Working full time, married with three kids. I know this well. I've had a business acquired, write blog posts, writing a book series, have taught courses and more....by far the most common question is "How do you do that?" For me, it really is as simple as....I just go to work hours early to work on those things, because I enjoy them. When I get home, I'm just a dad and a husband.
Finishing my first game while working full-time
61–70 of 198 posts
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#62Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I learned from other people who have success in their side projects is to choose a workplace that allows you to do a sub 40 hour work week. Of course you would have to live a tad more simply than your standard upper-middle class software guy.
> Of course you would have to live a tad more simply than your standard upper-middle class software guy. Actually, many software jobs are like that. All it requires is for you to not be ambitious to create. You can have very good salary in many companies while slacking a lot. Sometimes you might have to be in office for a lot of hours, meaning doing leisure, socialization and side project in the office.
The specifics will vary greatly depending on your employment agreements and legal jurisdiction, so make your own decisions regarding your own situation (doing it on company time might be the lesser risk compared to not doing it at all), but do be wary.
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#64Good tips... but in reality if you're working full-time (especially in a software related role), you may find yourself depleted before you get to the keyboard. It took us 5 years to finish our game (everyone started from 0 knowledge on how to make games, so it was a rocky road), and for the last 1.5-2 years my life was absolute hell. I'd push hard at work for 9 hours a day, eat, then push hard on the side project for…
Yeah, this is my issue. After a long day of (sometimes pointless) software dev, strapping in for more is draining. So as a contrast, I design board games (not digital) as my hobby. It is very analog and tactile and so energizing partially from just being a nice change of pace. Your advice to start small is spot on though. I would even say one of the best first things to do is start by making a game mod. You don't hav…
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#65I should first disclose that I'm terrible at 'finishing' things (I don't make games, so generally not such finishable 'done and shipped' things, but by 'finishing' I mean a sort of 'version 1.0' I suppose, something I'm happy with, think others might want to use and now it's just maintenance and improvements) so maybe don't listen to me at all..! But I think there's something key here that's left implicit - do your o…
I reckon "my project first" is a great habit, but it requires something else: the willpower to start. It's very easy to spend those extra couple of hours in the morning just sipping a coffee, reading HN, catching up with social media. Work is work and it starts because other people will ping you, you'll have to be online on a certain computer, etc etc; but if you are your own boss, it's very easy to let employee #1 (…
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#66I have done something similar - building a game while working full-time. But my approach was the complete opposite of this article. No real process, no plan, no scrum method, not even a trello board to track progress and todos. Personally, I enjoyed the "fun" of it being very spontaneous, yet still passionate. I didn't write to-dos and tasks to be done, because there is always something to be done. And intuitively yo…
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Just out of curiosity, when you spent 9 hours at work, was that in a software field? Yes, however the day job and night project were _completely_ different disciplines. Someone wrote that gamedev isn't really software engineering... I'd agree with that (not putting it down, but its not like anything I've done). > If so, why would you choose to do the same thing 18 hours a day for 5 years? Those long days came in th…
> Someone wrote that gamedev isn't really software engineering Could you elaborate on that? I find this perspective very interesting. I had a brief experience with gamedev, and I've actually found that even the smallest bit of game engineering is significantly more challenging than (I suppose) "x%" of web development. However, on the other hand, the engine is only a part of game development (and can also be underengi…
Compare a basic CRUD webapp to a game. Most webapps won't need stellar art, it just needs to look okay and have some logos or default assets. Games often need to run their own assets for uniqueness, have way more freeform art, you name it. That includes pixel art, the often lowest barrier to entry. Animation? Webapps generally don't need animation beyond some default practice tweening, most games require animation to make things feel smooth and actually give the feeling things are happening, on a vastly higher level than simple tweening of color and position of some flat objects. Audio? Where the average person hates the embedded autoplay video/audio, games generally require at least sound effects, preferably a sound track too. Storytelling? Unless you count the average buzzword-filled marketing video as storytelling, webapps don't need that. Marketing, collaboration, etc. are all factors that come to play as well depending on corporate size, so depending on your goals, you will run against those too.
There is much more too. Psychology can play a huge part if you don't just blatantly copy existing things, and it is far more difficult to map a vague "I like this / I don't like that" than a business requirement. If you don't require animation, in all likelihood you're either creating a game in a genre where other demands are higher (visual novels with higher storytelling and individual art asset demands), or you'll be outcompeted if you don't have something to stand out, in which case one could argue the load is shifted to other disciplines anyway.
Maybe most of all, you generally don't need to develop content in most webapps: you are enabling users to create content themselves, whereas in gamedev, you are more often providing them with content. Of course this comes with exceptions (What about Sims? What about Rollercoaster Tycoon? What about mods?), but most games deliver at least some content developed by the makers of the game themselves. Or you spend days agonizing over algorithms to generate content in a way that makes it fun, making tons of art assets players can fiddle with, etc.
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#68Working full time, married with three kids. I know this well. I've had a business acquired, write blog posts, writing a book series, have taught courses and more....by far the most common question is "How do you do that?" For me, it really is as simple as....I just go to work hours early to work on those things, because I enjoy them. When I get home, I'm just a dad and a husband.
I’ll read and upvote your take on this rather than OPs, because your story is closer to the reality for most people. No offence to OP but when you’ve no kids, mortgage and household responsibilities, it’s not that hard to do a side hustle.
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#69How to finish your first game? Do it in one weekend! How to do it in one weekend? Use simple game mechanics: a spaceshooter! Aren't you a good artist? No problem! Use processing and art from https://opengameart.org/ . I've done it once just to have fun with my girlfriend. We built a very simple and fun space shooter in one weekend. I didn't keep the license or links of the resources, so I didn't publish it.
This is humblebrag³: "I have a girlfriend" x "my girlfriend is as nerdy as me" x "we coded a game in a weekend".
Re: Finishing my first game while working full-time
#70I tried to complete a simple 2D RPG that is a Ultima spinoff a few years ago. Nothing is technically impossible as it's just a simple 2D game but eventually I lost interest and broke away. Now that I look back, there are two obstacles: - I'm not really interested in such a game. I probably fancied about the genre as it's classic but I never finished any of the Ultima games. - In the middle I tried to implement a full…
This is a perpetual problem for me. I start out interested in a lot of things, but once it's clear how to proceed, I get no pleasure out of the rote work required to implement the solution. Whether it's writing code, building something physical, playing a game, putting together a puzzle, or any other activity that involves some degree of thought or problem solving, as soon as there's nothing left to think about, I lose all interest. If there's a chance of an alternate outcome, I remain engaged to the last second (so I can finish PVP games, win or lose, but almost never finish a game of Civilization). It plagues me at work, too, but at least with work, I've got external motivating factors (insofar as I won't get paid if I never finish things).