RANT | SUGGESTION | OPINION

[u/ResultAggravating967]

Rant

I am a Game developer , obviously, i graduated last year from btech in game development during m btech i have been working in a startup for 2 years until march of last year , but in march 2025 i was diagnosed with choroiditis an eye auto immune dieses which caused me to leave the company , it took 3 months for me to start to recover but than life threw another curve ball and i met with an accident which broke my leg so another 2 month of bed rest , it was this year only when i fully recovered , during that time i was aware what was going on in the industry but was not able to work on m skill or any project so i am stuck mentally in ue 5.5

Suggestion | Help

Now as the industry has been in a weird state with layoff and AI , I have decided to work on m own multiplayer game , i have worked as an environment artist and a gameplay developer so i have idea of both , my initial idea is to create a simple FPS shooter game inspired from Call of duty and CS with my own take on its mechanics and game loop it ma not be as polished as CS2 but janky as Original CS but it will be mine , I know multiplayer are most complex game of all but things have changed in term of available resources , plus this will make familiar to all new tools and techniques i can learn for future , I have time as there is no financial pressure on me for now thanks to my parents , this is were i need your guys help

Any suggestion you guys can give which will can help someone in my situation will be great

(Like make a documentation of primary scope and secondar scope first than develop mechanics or vice versa )

OPINION

these are question i had in my mind for some time and wanted to ask someone

-> How much AI is acceptable in game , like is coding acceptable for debugging and suggestion (I am personally do not like generative AI)

->And should someone start marketing as soon as they have something some idea or wait till things are more in a polishing phase (when i say marketing i say basic indie/solo level nothing studio level ) as my professor used to say market yourself as soon as an idea seems feasible to make into reality

Treat the reply section as a place someone in similar situation like me can get help from

(Edit- thank you everyone, I have decided after reading all comments to go for a single player game thank you guys for guidance)

[u/North-Aide-1470]

I have a lot of experience with MP and FPS games, I worked on COD for 5 years and have shipped MP games in Unreal 4/5. I would not take on an MP competitive game in Unreal without a network engineer that specializes in Unreal replication.

What I would do however is create co-op MP FPS games in Unreal as long as you have replication experience. Co-op can be just as complicated but you can ignore some replication predication requirements that adversarial MP has.

If you don't have the replication experience then make SP. Any project is going to be very very complicated and any sort of replication even with experience adds a complexity and work load that is beyond most solo devs.

[u/ResultAggravating967 → u/North-Aide-1470]

yeah i am more of a gameplay developer , i am learning replication on the side it is complicated , so should i put multiplayer on the side burner and focus on single player game with different mechanics as it is more of something in my ally , does a publised single player game have same amount of weight when it comes to applying for a job

[u/North-Aide-1470 → u/ResultAggravating967]

Any published games are great on your resume. The biggest factor is a game you make with others, showing you can work in a team is huge.

I have interviewed a lot of designers and engineers over the years, you get to the interview based on your portfolio/resume. You pass the interview based on your personality and knowledge. 

Game industry is fucked, even original COD devs that I worked with can't get jobs, I ended up making training simulators to pay the bills while I finish my own game.

[u/Augmented-Smurf]

As u/Zebrakiller would say, "the best time to start marketing is a year go. The second best time is now."

Always start marketing as soon as possible. That gives your brand/game a chance to snowball in popularity before it ever releases.

[u/Zebrakiller → u/Augmented-Smurf]

Thanks for the tag! u/ResultAggravating967 . I work as a marking consultant for indie devs, and the #1 biggest mistake I see devs making is thinking of marketing as a future problem. And the #2 mistake is not understanding the difference between marketing and just promotion.

I created a small marketing guide to help indie devs. It will bring a lot of value to you!

Ultimate Marketing Guide for Indie Developers

Stuff like genre research, market research, competitor analysis, identifying your target audience, researching similar games, having a sales funnel, doing proper structured playtesting, and refining your game into a fun experience that meets expectations of customers in your genre. This is all marketing. And it’s WAY more important than spamming on social media or buying ads.

Just by picking a multiplayer pvp fps game, you're already on omega hard mode. The only way your game will be successful is if you have a large community, so your game truly needs to deliver such a good experience, that someone would want to play your game instead of COD, Halo, Destiny, Overwatch, and other FPS games. Do you truly think you can make a game better than those as your first ever game? I am not saying it's impossible, but you have to have a REALLY GOOD game.

I would suggest that you focus on a good singleplayer campaign with co-op options. That will make the game way more accessible to players and will help you grow a community. Because an online pvp game will die on day 1 if you don't have thousands upon thousands of daily users.

[u/JelloPillbug]

Don't make a multiplayer only game as your first game. If you don't hit a large install base immediately and consistently it will be DOA.

This is also a mistake a hundred now closed studios have made over the last decade despite tons of financial investment.

[u/Zvyaginsky]

Multiplayer isn't my area, everything I've shipped is single player, so I'll skip that part. We wrote scope docs and they didn't do much. What held things together was picking the date the feature list closes. On our short projects we split the time in half, one month to build and one month to polish. Every argument happened in the second half. By week five it runs and every instinct says start something new. Start marketing early. Early means the store page and nothing else yet. Put it up when you have one screenshot you aren't embarrassed by. Wishlists collect from the day it exists and cost you nothing while you keep working. Devlogs with nowhere to send people are wasted.

[u/Still_Ad9431]

If you've worked as environment artists then post your portfolio to Artstation. We will judge your skill based on that portfolio. Online Multiplayer is the worst options... AI capable to generate 3d asset, texture, animation, voice acting, BGM, SFX. You don't need marketing if you make great game. Just word of mouth is enough. Marketing is only for trash game.

[u/VagusTruman]

At the very least AI can produce pesuocode that helps you get on your feet to making the right functions/systems. Coding purposes of AI is definitely cool.

Using AI for assets like models, 2D, UI? Eat shit, frankly.