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I was about to start making my first game my “dream game”. Glad I saw this and now I’m gonna get a few small games under my belt before my dream game.

I started my 2D platformer when I was just starting to learn Unity and C#. I ended up taking a break to make a smaller game; a 2D bullet hell shooter called HyperShot. I put it on Steam, and I still get a sale now and then. Now I'm almost finished my platformer, which will be on Steam next year.

I wanted to make a 3D survival game, with a massive map with multiple biomes, weird animals, diseases, allergies and of course cut scenes. once I drew the design on some paper I realized that I never had coded before, so this would be way to hard. now I watched this video and I think my first game will just be a simple platformer.

Hey, glad to see this, I'm about to start making my first game. Thomas always has the best advice

I love your videos, never stop making these!

I released my first "real" game on itch (i.e. a non-game-jam, 100+ dev-hours game); a roguelike! I have no idea what effect it'll have on my gamedev career, but even as small as it is it's inspired me to keep making roguelikes :)

I really enjoy these tip type videos Thomas. They are really motivating. I have my first small-sized project game in mind and it motivated me to not b afraid of using assets if needed. Thanks for being motivating. Proud to be part of the gamedev community. :)

This really is fantastic advice. Love your dedication and encouragement!

i cherished my trash game and wanted it to be kinda big due to it "looks better than other games" and took that to heart. now i realize that you can not bank on something doing good and get but hurt when no one plays it. now im taking time to reflect and figure out what i want to do next as well as doing major updates to my first game.

Lol Im so glad I had notification turned on! Love the video! Keep up the amazing work

You are inspiration for so many indie devs, so give as DEVLOGS of your new inspiring game! btw your shors are hilarious!

Thank you so much. This is such a wonderful video. I'm taking the leap into becoming a solo indie game developer and I'm quitting my job as a professional animator to pursue my dreams. I can't wait to see where I end up in 10 years from today! I've got so many games I want to make. :) For now, I'll start small and learn as much as I can. Goodluck to us all!

I did release my own game on iOS about ten years ago. It was the only personal project I ever released. I outsourced all the creative assets just to save myself time. Crossing the finish line with this stuff is very challenging. I totally agree making your crap game first is the way to go. Great video!

These are some amazing tips and the one about not doing everything from scratch really made me realize how much time I'm wasting. As for games I worked on a game for most of last year and now that I look back on it I made a lot of mistakes mostly related to planing but I did find out I am much better at programming and designing systems than actually making art plus I learned a lot about the type of games I am mostly good at making

This is so incredibly inspiring. I have been on the fence about going into solo game development but have been scared to fail. Starting small and working in stages is the best, most simple advice you could give. I accept it may take years to make something I love, but I feel so driven to go down that road. Thanks for the inspiration

I've never subbed so fast before. This breaks it all down, is clear, and honest. I've got no end to technical skill and planning and an experienced WEB developer, but translating that to solo game development projects has been surprisingly difficult. Thank you for this

Thomas, you're a really nice indie game developer. I really get inspirations from you. Such a good developer :)

Tip #5 is very important, and one I overlooked while I was working on my frist project. I also think that doing something like a dev log can be very motivating later on when you look back and see all your progress.

Love your videos man you've been holding my hand for a while now and I appreciate it

Thanks for the tips Thomas. I really appreciate all you do. You are a spitting image (both physical and character) of a great friend I grew up with. You needed to know that 😆

Thank you for all your tips they have been helpful on my journey. I have made 2 games and currently working on one of my dream projects, guys like you help with motivation

I'm inspired. I'm starting my first commercial game next year. I'm going to use the rest of this year for prep work and finishing up a game jam, and then next year get to work on my first real project.

Thanks for staying engaged and posting stuff like this.

Love that game you've got in the background there

Thank you for makeing this it has helped me so much to get started

Your tip about knowing your forte really resonated with me. I too pride my self in character building and story telling. Those are my passions what keeps me making my game. This being my first game you’re other tip was perfect, I should make a small short game before putting my all into my dream story / dream game. This video hit at the perfect time for me, and thank you for your content. One question about your stories, do you have them all laid out first before you start building your games or do you kind of build the story and the small details of the story as you go, drawing inspiration from some of your worlds and art?

Thanks for the tips! Now I know I’m going on the right directions. Working on small games before my dream game

Glad to see this as a newbie game developer thank you Thomas

Thank Goodness I saw this video. Helped a lot. Thanks

You make incredible videos, i'm learning gamedev as a hobby in the pandemic. Your videos are top tier, gained a sub 👍

I just released my first game after watching your videos for over a year. It’s called SCP:Abhorrent and it’s pretty noob level lol. I really appreciate your advice throughout all your videos Thomas. I’m about to release my second game this month and I’m working with a team on my “dream” game now too! It’s really challenging but super fulfilling.

God bless you Thomas. This video is divine intervention to help those seeking out to become full time game developers. Thank you!

you are now my favorite KZfaqr now

Great video thomas!

thanks for sharing your numbers, highly interesting!

Thanks for this 🙌

very helpful bro, thanks.

Thank u so much , u open my mined from these tips .

Great tips, thanks Thomas

The first game I released was a little game called bird stealth psycho mission, it had horrible controls and probably wasn’t at the top of my bucket list when it was made. But it taught me many things which I had not gotten to, due to when making everything from scratch, such as how to get sound effects into your game, or how to switch between scenes.

great tips for marketing and networking! still working on a first release but im excited to get to a stage where I feel like part of the community :)

wow first to my suggestions list! Thank you Thomas! God bless you and your family!

These tips are amazing and the way you present stuff is great for my adhd

Thanks for all of the videos and inspiration! Some days I would just listen to your videos to keep my mind on the task of completing my first project. Keep up the good work and I'll keep turning in!

This will help me in making my first game, thanks dude!

Just take your favorite 'simple game' and make it. You can even expand on it a little to keep it interesting. I just chose sort the court as my simple game and I'm making a new version that has elements of harvest moon.

Starting is easy, but finishing is hard. I started without any concept, just practicing, but the whacky sketches turned into a full game eventually (nothing serious or released though). It was hard tying up the loose ends. I said to myself, for the next project ima think it all through so I can work according to a plan, instead of changing things back and forth. But making a plan can be difficult too. Sometimes I find myself over a blank page, thinking ok how shall it start, whats the premise? Many ideas just come along the way, while simply doing things without overthinking. I took a lesson from it. The better you become as a game dev, the more thought you can put into it. But at the start, just "play" with development and it'll lead you somewhere :)

Great tips! Thanks a lot

super pragmatic tips. thx for this. subscribed.

very good points and specialisation is key

Great video, gives a lot to think about.

Speaking of time, this style of video at 1.5-2x speed is always better. Great vid btw 👍👌

Sub’ed to your channel from this video alone; thanks for putting it out there.

He just helped me more in 8 minutes than others have done in hours!

Thanks! Great video!

Thanks for this video man.

Those are some good tips! Sadly, I didn't take into account all of them. I've worked almost 4 years (in my free time) on my game and after I released it on steam I was disappointed. I was kind of expecting it since I had about 100 wishlists. Game development is hard this days!

Thanks for doing this its so inspirational

Through High School I was learning to make games on my own on Unity and I was starting little projects and following KZfaq tutorials like a religion and getting confused and burnt out sometimes so I'd start a new one and didn't really realize how much I grew from that "failure". I would draw my own pixel art, follow someone's code and start to add my own features and learn a few new programs. And at the end of my junior year I had made a game with a friend for a school project and then made one over the summer I put onto Google Play called Pixels & Dragons which is like Asteroids. Now after a few years I'm starting a new game with that same friend to see what we can do in a month and what we can learn. Great video! Put the value of time into perspective. Don't slave over what you aren't good at, pay someone who is good at it!

Good points there Mr. Brush!

Awesome video, thanks

Thanks so much for this video, I was getting discouraged until I saw this vid

I needed this . I didn’t get the KZfaq notification, however I did get your email, thank you Thomas.

All fantastic points Thomas :)

Thank You 🙏🏾

Thomas I would LOVE a video about the first things you do when you open unity. You open unity, create a new file, then what? what are the first things you should do? Every video I see is either just showing off the features of unity or its a 7 hour long tutorial video that I don't have time or attention spand for. Love everything you make!

Newbie here, thanks for the tips. I'm going to now build a small game that I just made up. I'll see how well I do

great video man amazing tips there im making a fps survival horror game its getting there but takes alot of work since im a solo dev but im definitely using unreal 5 for it and youtube guides to help me out there so useful but keep up the work

insightful.

sick hat dude. I live right down the road from mckevlins!

Dude i love you bro...thanks...!!!

I was making my first game a decent small little horror game but I’ve become in love with this project and now wanna do some big stuff without technically I made a game before but accidentally deleted it all

Tip # 1 - Consider your hourly rate as a dev, and its relation to your budget. Tip # 2 - Don't make everything from scratch. Time is money! Tip # 3 - Don't make your first game your dream game. It should be your 15 minute crap game. You'll figure out your strengths. Tip # 4 - Focus on prototyping. It's easier to build in pieces, and funding will motivate you. Tip # 5 - Build a community. Discord and Social Media.

I started messing around with unreal yesterday, heres to a long journey ;)

thank you for this tips pro

Your designs are so amazing😭😭😭...Please make a video on atmosphere designing for beginners...thank you in advance

Thanks bro to enlighten me 😍👍

Since i was a little kid in the 90’s i’ve always wanted to make my own game(s). I will now begin the journey at least 25 years in the making. Wish me luck

Nice video, Thanks

Thank you so much this help to much to tell you but thanks so very much.

I honestly don't think I'd be able to do game development as a career, I want it more as a hobby but I'm legitimately scared to start. I hate failing and when you try something new you're bound to fail. This video did help boost my confidence some to try, though. Thank you for the tips!

Demn Nice vid with awesome tips

i like your balance between money and passion. I find only focussing on passion to lead to burn out, but then only doing it for the money would feel soulless.

❤I just love this guy. ❤

that's real great advice. Gonna start my making first crappy game soon.

Not starting my first game, but all were crappy, LOL! Great information! Thanks!

One thing that most people don't mention is that if you want to make your game available on steam you need either a job or some way of getting money patreon or whatever it is to pay for the $100 dollar fee to download the software needed to put your on steam.

Dear Thomas! A very happy holiday season to you! Your videos and experience are most inspiring for us amateurs! Thank you for taking out the time to share everything with us. I wanted to ask you, have you ever tried Visual Scripting? You have said in all your videos that you're not a coder so it's hard for you to work in C#. I haven't seen you ever use any VS tool, so why haven't you? And would you try in the future?? Since Bolt VS is now embedded with Unity, it's not too hard if you want to try.... I'm curious to see how you'll handle it.

I actually like building things from scratch, from the items, to the characters, maps, weapons, UI. It's just a nice little break from the nonstop math and brain power used to figure out how to make Thing A do this one function, while simultaniously trying to get Thing B work with Thing C. I'm not hating on anyone or anything here, but from my experience I guess it just depends on your attention span and your soul drive and passion. Plus it really is an absolute amazing feeling when you see something you made completely on your own work on how you intended. Maybe some agree with me, maybe some disagree. All in all, we're all doing our best and that's a beautiful thing. I hope everyone here builds their dream game someday, and it brings you nothing but fortune and success :)

2:50 honestly I didnt know before you told/showed it to me :D

I completely agree with you! These tips are super important and I kinda figured some of these out on my own as I'm about to release my first android crappy game XD

i released my first game as a crap game for a game jam and i learned alot in the one week and it boosts my ego to know that i can do it

HEY THOMAS ITS GREYSON!! This video helped lots, thanks!!!!

that joke at the start was so good

I'm not a game developer but I am an animator and my very small team and I are working in exactly this manner. Yes, we're developing a lot of our own assets but we're not making them from scratch. When we're done, we're hoping to work with an indie Dev to turn our story into a game.

YES YES NEW THOMAS BRUSH VID LETS GO I just got a merch store for my game up and im grinding through the level making progress so this timing is PERFECT

i finished unlimited simple car game , learned a lot of stuff in it , that is kind of special for me

Great video. Great information. But do you have any "how to make the game" videos. That walk you through the whole process ?

I'm 13 years old, I need to be mentaly prepared for my game idea, i really hope i can do this