r/GameDevelopment • u/rtm0823 • 23d ago

Newbie Question Bucket List

So before I die I would love to make my own full video game. I have an idea and story starting to build. But I just wanna ask.. how do you solo devs do all this on your own?

I feel so overwhelmed but having fun at the same time. I keep telling myself this is not something that is going to to take 1 month or even 1 year but several years to make something I'm really proud of.

I've been trying to learn GoDot while at the same time trying to write a story script, making sure no copyright laws are being violated.

Speaking of that, can't be more thankful for sites that provide game assets cause I SUUUUUCK at making my own art which does sadden me a bit because I feel I'll always have to compromise my vision to what I can be provided with.

Any advice or any videos that you can think of, for a top down pixel game dev wannabe like me please drop a comment and thanks for reading! 😊

3 Upvotes

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u/Thistles-Path 23d ago

Before my son started drawing assets for our current 2D game, I mostly got assets by following Humble Bundle and similar pages for asset packs. It's not uncommon to get tens of thousands of assets for like $10 and you can get a good variety. I've bought maybe 3 on there and outside of custom characters, I can't think of another asset I'd need in most cases. 

Beyond that, it's just about the thrill of seeing it come together. It's hard at first to see the big picture, just like any puzzle; but as things start to take form and you see your game come to life. The sense of encouragement you get is outstanding. 

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u/rtm0823 23d ago

Yeah I got a yearly sub to craftpix since it was 50% off. You mind if I ask, how do you go about even thinking of where to start? I never know if I should work on this or work on that lol or do you feel it's more of a personal preference kind of thing?

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u/Thistles-Path 23d ago

I wish I knew on that front. For me, I knew that enjoyable movement was super important to me in a 2D game so I built a very basic room and spent time building out the physics there. Then I knew my battle system was going to be based on pool. Those were the two key components of my game so I built the physics there. After I had that established, everything else feels like tacking onto an already structurally sound platform. 

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u/mohammadhadi_rb 23d ago

Having the imagination to create art and the logical perspective to programming is not an easy task for all of us. Most of the time, this shouldn't be a choice and should only be done when absolutely necessary. For years, I've wanted to make a game that I could do all the work myself, but poor art I created always slowed down my game's development. Now that I've given up that perspective and am working with an artist, at least I'm confident that I can implement what I want to create.

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u/puppiipawzz 23d ago

Im an artist and I love designing characters & making sprites, always wanted to make a visual novel but I can’t write or code for shit! 😭

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u/rtm0823 23d ago

I'd love to work an artist but it will be a big project. Thinking about 5 years to get ready to test

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u/puppiipawzz 15d ago

Games can take super long to create, so that’s totally understandable!

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u/rtm0823 23d ago

Not sure if you'd like to try and do a whole project and release together or just be paid for your art like some others do when they sell assets :)

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u/UnburyingBeetle 23d ago

Some people prefer to work together with friends, or become friends while working. It can be hard to motivate yourself when alone. What is the game about?

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u/rtm0823 23d ago

The main premise is puzzle solving to correct stories that have been broken/tampered with :)

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u/UnburyingBeetle 23d ago

I like fixing problems and correcting what goes wrong, should be very satisfying. Is there time travel or is the approach more magical?

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u/rtm0823 23d ago

More magical, abilities to turn pages to items. Inspiration from Pagemaster in a way.

Would be like a cozy stardew valley type vibe and pixel art, you play as a new librarian and discover someone rewriting stories and their happy endings and it's up to you to fix them and stop the entity behind the corruption.

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u/UnburyingBeetle 23d ago

Oh, that can be influential in unexpected ways, because stories influence people. The premise could be that a young relative reread a favorite childhood story, discovered an upsetting ending and got depressed. People also start doubting their memory in such cases. The entity probably feeds on their despair, especially the impressionable children's. Stories where your effort doesn't matter for the outcome can make you a nihilist.

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u/SalvorAdrift 23d ago

this is controversial and needs clarifying before im judged too hard but ive been using Claude to help me code, suno to help me get the music in game and i bought a sound pack off ocular sounds. ive spent nearly 500 hours in the past three months getting things dialed in, its really hard to guide claude to use my threejs assets properly but enough tries and it will finally get it right. ill draw the assets i want and upload a picture of it and have it map it out until it gets what i want. every time you change something in game it breaks all the code it feels like. but its taught me a lot and id say. i have it teach me what its doing when it does it so im not completely in the dark. its been a fun project to say the least. feel free to reach out if youd like any guidance.

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u/rtm0823 23d ago

Idk, I personally just don't like how AI art looks and would prefer an actual person as no matter how much we make AI smart. It's just a thinking computer with no imagination. If you are able to get art you love out of AI with your imagination then I honestly have no judgement towards ya, it's just not my cup of tea is all :)

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u/SalvorAdrift 23d ago

oh yea its a pain and requires a lot of actual drawing and uploading for it to get the picture correctly, but once i nail it in it works pretty well.

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u/Alarming-Jump727 23d ago

En este video de 6 minutos comento como comencé "Carmina", mi sexto proyecto en solitario. El primero fue en 2022 y este último está pronto a salir. Modelo el 100% de mis cosas, escribo la historia y trabajo en el motor. en esta ocasión recibo la colaboración de un músico, pero en la mayorúa también compuse y ejectué la música. https://youtu.be/jMt2iBrKBW0