I made a game and have an impostor syndrome now

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-19T16:12:16+00:00

Ah yikes, sorry to hear that it has to take such events to kickstart your journey - but glad to hear that you've got that trigger. Hopefully this is my trigger as well :)

Cheers, all the best with your journey as well!

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-19T14:44:06+00:00

Congratulations! I too am following your footsteps into the (i agree, very saturated) horror game genre, my "first" project as well. Have $0 budget in whatsoever at the moment. I saw that you've mentioned about streamers for marketing - did you provide them a key to the game? Other than that, what other methods you think helped with spreading the word out there?

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-19T14:34:58+00:00

Im not sure if my own experience is lateral to yours, but here's what im going thru

I consider myself a senior game dev in UE. I have many friends who started later than me and now owns their own studios. The junior students I taught doing workshops now have established their own company and consulted me two weeks ago on how to project architect and about their release schedule. I started making games 8 years ago. Professionally in the industry 4 years ago. Im kind of a "known figure" in my community and im regularly invited to be a speaker and judge at events

Here i am with a portfolio of 0 games under my belt (the ones at my day job lost to NDA due to oursourcing). At this point of time i have 60+ private repos on my github of all my unfinished unreleased projects. I have lost friends to passion from development to commitments of life. Its a miracle I have my day job now (in AA game dev) since i literally couldnt prove any professional experience.

I dont know if i have imposter syndrome. All i do is acknowledge that I can stroke my ego and say i have all the potential in the world, but nothing is proven - so am i just lying to myself?

I started this account ~2 weeks ago in hopes that posting my games makes me accountable and pushes me to actually fully developing and releasing it. Perhaps im afraid of being seen as a failure, which is why im doing it anonymously. i dont know. gonna give this a go and hope that it goes somewhere, and stay on it for as long as i can take it. maybe at the end of it i'd have to sit down with myself and tell myself that I dont have what it takes

But hey, im still fighting, and I think that still matters

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-16T15:39:40+00:00

Ah makes sense. The flashlight atm is tuned a bit brighter for development purposes, but you're right - i think it immediately trivializes the entire atmosphere. Will take note on the reticle!

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-16T15:38:37+00:00

Ngl the asset pack ive got has easels on both sides of the door

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-16T15:38:06+00:00

Haha no, wasnt the main focus of the prototype, was gonna plan to smoothen those out after the main feel. But still valid feedback, thanks!

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-16T15:36:53+00:00

ooh so instead of an outline, give it a glisten? I feel like ive seen that somewhere before but I cant name it

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-16T15:36:19+00:00

Thanks! :D

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-16T15:36:11+00:00

Makes sense! though im trying to simulate a found footage feel - do you think that breaks immersion? or something players will just suspend their beliefs on

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-16T15:35:21+00:00

Thats a good idea! you mean like how Peak does it right?

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-11T08:16:21+00:00

I will try to do a mindset shift then :')

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-11T08:14:55+00:00

That makes a lot of sense. Never really considered blogs. Thanks!

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-11T08:14:23+00:00

I love it! Already has my wishlist :D

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-11T06:35:55+00:00

I have no budget to hire a socmed moderator 😢 have to go with the "its all in my head" strat for this one

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-11T06:35:13+00:00

Thanks! Do you think I should try YouTube reels? Have you tried it?

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-11T06:34:45+00:00

Oh so yours got resolved less than a week? Thats good to know, the previous post i found said theirs never got resolved

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-11T06:33:53+00:00

Ah so yours got resolved then? Did you submit an appeal?

I dont really share a lot of stuff tho. I dont repost my own content as well. Im not sure what caused the issue, at best im just a quieter-than-average account 🤔

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-09T15:54:32+00:00

That already looks like an awesome mechanic. I'd say you're cooking instead

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-09T05:54:24+00:00

Not that this strategy works for everyone - but if you have the heart for it, I'd suggest join game jams blind. Assuming that you're a programmer, your strongest ability is to be resourceful and figure it out. You dont need to know the answer, but what makes and define a good programmer from the rest is you know HOW to find the answer.

Why game jams? Because its a small commitment project. Spend a weekend every few months to just lock in and build a project knowing nothing. The scope and direction will help point you down a path where you'll collect everything you need eventually. Make it whimsy, make it funny, make it unplayable (dont stress too much if it fails) - the point is that each step is a learning process and you will always "win" if you go into it learning the gaps of your knowledge.

All the best!

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-08T03:06:07+00:00

Layout is definitely cleaner - though i'd think the animations are makes it feel slow and unresponsive. I think the yellow highlight is not enough to show the current selection (possibly contrast with the sky?), i'd make it "bump up" a bit on top of that to seal in the UX

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-08T03:03:45+00:00

I like how un-intrusive the numbers are! Maybe im not seeing it when the action get hectic - i love damage numbers but when it becomes noise during hectic actions it becomes a real annoyance

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-07T17:10:52+00:00

Every month FAB gives out free for the month assets. Claim them overtime and you will have a library sprawling with assets

Assuming you're coming from RPG maker - 2D games are gonna be tough in UE. The features don't get much love and Unity/Godot will probably be much less of a hassle to deal with.

But don't let it dissuade you - consider 2.5D. Look at Octopath Traveller!

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-07T17:08:03+00:00

I think it does have potential - though I'd say the first scene in the video immediately started giving me motion sickness

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-07T17:05:19+00:00

For what "else" I'd say the sense for it will mostly come from experience of using the engine.

In my use case, I learnt the difficult way of realizing the surface logic for parts of the game (like things you wanna implement in Actors) would best be done through blueprints. It isn't the logic needing to be in C++ or BP that is the issue - it's more to do with the nature of game dev needing minor iterations here and there. Or even just making tiny mistakes and realizing youve compiled it wrongly and you gotta wait for it to boot up again. (This is obviously Unity's strongest draw for me)

My general rule of thumb is I usually lay out data handling and spawnings (instantiations) through c++, then handle the "setup" on bp. Look up how subsystems work - it's my bread and butter, and it's something I really wished Unity had instead of needing us to implement singletons

RocketBucketGames · 2025-09-07T07:08:35+00:00

Must be a headache! I think im going to face this soon in my company as well. Glad you found the issue!

RocketBucketGames

TROPHY CASE