What Can We Learn From Solo Devs?

Read Time: 4 Minutes

I’m going to be sharing some videos today about people who decided to try to make a game.

As experienced game devs, we may be tempted to view these “inexperienced” solo devs as naive noobs, assuming a condescending attitude and sitting back on our vast wisdom. 

This is a mistake.

What I saw making these videos? 

The solo devs ran into some of the exact same problems many famous studios with lots of money and many devs encounter.

The scale is different, but the fundamental challenges of game dev remain the same.

I know, I know, usually I talk about leadership in game dev, but part of being a leader is being grounded in reality, and the reality is our industry is changing. Solo devs are able to do things faster today than ever before in history, especially with how available contract work is around the world.

Roblox, UEFN, and other UGC platforms are populated with millions of players who are experiencing games in a way I could not have imagined when I was 12. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

But many of these are profitable products worth millions.

So here’s a couple videos of inexperienced solo devs attacking the challenge of making games.

The problems we face - no matter where we’re at - are more similar than we’d like to admit. 

I Made A Game In Unreal In 14 Days… (No Experience) by Jack Sather

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcJEYB7aQQo

Two weeks, let’s watch Jack make a game!

…or, let’s watch Jack work on a ground plane. And play with grass and vegetation. And tinker with Blender, and go down many rabbit holes of helpful videos, and get distracted by youtube.

Let’s watch Jack do many things that we do, at scale, in game dev.

Sure, some of the comments tell Jack he should’ve “started with the core game and done a quick prototype / white box” and maybe we would’ve done that.

But how many times have you seen experienced game devs chasing some little insignificant problem way past the point of it being worth it?

How many times has the lack of a cohesive vision for what the game even is led to a lot of people spending a lot of time doing work that doesn’t matter?

Oh, and how many times have you seemingly done everything RIGHT, only to hit, “Go” and have NOTHING work, or even everything break?

At a micro level, our experience helps us solve these things, but at a macro level, the ambiguity of game development, the difficulty in finding good resources to help, the struggle with the tools or process, all of this is stuff we encounter. There isn’t a game dev out there with experience at scale that can’t talk about how much time they’ve spent in meetings or on reports - work that would frequently return low or no value. 

Jack’s experience making games seems silly, and he does a great job playing it up for laughs. But if you can’t relate to it, and if you can’t see the challenges he faces reflected throughout our industry, I don’t think you’re paying enough attention.

Oh, and by the way, the other similarity? On the deadline, Jack did not have a game. If that’s not relatable, I don’t know what else will be.

Top comment on this one:

Let’s talk Roblox.

I Spent 1000 DAYS Building My Roblox Game! By DeHapy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy8q4T2wXLs

Game dev is easier than it has ever been.

But it’s still really hard.

Watching DeHapy go through his journey is like watching teams have a cool idea in game dev and then attempt to implement it, only to discover it was harder than you thought.

And this is in Roblox, where things are simplified even compared to engines like Unity and Unreal.

What I appreciated about this video? 

This isn’t just a, “How did I make a game?” guide. DeHapy is creating entertaining content that will make him revenue via youtube, while pushing people towards his Roblox stores, while marketing his current and upcoming games.

DeHapy isn’t just a game developer, he is a publisher and a community manager and everything else. And, if my calculations are correct, that 1.5 million Robux he’s made could have been worth over … $5,000. 

BUT, throughout everything he is doing, he is learning. I can imagine in another five years, DeHapy could end up as one of the most well-rounded, business aware game devs you’ve ever met.

Some takeaways besides games being really hard:

It’s not just about making games, it’s about making games people want to play.

Sometimes, you need to bring in other people (either as team members or outsourcers) to try to solve problems that are simply not worth you learning yourself.

And also, that many of the best ideas are not totally fresh, but tweaks to what came before.

DeHapy is not just developing games, he’s developing a business and the skillset to continue to make games into the future.

He’s making them for an audience that isn’t bothered by the relative “low fidelity” of Roblox. An audience that pushes buttons in a game by having their character stand on it. An audience that is willing to pay money to get their own assets to build their own games.

The comments on this one I want to call out were all the people expressing their appreciation for the video, and how it motivated them to keep trying, or try again, to make the game they wanted to make. With all the humor and the marketing and the sales pitch and the real lessons contained in the video, many people found it inspiring. That’s the next generation of devs

The games industry is changing. Who makes games is changing, how we make games is changing, and who we make them for is changing. Hoping this provoked some thoughts and perhaps encouraged a different line of thinking.

There was one more video made by someone on youtube who probably has way less “real experience” in game dev than many people on this list that jumped out to me.

Why You Shouldn’t Follow GameDev Advice! By Overload

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juQ4PwzxFU4

The biggest thing in this one was that we all have to make a game that sucks. Maybe it’s not a game for you. Maybe you’re a producer and it’s a report or a process or a meeting. Maybe you’re a designer and it’s a system or an encounter.

We all have to make bad things to learn why they are bad. Yes, we can learn some from watching other people and listening to their wisdom and experience. But the most impactful learning is what we do ourselves.

Hope you’re out there learning and studying and ultimately doing the things that help you become a better version of who you are today.

P.S.

I’ve got a Reframing Agility Course going on April 14th and 15th. If you are interested in how to create a learning culture that helps you, your team, and your game succeed, the course will teach you what to do and not to do. It’s a mix of lecture, story, and many many exercises, as well as a lot of time for you to ask questions and try to stump me. I won’t be teaching you how to “do scrum,” I’ll be teaching you how to approach work in a better way. 

It’s a great course for leaders and anyone else interested in what it means to tackle the ambiguity and unknowns of game development.

Go here to check it out: https://www.buildingbettergames.gg/reframingagility

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways we can help you…

—>Courses built by game devs for game devs - check out “Succeeding in Game Production” HERE.

—>Regular deep dives on critical game development topics on the BBG podcast

—>We’ve helped many high-profile game studios save a ton of money & time through building clear vision and leveling up leadership. If you’d like to work with us, please reach out at [email protected].