VLOG: How to finish an indie game (even when you hate it)

[ddabrahim]

Hay, I figured for a change instead of posting a bunch of how to how to, I post a VLOG I did find recently.

It is 2 videos where the developer of The First Tree talks about

1# How he got started and how he finished his very first game
2# How he kept going forward and finished his best selling The First Tree even when he hated it and it is somewhat connecting to his first game so I recommend watch that too.

I watched many indies talked about how they finished their best selling game and made like $12k and how they kept going through fire and sacrificed everything while they did actually hired people to get the job done for them and how they grown from being just 1 dev to become a Studio b***t.

What I like about the above videos is that It is only a few minutes long genuine story of 1 everyday person, not a studio and like it how modest the guy regardless he released his title for all existing platforms and he made at least $500k judging form the numbers he mentioned.

 

[MikeHart]

Yes, I saw these. Great inpirational videos.

 

[Pierrou]

Nice indeed now I'm going back to actually finishing my game

 

[ddabrahim]

One of my favourite thoughts he shared is to never have a 0% day even if you hate it feel no motivation, even if you are very busy or tired but find at least few minutes each day to do something, anything, art, sound, game logic, level design and focus on things that you can do don't hang up on staff that is beyond you.

I can relate to this thoughts very much because this is exactly why I have never released any of my original work.
Of course I did finished small projects, experiments but nothing complete and original that was worth releasing on Steam or Play Store, and this is exactly why. One day feel tired, not so motivated decide have a break for 1 day and 1 day turns in to days which turns in to weeks then months and never find your way back or I was focusing too much on things that I was lack the skills and experience to do it and eventually got sick of trying, burnt out and never finished the game even though it could have been fun with just what I can actually do.

It is so easy to get off track and lose motivation and blame life, work, lack of time, money, skills and limitations in tools which is an other inspiring thing about the above VLOG specifically because the guy was lack of everything. Was busy with life and family, did not have lot of spare time, often just 10-30 minutes, did not have money to spend, did hate his day job which also suck your energy out even more and didn't know how to code. But was keep moving forward with the tools and skills he had in the bag in that very little spare time he had between work and family and finished basically 2 games.

I can relate to this story very much because this is exactly how I am everyday, except the last part of keep going forward and finishing the game.
I admit, in-fact the very reason I am here now and begin to use Cerberus is that I am trying to overcome some lack of skills I have and I'm hoping if I do as much as I can from scratch with a little help from mojo, going to help me to learn the skills I'm missing and overcome some of the obstacles I run in to. Just can't help it