Two and a Half Years in GameDev
smyachenkov.com
Two and a Half Years in GameDev
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#2Nice read. Makes me excited to build a video game company/be surrounded by creatively driven people.
I've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other.
Since working on my game, I've been in a happy place where I get to go full throttle on both of those. I've created my own engine and I am designing the game, directing the art, handling sound design, marketing, UI, UX, environment design, etc, etc.
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
My Steam page is perpetually far behind the current state of development: https://x.com/YesboxStudios
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#3Nice read. Makes me excited to build a video game company/be surrounded by creatively driven people. I've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other. Since w…
nice work ! like the aesthetic
I am always impressed by what solo devs can achieve.
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#4Nice read. Makes me excited to build a video game company/be surrounded by creatively driven people. I've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other. Since w…
I'm currently diving deep in making music (EDM), but this comment makes me feel that I might take a crack at creating my own game. Joining logic and creativity like that sounds like fun!
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#5“Early access… usually happens just 1–2 years before release.”
I had a good laugh at this. So many titles have taken money and silently failed or seem to figure they can stay in early access indefinitely. On the plus side early access seems useful to smaller devs that are close to finishing but need a bit more cash and free QA. But is also a bit of a scam the way is it’s used for many others unfortunately. Find a genre with a passionate fanbase, make a prototype, collect some cash and fade away.
Any way, not to suggest it’s a bad writeup as I enjoyed reading about the author's experiences.
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#6Nice read. Makes me excited to build a video game company/be surrounded by creatively driven people. I've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other. Since w…
Rooting for you, as always!
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#7Nice read. Makes me excited to build a video game company/be surrounded by creatively driven people. I've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other. Since w…
Oh, that‘s you? I played the demo when it first came out, and really liked, what I saw. Cannot wait for the final version!
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#8I feel that a childhood dream of the author came true, and it is a success, but the prose of reality in a large studio is discouraging.
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#9I feel that a childhood dream of the author came true, and it is a success, but the prose of reality in a large studio is discouraging.
It’s funny, I don’t know anything about the industry but back in around 1999 I was working for a trading firm and we used to love hiring talent out of one of the big game companies - they’d be like “You mean I get paid the same money and I don’t have to sleep in my cubicle?”
Re: Two and a Half Years in GameDev
#10I feel that a childhood dream of the author came true, and it is a success, but the prose of reality in a large studio is discouraging.
I found the smaller the studio, the more discouraging the experience can be.
There are certainly some advantages to being in a smaller company, but there are also gigantic downsides. The biggest one being that you have no budget. You are effectively competing with every other solo indie developer with a Unity install and a Steam AppID.
Being in a AAA studio means your impact is substantially reduced, but it also means that the project you are working on would probably have more ambition and excitement around it.
At this point, I'd much rather work on some dirty, boring tooling for the Battlefield team than be responsible for the entire game engine on a 3-man team.
Indies & small shops can release genre-defining titles, but the experience as a developer in this context is statistically very, very bad compared to AAA - even accounting for parties like Microsoft taking a flamethrower to the entire segment.