Why is it so hard to make video games?

If you've ever asked yoursef that, or your completely new to making video games, then you might get something out of this.

This Series

The goal of this series is to save you from all the pain I had to go through, especially if you're someone like me who struggled for some time and felt somewhat hopeless about making your dream game.

Later on in life I have had the oppourtunity to be a Computer Science teacher. During that time I saw many students going through the same struggles I had. Those who were willing to try out my suggestions made a lot of progress making the games they dreamed of, and were able to continue to pursue their work after they left my class.

I want to try to share this lesson so that more people can enjoy this hobby!

I'll cover this topic in four parts:

1. Why is it so hard to make games
2. Making gamedev more accesible
3. Planning a project
4. Making progress and finishing your game

TLDR

As a summary of my advice, and who I think will benefit most from this approach check out these bullet points:

What is holding you back

• trying to make games that are too complex
• focusing on art rather than functionality
• not studying math
• not having a structure or plan
• Trying to learn too many things at the same time (I.E. learning how to use unity and how to make 3D models at the same time)
• being unrealistic about what is within your skill range

What will help you progress

• focusing on programming and math fundementals
• creating a plan for your project so you prioritize and see your progress
• starting with the simplest version of your ideas
• Learning one new idea at a time
• Leaving art and polishing for last

Who Might Benefit Most?

• newer programmers
• programmers who do not have strong math or graphics backgrounds
• folks who have tried making games before and gotten stuck
• people who want game dev to be a hobby, even if you aspire to be a professional later on

Who Might Benefit Least?

• People who are not willing to work on very basic games in order to learn fundementals
• People who are 100% dedicated to being a professional game developer

If this guide didn't help you, that sucks. Sorry! :(

My contact is on the home-page, tell me how I could have done better.

Resources

As I was trying to teach these ideas to my students I came across some resources that I ended up using again and again to teach certain concepts. I'll share some of those below to give you other places to look in case this guide isn't a good fit for you.

Lazy Devs on YouTube

This person was helpful in helping me find the words to express some of these ideas and for some really useful teaching material, like a crash course in using Pico-8 and the '30 circles test'.

Freya Holmer on YouTube

Freya covers some fundamental game dev maths, in a way that I found somewhat useful when teaching students about vectors and matricies

Collision Detection by Jeff Thompson

Jeff has done a great job of explaing the geometry needed to check if two shapes are touching, a wildly useful thing to be able to do in games. Also a great example of using the demo strategy. They are written in Java, which maybe you don't know, but I bet you can figure it out.

Red Blog Games

I stumbled across this page while trying to learn about A* pathfinding in college. I come back every couple of years and continue to be amazed and inspired by what I see. Common game-dev topics covered as rigorously as any professor I've had. Thank you Amit!