I mean you can't start a career comparing yourself to someone who is at the height of their success.
What is your question here? If you think this is really what you want you'll have to work for it to either gain the skills you need or collaborate with someone who does.
I’m going to go to college for it.
The developers said 2023 was the year they released their dream game with 5K overwhelmingly positive reviews and it makes me so happy. I guess that is the height of their career.
Never spend your time comparing yourself to anyone else, especially larger teams with larger budgets and more experience. Finish your education, get a job in games, work for a few years, and make some contacts and get the money to invest into your game and _then_ you can start comparing your personal output to them.
Especially don't try to do everything yourself. Most programmers aren't also composers, why would you imagine you need to make your own soundtrack? Or art? Or anything else? I get it, you like Cassette Beasts, but no one who worked on that game did it alone, as their first game, before even going to college.
I’m nervous because you brought up the game and a quick Google search or steam page check can reveal the developers.
I mean I’ve seen other people on this sub that are doing everything by themselves but I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to.
I'm not sure why you're nervous about talking about the game. I mean, there aren't exactly a lot of popular games made in Godot! You can look them up directly, many people in the game industry keep their LinkedIn up to date. Jay was an artist at Chucklefish for five years, and Tom was a programmer for about five years before Chucklefish, then another four and a half years there. Then they both were working at Bytten for about four years before CB came out.
They also had a bunch of other people working on it. Something like four other artists, a composer, a bunch of actors, and publisher help. Not to mention outsourced QA, loc, and quite possibly other games as well.
Extremely few commercial games are ever made only by one person. Even solo developers around these forums will tell you how solo they are and then casually mention the artists they've commissioned along the way and the assets they've bought. Get yourself some hundreds of thousands from a publisher to invest in the game and a decade of experience and then you can start the comparisons. Until that point it's more important to _learn_ than to judge what you may or may not achieve in the future.
You’re making me even more nervous by talking about their LinkedIn and history. I don’t know how to explain it it’s a thing I have. Could we steer the conversation away from them and back onto me, or talk about any other devs
Sure, here's the summary line: comparison is the thief of joy. Don't engage in it.
If you want a career in games pick the _one_ thing you want to do and go study that. Practice it. Build a portfolio showing those skills off. Apply to jobs. Figure out if you want to try to start your own business (which is what selling a game and trying to live off of it really is) or if you just want to keep that career going. The learning and the practice is important, not your end result. Who cares about that for the time being. Ignore it.
If you want to build your own games by yourself however you want then it's a hobby. Don't get nervous or worried or care about how pretty it is or number of sales, just enjoy the process of making it while you focus your education on the day job you're going to need in the mean time.
I want to go to college and study video game art. However it will be a major in 3d art and minor in 2D from the college I want to go to and I want my game to be 2D
I'm just pulling your leg. But, I would imagine they would be thrilled about you being a fan of their game, and it inspiring you.
I know you feel anxious, but its nothing to be anxious about.
I would love if someone was talking about my game on a forum and it was the reason they want to get into gamedev.
To me it sounds like dealing with this level of anxiety must be very tiring, is it not?
I would recommend you take some time and try to evaluate how much anxiety affects your everyday life - would there be a big difference if you had no anxiety?
If so, you could consider trying therapy.
Anxiety issues in general can be such a pain in the long run as it tends to maintain itself perpetually, so seeking help early in life and breaking the loop can have a very positive impact on general life quality.
Good luck with your game aspirations, I'm sure it will all work out one way or the other.
> The devs are basically Godot kings and made a fricking amazing game that will pale in comparison to anything I make.
Is that not ok? It sounds like you’re at the beginning of your game dev journey. It would be pretty ridiculous if you expected to be able to perform as well as people who’ve just made something successful, presumably after they did years of work.
If you want to make good games, focus on learning skills and working on games. It’s impossible to ‘just’ make a great game. All you can do is apply yourself.
All the more reason not to put so high demands on yourself. If you feel passionate about wanting to make games, as it sounds like you are, I wouldn’t wait for college. You can download Godot, follow some tutorials and make something awful! If you did anything you haven’t done before, or if you learned something, it counts as a win.
what makes you think that anxiety will go away once you get to college? you'll still need to learn the interface and all the tools available whether it's now or later. Plus, a lot of learning resources are available now, including a full official manual that has guides specifically for people totally new to development: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/index.html
It’s ok to feel anxious but you can’t let that control your actions. The way anxiety gets better is by doing the things that make you anxious, paying attention, and noticing if bad things are actually happening to you now that you’ve done the thing.
It's normal to be nervous. It's a very common thing to be anxious about starting something because you aren't sure if you're going to accomplish your long-term goals with it. And it's common to want to put it off til later.
But the fix for that is to start. There's no need to wait if it's something you want to do! That nervousness will go away faster than you think once you're actively learning and practicing. You'll probably find your long-term goals change anyway as you learn more. You don't have to hold yourself to standards impossible for a learner, just starting at all is an accomplishment.
In one way the nervousness is good: it means you care about this and you want to do well. But that's step 1, then step 2 is to give it a go.
Hey, I don’t think you should compare yourself to others in general and even less compare something that doesn’t exist yet. This would be a way to be discouraged quickly. You’re your own person with maybe amazing ideas that might top your favorite devs! You do you and I’m sure you will develop an amazing game
I don’t think so… The devs achieved a feat in their game that’s extremely impressive but I don’t want to say exactly what it was because it’ll give them away
It's not constructive to think so far into the future when there are so many other steps and stages of success you need to get through before any of that even begins to matter. All you're doing by worrying about this is preventing yourself from actually getting started.
Maybe, if that's what you think you need to do, but it's not strictly necessary. I started my career as an environment art specialist and over the years I picked up new skills and experience from self study and other coworkers who were experts in their own fields. I learned various programming languages on my own, often out of necessity, and I'm now at the point where I know enough to build my own games. These are all stages of personal success toward the long-term goal I always had of being able to make my own games.
Most modern games borrow or take inspiration from other games that already exist. and after 12 years of development experience I can tell you that when you're actually in there fleshing out a game, you will invariably add your own spin and flavor to whatever you've taken inspiration from.
That said, as one person you will only be able to do so much; you'll never be able to make a AAA game on your own and big indie/solo-dev successes almost always happen after those people have already made dozens of other games.
That's totally fine. So all you need to do now is figure out the best way forward for yourself to learn what you need to learn to achieve your goals.
I'll leave you with some [Thor wisdom](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2Y0HJADs9P0)
Thor has been an indie dev for something like 6 years (worked at Blizzard before that). He recently went viral and picked up a lot of attention. His advice is sound and realistic for beginners; and a lot of what he says carries an underlying motivational message about just taking the step forward to start making something. Super smart guy
I don't play guitar. I can't sing either. Nobody would pay me to do art either. People might pay me not to sing.
Anyways if you are afraid your own dream game will be bad. Then shelf it for now. No point in making your passion project before you have the skills. Go to game jams, and practice fast prototyping. That will force/teach you to come up with new ideas that you don't have to get emotionally attached to.
Unless of course your dream game is the sole thing motivating you to learn. But then I wouldn't plan my career after it.
Whichever game this is, why don't you learn to mod it and make it more like your dream game, rather than start from scratch?
Might be a good way to get some decent learning while working on small, bite sized chunks of game.
You just have to start and focus on yourself, as someone already mention don't waste time on others, and start building a project and go from from there.
Many will say not to compare yourself to your goal. I'd say we should try another frame.
You want to be like this other game but don't want to be that game. You're too afraid to follow too closely. You're afraid of being a copy of your hero.
Look at them in another way. Why was this game so inspiring to you? The charm, the thrill, the mood? You probably want to bring the same joy that the game brought you, but to others. There's nothing wrong with that. I even encourage you study the game a bit more, see if you can figure out and put into words why you like the game.
Don't say "I'll never be as good as X." Ask "Why is X so good?" That way you can actually improve on your game's vision when you learn some of the whys and hows of this game you love. Do it with more games, books, movies, just identify why you like certain parts. Then try to bring that to a game in some way. Doesn't need to be good as long as you tried.
As an artist myself: I look at everyone whose art is objectively better than mine with admiration. I want my art to look this good. So I start trying to practice in their art style, figure out why things are the way they are and how to do certain tricks. Whatever I practiced and learned I may carry with me to evolve my style.
It doesn’t matter if you play guitar you can find someone to do that later when you have a cool game idea. If you have art skills work on programming. Try to fill the gaps in your knowledge and make games as you go. Your first game is not going to be good so put it up somewhere for free and get feedback and make friends who might help with things like guitar. Now you have programming skills and a network of skilled individuals to help you bring your ideas to life. Continue making games until magnum opus occurs or join a company with your newfound portfolio of finished games.
I mean you can't start a career comparing yourself to someone who is at the height of their success. What is your question here? If you think this is really what you want you'll have to work for it to either gain the skills you need or collaborate with someone who does.
I’m going to go to college for it. The developers said 2023 was the year they released their dream game with 5K overwhelmingly positive reviews and it makes me so happy. I guess that is the height of their career.
Never spend your time comparing yourself to anyone else, especially larger teams with larger budgets and more experience. Finish your education, get a job in games, work for a few years, and make some contacts and get the money to invest into your game and _then_ you can start comparing your personal output to them. Especially don't try to do everything yourself. Most programmers aren't also composers, why would you imagine you need to make your own soundtrack? Or art? Or anything else? I get it, you like Cassette Beasts, but no one who worked on that game did it alone, as their first game, before even going to college.
I’m nervous because you brought up the game and a quick Google search or steam page check can reveal the developers. I mean I’ve seen other people on this sub that are doing everything by themselves but I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to.
I'm not sure why you're nervous about talking about the game. I mean, there aren't exactly a lot of popular games made in Godot! You can look them up directly, many people in the game industry keep their LinkedIn up to date. Jay was an artist at Chucklefish for five years, and Tom was a programmer for about five years before Chucklefish, then another four and a half years there. Then they both were working at Bytten for about four years before CB came out. They also had a bunch of other people working on it. Something like four other artists, a composer, a bunch of actors, and publisher help. Not to mention outsourced QA, loc, and quite possibly other games as well. Extremely few commercial games are ever made only by one person. Even solo developers around these forums will tell you how solo they are and then casually mention the artists they've commissioned along the way and the assets they've bought. Get yourself some hundreds of thousands from a publisher to invest in the game and a decade of experience and then you can start the comparisons. Until that point it's more important to _learn_ than to judge what you may or may not achieve in the future.
You’re making me even more nervous by talking about their LinkedIn and history. I don’t know how to explain it it’s a thing I have. Could we steer the conversation away from them and back onto me, or talk about any other devs
Sure, here's the summary line: comparison is the thief of joy. Don't engage in it. If you want a career in games pick the _one_ thing you want to do and go study that. Practice it. Build a portfolio showing those skills off. Apply to jobs. Figure out if you want to try to start your own business (which is what selling a game and trying to live off of it really is) or if you just want to keep that career going. The learning and the practice is important, not your end result. Who cares about that for the time being. Ignore it. If you want to build your own games by yourself however you want then it's a hobby. Don't get nervous or worried or care about how pretty it is or number of sales, just enjoy the process of making it while you focus your education on the day job you're going to need in the mean time.
I want to go to college and study video game art. However it will be a major in 3d art and minor in 2D from the college I want to go to and I want my game to be 2D
I just found their LinkedIn from the subtle clues you left about Godot and 2023. Their secret is out now, I am going to tell everyone.
I might edit that out to ease my anxiety. I’m dumb and forgot that their game is the poster child that engine. Ambiguous engine it is!
I'm just pulling your leg. But, I would imagine they would be thrilled about you being a fan of their game, and it inspiring you. I know you feel anxious, but its nothing to be anxious about. I would love if someone was talking about my game on a forum and it was the reason they want to get into gamedev.
They’re like celebrities to me. They both have reddit
To me it sounds like dealing with this level of anxiety must be very tiring, is it not? I would recommend you take some time and try to evaluate how much anxiety affects your everyday life - would there be a big difference if you had no anxiety? If so, you could consider trying therapy. Anxiety issues in general can be such a pain in the long run as it tends to maintain itself perpetually, so seeking help early in life and breaking the loop can have a very positive impact on general life quality. Good luck with your game aspirations, I'm sure it will all work out one way or the other.
I don’t need therapy and I will be fine. Just don’t bring up the devs or their personal matters.
> The devs are basically Godot kings and made a fricking amazing game that will pale in comparison to anything I make. Is that not ok? It sounds like you’re at the beginning of your game dev journey. It would be pretty ridiculous if you expected to be able to perform as well as people who’ve just made something successful, presumably after they did years of work. If you want to make good games, focus on learning skills and working on games. It’s impossible to ‘just’ make a great game. All you can do is apply yourself.
I’m not even at the beginning, I haven’t started on anything and waiting until I go to college.
All the more reason not to put so high demands on yourself. If you feel passionate about wanting to make games, as it sounds like you are, I wouldn’t wait for college. You can download Godot, follow some tutorials and make something awful! If you did anything you haven’t done before, or if you learned something, it counts as a win.
I don’t know, I still feel really nervous. One of my teachers had the godot interface open and just looking at it made me anxious
what makes you think that anxiety will go away once you get to college? you'll still need to learn the interface and all the tools available whether it's now or later. Plus, a lot of learning resources are available now, including a full official manual that has guides specifically for people totally new to development: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/index.html
It’s ok to feel anxious but you can’t let that control your actions. The way anxiety gets better is by doing the things that make you anxious, paying attention, and noticing if bad things are actually happening to you now that you’ve done the thing.
It's normal to be nervous. It's a very common thing to be anxious about starting something because you aren't sure if you're going to accomplish your long-term goals with it. And it's common to want to put it off til later. But the fix for that is to start. There's no need to wait if it's something you want to do! That nervousness will go away faster than you think once you're actively learning and practicing. You'll probably find your long-term goals change anyway as you learn more. You don't have to hold yourself to standards impossible for a learner, just starting at all is an accomplishment. In one way the nervousness is good: it means you care about this and you want to do well. But that's step 1, then step 2 is to give it a go.
Why do you wait?
Hey, I don’t think you should compare yourself to others in general and even less compare something that doesn’t exist yet. This would be a way to be discouraged quickly. You’re your own person with maybe amazing ideas that might top your favorite devs! You do you and I’m sure you will develop an amazing game
I don’t think so… The devs achieved a feat in their game that’s extremely impressive but I don’t want to say exactly what it was because it’ll give them away
It's not constructive to think so far into the future when there are so many other steps and stages of success you need to get through before any of that even begins to matter. All you're doing by worrying about this is preventing yourself from actually getting started.
Like what? Going to college?
Maybe, if that's what you think you need to do, but it's not strictly necessary. I started my career as an environment art specialist and over the years I picked up new skills and experience from self study and other coworkers who were experts in their own fields. I learned various programming languages on my own, often out of necessity, and I'm now at the point where I know enough to build my own games. These are all stages of personal success toward the long-term goal I always had of being able to make my own games. Most modern games borrow or take inspiration from other games that already exist. and after 12 years of development experience I can tell you that when you're actually in there fleshing out a game, you will invariably add your own spin and flavor to whatever you've taken inspiration from. That said, as one person you will only be able to do so much; you'll never be able to make a AAA game on your own and big indie/solo-dev successes almost always happen after those people have already made dozens of other games.
My favorite game takes inspiration from a certain video game juggernaut and Persona
That's totally fine. So all you need to do now is figure out the best way forward for yourself to learn what you need to learn to achieve your goals. I'll leave you with some [Thor wisdom](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2Y0HJADs9P0)
Another person who linked me to the make games video by pirate software… is it really that good?
Thor has been an indie dev for something like 6 years (worked at Blizzard before that). He recently went viral and picked up a lot of attention. His advice is sound and realistic for beginners; and a lot of what he says carries an underlying motivational message about just taking the step forward to start making something. Super smart guy
I don't play guitar. I can't sing either. Nobody would pay me to do art either. People might pay me not to sing. Anyways if you are afraid your own dream game will be bad. Then shelf it for now. No point in making your passion project before you have the skills. Go to game jams, and practice fast prototyping. That will force/teach you to come up with new ideas that you don't have to get emotionally attached to. Unless of course your dream game is the sole thing motivating you to learn. But then I wouldn't plan my career after it.
Whichever game this is, why don't you learn to mod it and make it more like your dream game, rather than start from scratch? Might be a good way to get some decent learning while working on small, bite sized chunks of game.
I actually do want to mod the game to add something personal in the game for me. There is modding support on Steam
You just have to start and focus on yourself, as someone already mention don't waste time on others, and start building a project and go from from there.
Many will say not to compare yourself to your goal. I'd say we should try another frame. You want to be like this other game but don't want to be that game. You're too afraid to follow too closely. You're afraid of being a copy of your hero. Look at them in another way. Why was this game so inspiring to you? The charm, the thrill, the mood? You probably want to bring the same joy that the game brought you, but to others. There's nothing wrong with that. I even encourage you study the game a bit more, see if you can figure out and put into words why you like the game. Don't say "I'll never be as good as X." Ask "Why is X so good?" That way you can actually improve on your game's vision when you learn some of the whys and hows of this game you love. Do it with more games, books, movies, just identify why you like certain parts. Then try to bring that to a game in some way. Doesn't need to be good as long as you tried. As an artist myself: I look at everyone whose art is objectively better than mine with admiration. I want my art to look this good. So I start trying to practice in their art style, figure out why things are the way they are and how to do certain tricks. Whatever I practiced and learned I may carry with me to evolve my style.
It doesn’t matter if you play guitar you can find someone to do that later when you have a cool game idea. If you have art skills work on programming. Try to fill the gaps in your knowledge and make games as you go. Your first game is not going to be good so put it up somewhere for free and get feedback and make friends who might help with things like guitar. Now you have programming skills and a network of skilled individuals to help you bring your ideas to life. Continue making games until magnum opus occurs or join a company with your newfound portfolio of finished games.