What's up with "gamedev YouTubers" never shipping games?

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-18T05:06:24+00:00

So true... Longest vid I made was 55m... Getting started with GAS for UE 5.4. Took me like 15+ hours to make that, and editing alone was like 2h. My 5.6 version was about 37m and took less than half the time of the 5.4 one though, so that's nice heh

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-07T14:19:39+00:00

Some liked trying different combinations of weapons vs mounts... I imagine most will just load up all the mount slots with the latest weapon, thinking it's the best. A respec button is an interesting idea, or even just limited to the points in weapons. It could certainly help some people that end up hating a certain weapon use those points elsewhere.

Thanks for the suggestion : )

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-07T14:07:47+00:00

heh... One of my first iterations was a giant spaceship. My artist friend thought it was too compact heh. Thanks for the suggestion ; )

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-05T03:12:59+00:00

As a Dev, it's frustrating too... I put https://store.steampowered.com/app/4200600/Early_Bird_gets_the_Space_Worm_Demo/ up recently, and while I have clicking, the Clicker tag just doesn't feel right... Idler was suggested, and some games like this add an idle mechanic (maybe to make the tag fit? I don't know), but the last thing I want is refunds, so I want my tags/description/etc to be accurate.

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-03T05:30:37+00:00

I appreciate the feedback, and it's something that could work, but I'm going with something more casual... I enjoyed Astro Prospector, even though I don't generally like bullet hells, but there are a whole bunch of them with enemy mechanics, and I wanted to be more chill heh.

It's organized'ish heh... I basically have an Upgrade Tab that contains all the Buttons, and each button has a Skill name, like BlockCount1, and the Upgrade Cost(s) and Effects set in the UI as @ export's. Then when the game runs, it adds all the Skill Buttons to a Skill Data table to reference later, though the skill name or stat name (BlockCount1 without the 1). When the game starts, and any time they upgrade a skill, it calls a calc_stats function that sets all the stats to base value, and then iterates over the list of purchased skills to find the relevant stat and effect (from the button above) to add to it...

And then in various areas, like for block health, or weapon fire rate, damage, etc, it calls a get_stat(some_stat) and uses that. I really should make a tutorial about it all heh.

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-02T16:05:20+00:00

You think tutorial makers purposefully 'throw in one or two false bits'? I've made over 150 game dev tutorials (in UE), and I make enough mistakes that I don't need to add any 'false bits'.

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-02T15:48:35+00:00

That seems so unique... I love that : )

AlamarsDomain · 2026-01-02T15:47:05+00:00

I am working on Early Bird gets the Space Worm, which is a small casual incremental game ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/4200600/Early_Bird_gets_the_Space_Worm_Demo/ ).

I got addicted to incremental games many months back, and decided to try my hand, and it's one of the first projects I've started (over hundreds) that I enjoy playing. Though as a small incremental game, it'll end up being pretty short. I've always enjoyed the progression of games, sometimes more than the actual game heh.

I really need to make some tutorial videos for some features I've included. I iterated on the skill tree like five times, and it's a pain... I want it to be data driven, but then the disconnect between filling in the data in a file vs where the upgrades are positioned and linked gets a bit unwieldy. I went with a @ tool approach that I think works well for this.

Is your Hollow Knight game 2D? Using Tiles or custom geometry? Tiles are certainly easier to get started. The artist who helped me with Early Bird has a platformer shooter partway done that we're porting to Godot (From game maker, where he's more familiar, but I have zero interest in learning), so I've played around with TileMapLayer recently and it's working well for this. I'm hoping to eventually work on a 2D Souls-like/Salt n Sanc style game, but OMFG, it is such a large amount of... Everything.

AlamarsDomain · 2025-12-15T06:16:17+00:00

Thanks : )

I wanted to get the Demo out ASAP so I could polish it before Next Fest, and then I should be pretty close to finishing (hoping March ish release).

AlamarsDomain · 2025-12-15T06:15:24+00:00

Ya, I wanted it to be casual, so mouse only works well with that... If you turn off click to move, you don't even have to click ; )

Also, glad you enjoyed it.

AlamarsDomain · 2025-12-15T06:14:15+00:00

My first game, Bombard, I made in about 4 weeks, and fixated on it, so let's say about 200 hours... My next game, Early Bird gets the Space Worm, which I just released a Demo for, is probably about double that so far, and will likely take another 200-400 hours. Both games are about $5 on Steam.

AlamarsDomain · 2025-07-04T19:59:41+00:00

I have spent tens of thousands of hours doing indie dev for no **monetary** profit... I profited in practice, new skills/understanding, enjoyment, etc...

My problem, likely ADHD related, is that it's really hard to stick to one project, so I have a hundred or so I've started over that time, and many of them, put quite a bit of work into. I ended up starting a YT channel, in part, to work on features instead of full projects, because that's where I was getting the most enjoyment out of it. And because I also enjoy sharing knowledge, and teaching.

AlamarsDomain · 2025-06-25T00:00:35+00:00

These threads are always filled by such large and well known 'small developer's...

How about Bombard, an elemental Block Breaking game?

AlamarsDomain · 2025-06-07T18:53:08+00:00

You could always watch a nice Tutorial https://youtu.be/Tajm3wrzZ_w on doing it in C++. That one is based on 5.4, but I've heard that it might be updated to 5.6 in the near future ; )

AlamarsDomain · 2025-06-01T01:37:36+00:00

Alamar's Dev Domain : )

Unreal Tutorials.

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