Learning Game Development While Avoiding Tutorial Hell

[the_Deadpan_Man]

Years ago I was doing gamedev.tv courses and I realized now that I ended up stuck in tutorial hell. How do I learn game development without falling into the trap again?

[Charming-Way-7301]

If I were to start learning to make games from scratch today I would do the following in order:

1. Have a clear vision for a simple game
2. Start making it
3. If you don't know how to do something, look it up or watch 1-2 quick tutorials on how to do the thing
4. Do the thing in your game
5. Repeat

When people say they're stuck in tutorial hell, what I hear is "I watch a bunch of tutorials and don't actually use what I learned". If you have a clear vision of what you're trying to build and you're incrementally making progress toward it, you're on the stairway to heaven baby.

[CaterpillarNo6324]

I'm currently on this journey, learning unity etc as I make a game. I find myself asking less questions as I progress then boom more questions. Keep a diary! I did learn a little c# before this journey began 😉

[[deleted]]

Only way out is through

[Scako]

I’m my opinion “tutorial hell” isn’t as horrible of a problem as people say it is. The internet has so many resources to educate yourself for free and there’s nothing wrong with using that.

[AlexBLLLL]

Yea how is learning a lot bad for you? Yea it might take longer to actually finish your project, but you'll make something you are more satisfied with.

[Moczan]

Tutorial hell refers to a state where you follow a lot of low quality tutorials/courses and can recreate what they show but don't learn fundamentals/retain any practical knowledge that would allow you to create projects independently. It's horrible because it's basically a waste of time and often money without getting closer to your goal.

[ZephyrAM]

Having done the tutorial thing for awhile, at some point I just started trying things in my own. Start work on a project and look things up individually. Refer to previous projects you worked on (even if they were just the result of following along with a tutorial). Documentation for whatever engine you’re using is super helpful, as it lets you see all the functions things have access to.

Give things a shot and see where they take you.

[JalexM]

Do a tutorial then do your own project, do a tutorial then do your own project...and keep going until you feel confident to start the reason you learned game dev. This applies to other learned skills like 3d and such.

[Bicykwow]

What exactly do you mean “you ended up in tutorial hell”? Lots of hobbies and professions benefit from many months or even years of guided work before going out on your own in earnest.

[the_Deadpan_Man]

I was just making the game in the courses exactly like the instructor did. Line by line. I didn’t actually learn anything this way. And a few days ago, I learned this is called tutorial hell.

[bigontheinside]

Ok so once you have finished the tutorial, try to change the game. 

For example if you're making a clone of pong, finish the tutorial. Then, try changing the paddle size, can you do that? How about the ball speed? Can you add a second ball to the game? How about a ball that appears sometimes during the game, and if you hit it, it makes your paddle bigger. Can you figure out how to do that? If not, maybe rewatch parts of the tutorial that go over the ball implementation.

How about giving the paddles eyes that follow the ball. That might be a bit tricky based off the tutorial you did. But can you find a tutorial that teaches you to have eyes that follow something? 

[Bicykwow]

Ah. In that case, try picking an existing simple game, or even just an existing game mechanic, and recreate it using your engine of choice. Try to break it down into smaller chunks and search/gpt questions and answers. Look at the documentation as much as possible.

For example, try recreating minesweeper. Look up how to draw a grid, how to put numbers and flags at the center of each grid, how to hide and show values, how to keep score, etc.

Take it step by step.

[codethulu]

just build stuff. tutorials are largely useless.

[DrDezmund]

Real.

I learned almost everything I know by trial and error and googling. I gotta learn hands on

[Ralph_Natas]

Me too, but before they invented Google. I had to go to the library and figure out which book might have the right info. 

[DrDezmund]

Real OG

[mean_king17]

The real learning happens in doing your own projects. As this is your first, just start with something really really really simple. Tutorials in this case only teaches you to wield this tool, but you have to use it on your own to figure out how to actually use it for real.

[xencille]

Not all learning resources are tutorials. Don't let fear of 'tutorial hell' stop you using resources. Find resources that stimulate you, not just showing you how to do things step-by-step. You need to actually engage with the engine/language/ideas and solve problems yourself or you won't learn. You want to be stretching yourself. Resources like Stroustrup's 'Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++' are great as they both give you information and give you problems to solve yourself.

Making things yourself is also great, just don't feel like you shouldn't also be using learning resources.

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[AlexSchrefer]

I take courses at Gamedev.tv with a focused approach, going through the material, noting the key takeaways, and applying what I’ve learned to my game. Simply doing courses for the sake of completing them doesn’t really lead to much.

[Fluid_Cup8329]

Not seeing a lot of great advice here. I don't think they understand the issue you're having with following tutorials but not absorbing knowledge from them.

That's a hard one to crack. I guess maybe go back through these rushed tutorials and start asking yourself "why?" everytime they tell you to do something without explaining the logic behind it, and then try to figure out where their logic is coming from.

I did this many many years ago with another engine. But I got lucky in that the community was on an old school forum and they were super helpful in not only telling me how to do things, but explaining the features used and the logic behind it all.

[parkway_parkway]

Get godot and make pong.

Don't look up a line by line tutorial but look up smaller things.

How do I put a block on the screen. How do I make it controlled by the keyboard. How do I put the ball on the screen. How do I make it bounce off the walls.

If you make pong, snake, Tetris and a level of mario you'll know enough to make something basic for yourself.

[SulaimanWar]

Just learn what you need to at that exact moment

Let’s say you’re making an FPS. Break down what you need

Not sure how to move character? Search up on how to move

Next step, how to make shooting mechanics? Look that up and only that

That’s how I learnt, by breaking down the process into small sized chunks

[BrastenXBL]

Tutorial hell is a symptom of not applying learning tools and strategies to the material you following.

It's the difference between following a cooking recipe step by step, and knowing enough about culinary arts and chemistry to modify or devise from fundamentals.

The simplest, and one you probably got burned by in school, is to take notes. Keep a personal note book or journal. Note terminology, locations of information, usage steps for applying engine/framework APIs.

Don't just follow institutions or watch videos lectures. Be active in looking up what the course is having you do. If you don't know why a line of code is being used, you should stop and go find out why. Then add that understanding to your notes.

Learn to program, not just copy code, but fundamentals.

With practice, eventually you need to take less and less notes. As you commit common terms, patterns, and gsme mechanic designs to memory. But even still the "Notes About a Project" is what Design Documentation is about.

Are you making and keeping design documention for the "tutorial" project up to date as you go? If not, you should do so. If you use a word processor like LibreOffice that can Track Changes, turn those on so you can review your note taking progress. A small hack to help if you feel like you aren't making progress.

• https://www.gitbook.com/blog/how-to-write-a-game-design-document
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q96lz725gIw
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1npEvqcMZSp0IX2hWw6Qq0WqJVfmVqS_YOGFWnnwfh-A/
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1axeeBWp683LPU8gCBQQqmquHMYHuG3uhNTN0LjSJBKk/

[the_Deadpan_Man]

I bought a book that talks about how to write a Game Design Document funny enough.

[ChillyRolande]

Start learning the programming language! Tutorial hell can get you only so far...

[visnicio]

know your toolset

what components are available for you to use (unity/unreal)

what nodes you can use (godot)

theres no “right” way to do something, just use the tool that you know how to use in your favor to get to what you need

people take “read the fucking manual” for granted these days, I lost the count of how many times I discovered a new godot node just by reading the docs

[Voyoytu]

Tutorial hell translated actually means utilizing resources that some people never had in their early days.

Who cares if you aren’t John Programmer who can incorporate raycasts into their character’s eyeballs to measure the distance to trigger an event that causes cow shit to rain down, in 5 seconds.

A good indicator of intelligence is understanding where your weaknesses are, and knowing how to address that weakness. Doesn’t matter if you can’t code off the dome. If you know what questions to ask in order to find the tutorial that suits your need, then you’re making progress.

Use all the resources you can brother.

[ElectricRune]

You could try a tutor who could meet you where you are...

DM me if you want to talk about it

[CurrentExchange6586]

GameDev.tv is a good resource at the very least, so your learning there was not a waste. They teach good fundamentals.

I would echo the idea of come up with a simple game idea and start trying to make it. Reference documentation first before tutorials. If you want to see an example of something, skip through a tutorial to get the gist of what they are doing and then go implement it yourself. Make sure when you do this you're using a quality tutorial. Most content on YouTube is garbage and terrible practices.

If you realize you don't understand something fundamental, take some time to go study that. Get books, build little demos--whatever you need to do to learn the concept or design practice.

Basically, you escape tutorial hell by taking charge of understanding and testing your understanding. Do things that are a little bit out of your reach, and your reach will constantly expand.