Hey everyone! How’s it going?
On my drive to and from work (an hour each way) one of my favourite things to do is listening to podcasts. I primarily enjoy listening about keeping fit and healthy (The Industrial Strength Show by Joe Defranco) and obviously indie game dev (lostcast by the Lost Decade Games guys). I find they really motivate me, help me keep my focus and give me great new ideas too. I also find reassurance in hearing others who I class as experts in their field share thoughts and concerns similar to mine.
Which brings me on to this post…
One of my main stumbling blocks years ago when I originally thought about taking to game dev and ultimately didn’t was the idea that I need to create everything myself from scratch otherwise I’d be “cheating”. With that mentality I started trying to make my first game using nothing but raw java. I quickly got lost in endless bugs and performance issues and finally gave up.
This time round I decided to use a game engine. I came across libGDX and Unity. I chose libGDX because I felt it was only one step up from creating everything myself so I wasn’t quite “cheating”, and what a difference it made! I made and shipped Cute Cat Splat in just a month! I then immediately began working on my next title, Eo’s Adventure, which I’m still working on.
I’m about 3 – 4 months into developing Eo’s Adventure. I thought I could make it as quickly as I did Cute Cat Splat, but I’m trying to do a lot more in this game and I’m also learning a lot too. However in this time I’ve been trying to absorb as much information and knowledge about game dev as possible and I’ve heard a lot about GameMaker Studio. Out of curiosity I decided to download it and give it a go. In just a couple of days I managed to make a prototype for a new idea. I couldn’t believe how easy and fun it was! I then realised how much time I could save and the number of prototypes I could be coming up with. But I thought am I really doing game dev here or am I just essentially using an advanced mapmaker?
Which bring me on to my point…
Why make things harder than they need to be? Life’s too short and I certainly don’t get as much time to dev as I would like to, so it makes sense to make the most of that time. Using GameMaker Studio and other similar tools I am able to create a game which reflects my ideas quicker and in some respects better. I’m still fully committed to creating Eo’s Adventure using libGDX. I’m able to code on the go thanks to AIDE for my mobile, whereas with tools like GameMaker I’m limited to creating while I’m in front of my laptop. Plus I’m still learning so much about the fundamentals of game programming. However using GameMaker as well I can also work on other ideas in parallel at a much quicker pace. The best of both worlds! And it’s certainly not “cheating”. It still take a lot of skill and creativity to make a good game. The powerful tools we have to help with this, the better!
To sum it all up this thought was validated for me when i heard a great analogy on lostcast episode #224 about a drum:
I wanted to put a drum beat in my game. So I downloaded a sample.
I then thought…
I should really record the sample myself. So I recorded a friend playing the drums.
I then thought…
I should really play the drums myself. So I recorded myself playing the drums.
I then thought…
I should really make the drum myself. So I bought the parts and made a drum.
I then thought…
I should really make the goat skin myself. So I bought a goat and made a drum skin.
I then thought…
I should really raise the goats myself. So I started farming goats.
I now spend all my time farming goats and none of my time making games…
Thanks!
Stav