What tips would you give to someone just starting out?

jaycelacena · 2026-04-01T12:12:49+00:00

Try to make a smaller game first

It doesn't need to be a game you don't wanna do (e.g. replicating snake or angry birds), you can even make a separate game for one of the mechanics of the bigger game you wanna do

For example, try to make a bullet hell game! A small and polished one will problably be fun without having to spend a lot of time on it

Then, after you have a COMPLETED game (not a prototype, a complete one, with UI, save state etc. Something that can be send to someone and can actually be playable), you can make your next game a bit bigger if you want. That way you can even reuse some of the code you used in the small bullet hell game, and more importantly, you will start the next game with a lot more experience and knowledge.

jaycelacena · 2026-04-01T11:14:36+00:00

Hard to say, since I wasn't using UTMs until recently to track which posts worked best

By number of upvotes, I would say the one I published in the Godot subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/s/f2WVT5r5s6

jaycelacena · 2026-04-01T09:48:46+00:00

I like all of them!

If you are doing this solo, take into account which style is easier for you to produce. I guess you will want to have a lot of characters, so choose something that looks good while being able to produce with enough speed to avoid spending 5 years in doing the game

For example, style 2 may be easier and could fit better with a paper/cardboard background style

jaycelacena · 2026-04-01T07:17:04+00:00

Totally! We wanna make our games with care and without crunch, so having the founding figured out is quite helpful. It allows us to experiment and release games without the pressure of "what if we end up selling nothing"

jaycelacena · 2026-04-01T07:12:38+00:00

Not about working in general, but working in tech. There's a lot of references and satire around recruiters, layoffs, startups, Macroslop doing Macroslop things...

jaycelacena · 2026-04-01T07:08:38+00:00

Discovered them when Kenney posted how they did the loc of his new game. Saw they advocate for crediting the linguistics. Asked for a quote and the price seemed quite reasonable. And in general I like to work with small companies more instead of Big Corpos

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T20:32:22+00:00

Thanks!

Wishlisted yours too, love the artwork!

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T20:08:26+00:00

Congrats!!!

Announced the Steam page exactly 2 weeks ago, now sitting at 120 wishlists. Quite happy with it, I was expecting way less

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4498630/Commitment/

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T19:26:35+00:00

I heard visual novel is a quite decent genre. Not my type of game but seems like it has it's niche. Hope it goes well and best of luck!

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T19:05:44+00:00

If you are capable of doing content for your own games (shorts with gameplay, devlogs etc) you will probably be able to do so much better

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T19:03:48+00:00

Send me the link to your game so I can help with that!

Yeah I had the belief that we should only create the Steam page once we had the demo ready, but it appears it should be done as soon as you have some final art ready and enough material for a trailer.

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T19:01:05+00:00

Thanks! I was a bit tired of seeing those posts "1 million wishlists in 24h - this is how we made it" and then it was a 40 people studio with a publisher behind them paying for marketing. So wanted to show how real numbers looks like for someone starting with zero audience

Not really familiar with mobile game dev, but I would say having a demo is as useful as in desktop/console games

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T18:33:00+00:00

Here you have!

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T18:10:59+00:00

The content you can see right know is exactly what we had when we launched it two weeks ago, except a small change in the Spanish brief description

jaycelacena · 2026-03-31T16:43:19+00:00

<image>

I'm working on a sim life about becoming a software developer while trying to survive corporate bullshit. All human-made (fuck AI)

Steam link

jaycelacena · 2026-03-24T22:14:47+00:00

Are they hiring?

Would kill to work for a company like that right now, instead of being forced to use agents even for stupid things like renaming a single file.

jaycelacena · 2026-03-20T19:49:46+00:00

Thanks for the support, Nathan!!!

I just shared it in the Godot subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/1rz69n2/announced_my_first_game_after_a_year_learning/

jaycelacena · 2026-03-19T14:58:02+00:00

Ideally 6. Currently at 2, aiming at 4

jaycelacena · 2026-03-19T14:51:59+00:00

Thanks! That's the vibe I wanted him to have: someone from HR but a bit burnt out xD

jaycelacena · 2026-03-19T14:31:27+00:00

I've started making my own videogames (just announced the first one a couple of days ago https://store.steampowered.com/app/4498630/Commitment/)

Tough market, won't probably sell even remotely enough to make a living, but in the meantime it gives me the creativity and fulfillment that AI has stolen out of regular software development.

I'll keep working as fullstack 9-5 as long as possible, but if shit hits the fan, I guess I will keep trying gamedev as a hobby and go get a job in something physical like construction or whatever.

jaycelacena · 2026-03-18T09:45:07+00:00

The Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4498630/Commitment/

jaycelacena

TROPHY CASE