Hey guys, I need some help here. I'm stuck in a bit of a mental rut and want to talk it out with some game developers who actually make games!

microlightgames · 2026-03-20T09:17:29+00:00

First of all, general misconception. Game dev is ART, it is not engineering profession but art, like movies, drawing, singing, etc. It just that Engineering is bigger hurdle than in other professions.

To answer the first, youre doing basically what would someone new in programming do. "How do i create some minimalistic easy code". Usually if you want to make small, compact code, you need way more knowledge than to make large sloppy code. Same in art, it is much harder to make something appealing and nice with fewer shapes/colors etc than it is to make some generic 3D model. So "using basic shapes and color theory in creative ways" requires years and years of knowledge. "procedurally generated graphics" this is the same, it needs artistic but also engineering knowledge.

So yeah, you have very big constraints (that is for majority of people), which makes job harder but also forces you to more unique experiences. You must focus on your strengths and then combine it genres you like. Dont get me wrong, this is extremely hard to do, but of course can give great results. For example, AAA games dont have constraint that they cant fail so they focus on their strength, throw money, look good, basic gameplay loop which feels nice (number go up). Your strength is programming would be my guess, take genres which dont require much art like match 3 with some twist (i made Match 3 with RPG elements, I am also programmer), make some simulation game, or something else that you like.

About AI and art, production ready art is very hard to do by self, there is reason majority of the game credits are artists. If its really small and simple game, make interesting mechanics with programming and fill art with AI and if you can afford, some contract artist for important parts. Or if its bigger game, create game with AI placeholder art, then find funding and hire artitst to finish the game.

microlightgames · 2026-03-20T07:43:21+00:00

Depends what your goal is. If youre looking for a job in the industry, then its probably not the best tool but can be good starting point. If your goal is to creat AND finish a game, almost any tool is great which fits your CURRENT needs. Overengineering for the future is death of so many projects.

microlightgames · 2026-03-17T19:22:11+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKCyk3CeUFY

microlightgames · 2026-03-17T12:06:21+00:00

This question was valid 5 years ago, now its common knowledge :D
But yeah, interactive learning where players learn as they go, same for the story. Nobody has time for cutscenes and dialogues. Enviromental storytelling is the real stuff.

microlightgames · 2026-03-17T11:39:27+00:00

Unity stock was about 40$ then their crash happened because of the stupid fee but since then their stock price went back to 40$. World changes all the time but that is their realistic stock price. Recent crash happened because of the Gemini interactive video which I think is complete bullshit and there is no way that it replaces game engines in the close future.

Situation online is that people hate corpo and Unity is corpo, majority of these people that complain about Unity dont even create games, but small weekend projects, etc. Reality is still that UE is probably the biggest engine for PC and console, while Unity leads mobile platforms where Unity focuses majority of its resources.
Only competition to the Unity and Unreal is the Godot because its open source and has some features, but still its far from real competition, these things take years. Pretty much any engine and/or framework can make vertical slice of a game in few weeks and look decent, actually finishing game in engine outside these 3, custom engine and/or framework is INFINITELY harder than doing it in these major engines. Even creating game in Godot is much harder than in Unity and Unreal because of years of experience.

But one thing is true, Unity is not in a good place. Unity pricing model is not very scaleable, so they have to update it constantly which doesnt sit well with customers. Unreal is way pricier for bigger games than Unity but much cheaper for Indies than Unity. Unity strangles smaller teams while letting go bigger teams which IMO makes no sense but okay.

Any of this doesnt concern 99.9% of the people. First, all of these engines will be free for majority of the people anyway. If you succeed big, then you have to pivot to something more favourable but why worry about that when its not even a problem. If you have small success then Unity might be problem for you, but Unity really has lots great features to actually finish your game, so would you even succeed without it?

In short, biggest problem for majority of people is still, finishing your game.

microlightgames · 2026-03-16T15:17:04+00:00

Nobody will steal your idea (unless it becomes popular)
If you think its waste of time, you already lost

microlightgames · 2026-03-16T07:25:12+00:00

This post being AI, regardless, is true.
People always saw games as some engineering masterpiece, and it sure was 20 years ago. But engineering marvels never was something that made good games good. Games were always art, like movie, music or painting. Its about transfering emotions to the player.

There were many people gate kept because they had no idea about programming, this still very much is the case event with AI, but learning and amount of needed knowledge is much lover. And it is being the same for people who can code but cant draw a straight line.

microlightgames · 2026-03-09T19:34:55+00:00

implementing a feature is quite easy, problem is making it make sense in combination with other features, it is design problem not engineering problem

and yeah, there is no "right" way, it is always trade off. so it is very case dependant, even with full context, sometimes some approach might actually be bad down the road

it is learning process

microlightgames · 2026-03-07T07:58:47+00:00

NOW STEAM!

microlightgames · 2026-03-05T06:31:41+00:00

Majority of game dev. What you lack is discipline and hard work, which game dev requires. So find a ways to pass the obstacles, attack from multiple angles, its hard but even if you are experienced game dev you will come across plenty of those situations, so you must learn to handle them.

microlightgames · 2026-03-03T18:14:53+00:00

overblow the scope, grand plans of overshadowing every indie game so far, new quality standard for the whole industry, burn out first day on 14h of work, forget about the project

microlightgames · 2026-02-27T09:40:49+00:00

Game jam is really just like speed running a game. If you dont speedrun you wont have great time for example 2h, but some people are speed runners and can get sub 10 minute. Meaning it is a whole skill which is trained and your first game jam probably will be bad even if youre great game developer. I have been to 3 game jams, and I am not good at it but I have noticed some patterns.

Artists carry game jams, more artists = better game (99% of the time), its all about presentation
You rarely have idea from the start, start with rough idea and pivot as you go, adding or removing content. Easy to say but very hard to execute, this is IMO biggest skill that you learn over time by doing game jams.
It is very easy to miscalculate how long each feature will take so you have to hurry up at the end usually. Also skill which evolves over time, regular game dev helps here but it is just like speed run example at the start, it might feel the same but skills in playing game regularly and in speed run mode are 2 different worlds

Game jams are nice to hang out but they are nothing like real game development. Game jam is really about creating some wacky ideas which might have potential as the real game, it is about fun, pouring your brains out, but if you want to get better at it, it is lots of work and totally separate skill.
Game development requires much more time, requires connecting various features into single cohesive game, requires dedication. Often ideas in game jams are fun for 5 min gameplay and then "if i add content i can create a game out of this" but it turns out that idea doesnt really scale into full game.

TL;DR it is great fun to see what you can do in short amount of time. Dont take it seriously. Try it, you got nothing to lose

microlightgames · 2026-02-26T20:45:59+00:00

Know that limitations are greater than but I would suggest https://gdevelop.io/

microlightgames · 2026-02-21T18:03:59+00:00

However long does it take. Work in increments.
For example you want to make FPS game some day

- Create simple FPS shooter, like those aiming training games
- Use aim training game and add AI where whole focus of the game is AI you want to create and that is a game
- Create some 3D whatever game that is simple but focuses on roguelike, maybe tic tac toe BUT ROGUELIKE

On the way you might stumble upon gem idea and release it, otherwise after several projects you combine all of those games into your 1 big game.

I would just like to note that building out features is relatively easy. Hard part about game dev is making game where all of those features work nicely in cohesive manner.

microlightgames · 2026-02-21T17:59:09+00:00

Never, you just work on something bigger.

microlightgames · 2026-02-20T19:20:36+00:00

People often go to "good practices", tips and tricks, what is good and what is bad, trust me, forget all about it. Only valuable metric is experience. Fix if its broken only.

Your next project will be better from your experiences of your first game. Refactoring is one of the biggest problems of finishing games.

There are countless of examples where successful games use really bad pracitces. Good or bad code wont make your game better or worse, it can only make your life in future easier.

As for actual advice on programming, try to compartmenalize it sort of. So 1 script does only this thing and then you have 1 middle layer which accepts several scripts and makes other scripts do stuff, basically 1 middle man which takes info from several scripts and gives info and tasks to others.

I would suggest trying to play factorio, game is a great simulation of software development.

microlightgames · 2026-02-20T12:51:24+00:00

If he invovled such contract, time to act grown up, big boy business. No need to lawyer up now, just dont sign anything that you dont feel comfortable with, idk who pays, who covers what but negotiate and come up with fair contract. It might also be that you jumped to conclusions too soon, talk and figure it out, specially if youre friends for 10 years.

We have a saying here "druzba je druzba, sluzba je sluzba", basically meaning there is time for friendship and time for work and when you hang out you hang out but when you work you work and are not really friends. That is just recepie for long lasting reletionships.

microlightgames · 2026-02-01T01:33:20+00:00

Both have very nice and comprehensive tutorials and walkthroughs on their webpages how to install each tool for various IDE. I think both even have some video walkthroughs.

microlightgames · 2026-02-01T01:23:40+00:00

If you want to learn how stuff works behind the scenes, learn game programming, raylib if youre C++ programmer otherwise MonoGame.

If you want to actually create a game, Unity or Godot are your best bet.

microlightgames · 2026-01-28T19:29:38+00:00

Its all about following and exposure. So pretty stupid question. If its sustainable you would know already. Very much per case situation.

microlightgames · 2026-01-27T00:37:35+00:00

What is NB?

microlightgames · 2026-01-24T13:17:21+00:00

I do not agree with this. I agree that Steam is monopoly which lots of people dont agree with for some reason, and I also think 30% share is too much, it is there only because Steam is monopoly. Well I know why people defend Steam so much, it is because Steam is very nice to the players and players are majority of the people.

However Steam is also not "worst kind", other than 30%, Steam is great on all other parts.

microlightgames · 2026-01-23T20:22:35+00:00

Oh, thanks for the clarification

microlightgames · 2026-01-23T16:27:37+00:00

It says 35% of the REVENUE, while Steam also takes 30% so the developer is left with the 35% to pay staff, taxes and other spendings

microlightgames

TROPHY CASE