purpose of life. I needed to do this so that I could quit my job, which did not touch me at all. We stopped communicating, and after a month of no contact (December 2016), I made the decision to go into the game alone.

• Having an EXTREME dedicated and reliable team or working on your own : It's much better to work on your own than having team members you can't rely on. If they are only partially interested in the game, then they will not be able to work as hard as it may be necessary to create an indie game, especially for those who are looking for short-term benefits. This is obviously a big problem in tiny teams that are mostly friends who come together to do something in their spare time. This is a dead weight that can drag you to the bottom - get rid of it and you will be much more efficient. (However, he passed those exams and got into a good university. He also helps me spread the word about the game, so everything is fine between us).
• There is always a way out : After this, a huge change happened that allowed me to create a game on my own without any programming knowledge. I switched engines from Game Maker to Unity and got a brilliant new tool that allowed me to make a game: Adventure Creator.

I won't accuse you of being skeptical about a program that allows you to do without programming, but it worked for me. I plan to learn programming later (for my next games) but for this game Adventure Creator is perfect.

We see a lot of people in gamedev who want to make a game but don't have a team to work with, and a lot of artists who need programmers. Common sense dictates that an artist can't make a game himself, but if you dig deep, you'll find solutions! There is always a way, and if you really want to make a game, you will make the damn game.

From January 2017 to May 2017, I worked on the game in the evenings and weekends. The plan was to quit my job after I had worked for one year. I saved up and continued my small business selling t-shirts online on Redbubble. I spent most of that time learning about the software and writing the story, as well as developing the game. It was a difficult time - I was very tired after my work and I also had a lot of chores around the house with my flatmate (cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping). I also went through a breakup in November 2016 (around the time this game was being discussed with a friend of mine) - it affected me for many of the following months.

I remember one evening in March 2017 when I suddenly couldn't do anything and just collapsed on the couch. I told my neighbor that I didn't have the energy to even eat dinner and I didn't want to move. That night I did nothing, and fell asleep an hour before the usual time, without supper.

Progress after that day was rather slow, I think it burned out. The general malaise continued for several months after that, and my productivity, motivation, and desire to make the game dropped to an all-time low.

I was still excited about the prospect of being fired from my job and working from home, so that encouraged me. I continued to make tiny progress in the game, and also tried to cope with inner feelings. Over the next few months, I immersed myself in introspection and discovered many problems, faced many of my shortcomings and fears. I read a bunch of good books, found people like Jordan Peterson and Alan Watts, and came out of that period a hundred times stronger and wiser. I also read a lot of posts about it and it inspired me a lot.

On May 31, 2017, I quit my job. Yuhhu! It would be difficult to figure out how to work alone, but I was hoping to manage. Then came June and... I lost all my data when my hard drive failed. I lost everything I worked on with the engine, but even worse, also the whole plot and script. Another stage of depression. I quickly came out of it, and realized that I was given the chance to create everything from scratch and this time to do everything even better. Lesson learned: back up your data!

From August to December 2017, I entered the stream, figured out the processes and got a lot of great results. It was 50% high, 45% trying to force myself to get back to work, and 5% lying in bed wondering if I was doing the right thing (the numbers might be a bit optimistic, but that's okay).

One developer

Here's what I've learned during this time as a full-time developer:

• Recognize and use your strengths

This may be obvious, but it's worth saying. If you're an artist, make a game with good art as a highlight. If you're a good writer, make a game based on the story.

• Get to know yourself and find out why you want to make a game

Game development can get tricky, especially if you work alone and don't earn anything while the rest of your friends move forward. You may feel that you are falling behind, and these thoughts are a feast for your fears. (Also, don't compare your life to someone else's. Just...don't do it.) The remedy for this is self-understanding. Do you want to make games because you like games? Or do you want to make games because you're a creative person who likes to spend hours working on projects and you also love games? Video games are creative, but like all creative work, they can be a painstaking, frustrating, and demotivating medium at times. And yet, for any artist, the worst thing is not to be creative. Understand yourself and then making games can be a great option.

• Don't make primitive art if possible

This is something I learned while working on my game, but this may not apply to all games. In the beginning, my characters were represented by white round sprites, and the levels were quickly drawn with lines and rectangles. The more I worked on my game, the more it bothered me. Then I made nice graphics for the characters, worked on the colors and added some animation.

• Your social life is likely to suffer

I think this is true for those who work on their own. This can lead to loneliness, but for me it turned out to be less of a problem than I expected. I tried to keep things under control by meeting with my friends once a week and it seems to have worked. If possible, I would certainly like to work with a great team next time to beat loneliness.

• Passive income will save your life

Especially if you are planning to quit your job! I think it's much safer and smarter to have some source of income that brings you money each month, rather than living off savings. This not only ensures that you don't spend all of your savings, but also helps you feel good about yourself. “I don’t even have a job, what am I doing with my life?”: These attacks happen often. Selling items on Redbubble has been my source of income.

• Marketing is hard

It's hard to talk about your game. I am still trying to figure it out. Wish me good luck.

• Many of the fears that hold you back were never really real

I was worried about upcoming questions about what I'm doing with my life. Surprisingly, most people supported my decision (even my family and the elderly).

• You may find an unusual way to work

In the beginning, I tried a lot of good practices—scheduling my classes daily, working in the mornings, on the weekends, mailing myself letters every day about what I had done. I eventually realized that none of this worked. Now I get up and don't start working until 10:30 in the morning. It's simple: I check the plan and start working. I stop to eat, go to the gym and relax. I found that I work best from 9 pm to 12 am, so I don't force myself to stop at night. So the way you work may be different from what is usually suggested. Try to listen to what your body and mind are saying in terms of productivity and try to follow this rule.

• Sometimes there will be VERY good days

I had many days that, in principle, can be called paradise. Those days are full of energy, meaning and pleasure from what you have done. It is for this reason that many of us have chosen to play games. You are in "flow" and all you feel is euphoria. I found myself smiling for no reason on some of those days. This state occurs more often when the task you are doing and your ability to cope with it are in perfect balance. Check out Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book The Flow to learn more about this phenomenon (it's a great, life-changing book, by the way).

• There will be many shitty, meaningless days

And that's okay. Heaven and hell can exist in parallel in your life, it would be naive to expect that it will be good all the time! Get through these difficult times. For a few days, about once a week or two, I just don't have the energy or enthusiasm to work on my game. I start the day trying to work, but find that nothing is happening. Then I spend some time lying on the bed, doing other things or doing nothing, and I start to feel even worse. However, this is part of the process - it's good to know why this happens.

• Procrastination happens when you don't plan your day well

I noticed that most of the days when I lacked motivation happened because I didn't plan what exactly I was supposed to work on that day. It turned out to be an indefinite task that demotivated me.

• Return to work

There are two things that help me get back to work: one is watching videos related to games, the other is commenting or analyzing why someone thinks the game is great, or how it changed the industry, and so on. Or even how the game was "created". It motivates me a lot and helps me to work on the game. Another thing that is probably the cleanest solution to all of this is to just get back to work.

If I can figure out what I have to work on and get myself through the painful first few minutes, I can pick up the momentum. Then I often realize that the only thing that kept me from working was me and the assumption that "I can't work today." Of course, if you continue to feel terrible despite this, you may really need a break. It rarely happens, but if it does, I take it easy for the rest of the day and don't work if I don't feel like it. This condition usually goes away after a day or so. Also, here's a great video that I come back to when I'm thinking about quitting a job: Go all the way - Charles Bukowski.

• Find a balance between procrastination and burnout

Too much work leads to burnout, too little work leads to depression. Burnout also led to the fact that I could not work, so I fell into depression. Add to that the previously mentioned remarks about social life, lack of relationships and insecure income - there were many reasons why depression hit me.

So keep your balance. Try to have other things in your life, but don't get too slacked off because performance is usually driven by momentum.

• The most important thing is to take small daily steps over long periods of time

This is what allowed me to do a great job. Just keep working and try to make tiny progress if you don't enjoy working. All this develops over time into a large project. It may be more appropriate for lone developers facing a mountain of work, and it has certainly enabled me to succeed. Small daily steps over long periods of time.

• Is it worth it?

Only you can answer this question yourself. I'm not sure that all this sounds optimistic and one might ask: “Why go through all this? For what?". For me, this is much more significant than the alternatives. It is very hard for me to work only for money, earn and survive if I do not believe in my work. I understand that I was lucky to be a young man who was financially supported by my parents, I am not burdened by any loans or debts - and if the situation holds someone back, then I respect that.

Compare chasing a dream (and, of course, the sacrifices that must be made: being poor for years, losing social position, fearing failure) and the safer, more stable option of working in a job you don't like. Both options have pain and hard times, but one of them at least sometimes gives a feeling of joy and fulfillment. I already worked where I only earned money, but this life had no purpose, no meaning. If you can save the day job you love and make a game in your spare time, then that's great, and maybe I envy you ;) But it didn't work out that way for me. Understand your situation, be logical and practical when necessary, but don't follow someone else's path.

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that if you really enjoy the process of developing your work, sacrifice and hardship won't hurt much.

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