How I stopped being afraid and fell in love with the game industry.

The story of how I got excited about the gaming industry and how I then cooled off towards it.

Early 2012. Then I gradually became interested in small indie games. They hooked you with some idea of ​​theirs and let go relatively quickly. But there were already a lot of them then.

Around the same time I was introduced to the Unity "game engine". He managed to interest me, and I thought, why don’t I create some small game?. The small but cozy Game Creating CommUnity forum was chosen as a place to explore the universe of game development. I came across it almost in its prime, but now it’s practically dead.

Horror dreams

I saw my game as an adventure in underground tunnels with screamers. Visually, the game was supposed to resemble Metro 2033, but with more minimalistic graphics. The gameplay was similar to Amnesia, t.e. we just walk around and get scared. Another inspiration was the game SCP-087 – Ladder.

The game was supposed to generate different tunnel labyrinths from pre-prepared elements every time the game started. Even, if possible, change them behind the hero’s back. I’m sure I didn’t come up with a lot of other things, but I don’t remember anymore. In general, I’m sick of the fact that I often generate a lot of ideas that I don’t get around to implementing.

The programming language inside Unity was chosen (most likely by a coin flip) Unity JavaScript or UnityScript. There were already enough starting lessons and videos in Russian on the Internet, and I began to study. After about a week of watching videos on YouTube and reading various educational posts, I realized that my progress was close to zero and I began to force myself to try to write something.

First of all, I started with generating tunnels. I created several primitive Tetris figures from cubes built into Unity, defined their beginning and end using transparent triggers, and attached a script to the end trigger that creates another Tetris figure if the player approaches it. In one evening I was able to sketch out the primitive code that created my shapes. Every time I started, I was happy to see more and more bizarre snakes.

To test the script, I just started running along the road generated in front of me, watching my creation work. At some point I noticed that running along these paths was quite exciting. If it’s really interesting to me, then why wouldn’t it be interesting to anyone else??

White track

I decided to hold off on the ambitious horror game (which I wouldn’t finish anyway) and create a simpler game. In one of the 3D editors, I created a couple of primitive shapes with rounded edges, assembled various segments of the trail from them, attached to it all a counter for points, meters and a timer that constantly pushes the player, threw in a dozen tracks from my playlist and 22.03.2012 the first version of White track was released.

The essence of the game is quite simple: just run forward. There is a timer that tends to zero, and along the way there are bonuses that add time (less and less each time, so that the game is not endless). Elements of different colors behave differently: orange – obeys the laws of physics; red – disappears on contact; black – instantly kills, etc.d.

I posted the game myself on the GCC forum and sent it to the small-games website.info. The game was received warmly, and I set about further work. Literally in the first week I released 3 more updates, but in the future I tried to work on each update longer and longer.

The trail generator became more and more complex and smarter, the number of segments to generate was constantly growing, the game became wider, more varied, more enjoyable.

While developing the game, I tried to introduce more and more new mechanics, gradually diversifying and complicating it. But, not having sufficient knowledge in the field of game development, I often made it worse. Sometimes I immediately received criticism and, having listened, abandoned the bad decision, and sometimes bad decisions stayed in the game longer – the more unpleasant it was to roll back.

02.07.2012 the first review of my game came out. It was an incredible pleasure to watch someone play your game and share their impressions. I even became something of a drug addict, periodically scouring the Internet in search of a new review of my game.

About a year later, at the beginning of 2013, the development of the game slowed down significantly. The enthusiasm slowly subsided, and the standard controller built into Unity (responsible for the main character and his control) began to not suit me, or rather, I was not satisfied with the fact that other objects have almost no influence on it, that any interaction with physics occurs through crutches. I started thinking about creating my own controller that would interact physically correctly with surrounding objects. Even though I had success in this direction, this new controller did not fit into the existing game at all and would have had to be rewritten almost from scratch. I found myself at a crossroads. As a temporary solution, I screwed some innovations using crutches to the old controller and added them to the game.

Interference0

21.10.2013 there was an announcement of a competition for game developers: Gaminator 13. The task was to assemble a game on a specific topic in 3 weeks. The theme for this competition was “Big and Small”. I decided to take part in order to take my mind off White track and its complete rework.

Intenference game for competition.

Intenference game for competition.

Intenference game for competition.

Intenference game for competition.

Intenference game for competition.

My game was a side-view platformer. A small orange cube overcame obstacles to escape danger. At some point in the game a huge cube appeared, trying in every possible way to destroy us, while simultaneously destroying the level in places.

This time the playable surface was created in advance, and only the background and foreground were randomly generated. The behavior of the large cube was completely scripted, which gave some scope for creating different situations.

There weren’t many plans for the competition work, most of which I managed to implement. But I was unable to turn my project into a finished game. The game had 2 levels, which ended with a banal exit to the menu. I didn’t even bother to attach the banal “End” sign.

My game took 4th place out of 16. Quite a good result, but then I was still a little upset.

After the competition I decided to finish Interference0 first (as I later renamed it) and then return to the White track. Over the course of the year, I reworked some mechanics, getting rid of the second level, I extended the first time by 3-4 and other little things. The work went with varying degrees of success, I periodically abandoned it, then returned again. Motivation and enthusiasm began to be lacking.

By the end of the https://fruitychancecasino.uk/withdrawal/ summer of 2014, I was inspired by the idea of ​​​​sharing some of my knowledge with society. I don’t think I was very good at anything at that time, but then I decided that I could be useful to someone. I got a little better at GUI and decided to make a video tutorial on it. The first and last video lesson was released on 11.08.2014, and although it looks a bit scratchy now, I think it turned out quite well for the first time. But it would be possible to understand the topic better.

Unity 3D. Menu writing

Factory red army

12.10.2014 the Gaminator 15 competition was announced. This time I also decided to take part, because.To. the motivation to work on their projects gradually faded away. This time the theme was: "Going Beyond".

FRA is a competitive game

FRA is a competitive game

FRA is a competitive game

FRA is a competitive game

FRA is a competitive game

The game started out as a parody of Galaga, but at one point there was a kind of “Going Beyond” and the game turned into a full-fledged top-down action game. We explored locations that were supposed to resemble a factory or something, and the end goal was to escape.

This time I also did not refuse my minimalist style. Random generation remained the same in the background, and some walls and units were also destroyed by physics, as in my previous game.

In two and a half weeks, I managed to bring the game to a finished form. Out of 26 games, my game did not take a prize. Over time, the game’s shortcomings became more and more visible. The most important thing is that the process is too slow. I don’t know where I was looking then, but playing it now is very painful and boring.

After the competition, I was fired up about bringing this game to fruition. I started by going to learn Blender, so as not to make games from primitives anymore.

New models benefited the game, units began to fly into pieces even more beautifully, I added a couple of new effects, but at some point I lost interest in this project too.

Last attempts.

After mid-2015, it became more and more difficult to get down to work. Realizing that I had three started and unfinished projects on my hands (not counting FRA for Gaminator 15), I began to realize that I was completely incapable of setting final goals and objectives, as well as achieving them.

I tried to return to where I started and continue working on White track. I started again with finishing up the player controller. I sat down to work, but after a short time I quit again. Work is no longer fun. It was getting harder and harder to force myself.

The last working post, entitled "Day One", was published on 04.11.2015. The title of this post, as a symbol of my helplessness, weakness and laziness, flaunted as the last for a very long time. Very embarrassing. Since then I have tried, with varying degrees of success, not to make promises at all. The last screenshot of work on games dates back to 26.02.2016. From that moment on I never touched any of my projects again.

In subsequent years, I periodically planned to resume work, thought about some ideas in my mind and on pieces of paper, but I never touched Unity. And even without practice, programming began to be forgotten over time, which also repelled the desire to play games.

Conclusion

Overall, although the end of my career as a video game developer was completely inglorious, I have only positive emotions about that time. I met interesting people, learned a lot of new things, plunged into a cozy community of game makers, plunged into this fascinating world of game development, where you are the architect of your own worlds.

Will I ever go back to video game development?? Maybe. But definitely not in the near future.

At the moment, I have again decided to connect my life with programming, but not as a hobby, but as a profession. Still, I like programming, but this time I want to work side by side with specialists.

Best comments

One of my creative friends is now spending a lot of money and time so that in the future he can make money from what he loves. I wish he wouldn’t be disappointed in art, knowing how much he’s already spent.

There is no art/creativity/favorite activity here, there is only a desire not to work in a factory and insanity. These are different things and you need to understand this. Nowadays, the majority generate content not out of love for creativity, but simply out of the need to earn money. Whether they do it consciously or not is irrelevant. Now content OCEAN. It would be real schizophrenia if I now selflessly studied and made games after work, when I myself have a thousand unfinished ones on my wish list.

And okay, this is schizophrenia and insanity, but it also harms other people. Billions of people suffer every day from poverty, loneliness and hateful work, and such “creators” say: here’s a plug for you, stick it in this talking head, stick it in this toy, stick it in this social network, I don’t want to work either and I also want freedom, so waste your life on my rants. The culmination of this carousel of evil is parasitism on parasocial relationships, when talking heads ruin the psyche and education of billions of children, building relationships with them through a screen, so that they don’t have to work, and don’t care that the child grows up to be a moron, the main thing is money from advertising and that they may no longer work.

Now the whole system needs to be changed. Modern creativity is not creativity, but ordinary masturbation: rubbing the nerve of pleasure for money. It’s like with the production of material assets: people no longer know what to produce and make dildaks of all stripes and varieties to shove them in the ass, just not to work: they don’t care about the environment and that the resources of the planet and people’s lives are spent on the production of garbage, the main thing is that the boss can afford a mansion and not work. Modern content production is no different from this.

I wish he wouldn’t be disappointed in art, knowing how much he’s already spent.

Buddhists have a wonderful practice: they collectively draw a beautiful mandala for a long time and persistently only to destroy it. Again, this is not art if your only motivation is not to flush your wasted time and effort down the toilet. Art needs to be loved, and there is no love in crazily sucking something out of yourself in order to be effective and somehow self-realize.

Understand. I often took on big projects and didn’t finish them. Another example: I once got excited about making a large-scale map for minecraft, and I also gave up about a third of the way through. And then the situation was further aggravated by the fact that my map was not posted on any of the sites with such maps, but there were a lot of maps there and with much poorer content.

Just because you don’t know people who prefer small games doesn’t mean they don’t exist at all. Take even the vast majority of people who prefer to play from their phone than from a PC or console, and the games there are a little simpler for the most part. Well, since there is demand, this creates supply.

Well, again, sometimes it happens that a small project suddenly brings in a lot of money. And many want to repeat this success formula.

It was interesting to read about your journey)

The occasional slope of the path is not the best idea, but it survived for a while in the game.

No, good idea. But I thought that the running there was linear, and then I looked at the review and understood why I abandoned it)

But the first game could have been 2-2.5D platformer with different characters, and slightly better graphics for mobile platforms)

The world is speeding up. Social networks are replacing forums. Videos on YouTube are replacing thick TV shows. It’s much the same with games.

And I remember how in the year 16-17, I tried to make a large-scale mod for Fallout 4. Those were good times.

It’s just that my ambitions ruined me. I did about a third of what I wanted, and lost all motivation. Well, crooked Cree Shawn Keith from Conversation was terribly annoying with his crashes.

I didn’t write that there are such people. It amazes me that they exist.

I had a plan, after finishing the games, to make a version of the same game for mobile phones (Unity allows you to do this almost out of the box). But these plans were not destined to come true.

P.S. White track planned to send the game from Steam and distribute it free of charge, but with the possibility of donation.

One of my creative friends is now spending a lot of money and time so that in the future he can make money from what he loves. I wish he wouldn’t be disappointed in art, knowing how much he’s already spent.

Well, as for my experience, there were a lot of people who wrote and asked me not to give up development, and this pushed me further. And almost all the reviews were laudatory. But at some point this was not enough.

Inspiring. Now there is a reason to download UE5 and start playing in it. How the desire to find time arises.

I also had a similar experience, but with mitol group. Overall, it’s a gamedev, it’s a classic coming of age story. It’s not about the craft, but about the world around us, how wet fantasies on the sofa differ from reality and about the principle “if you like to fuck, make a career as a prostitute”.

In short: First, such a craft brings two things: 1) you yourself are interested in learning and trying something new and 2) you bring joy to specific people. For the author, everything stalled at the first point and he abandoned the lesson, because no one needed his work and did not bring any joy to those around him.

Our mitol group also died for two reasons: 1) We were simply tired of drinking. And without booze there is no fun. 2) To make a career in mitola, you need to whine and babble. It’s one thing to engage in buffoonery among friends, another thing to do in public.

But unlike the author, I don’t have a happy ending. I don’t have a favorite craft and I haven’t found myself in life. In art, I was also generally disappointed, having realized and understood the principle of generating information slop and parasitizing on parasocial relationships in order to make money from media.

I work as a game developer, I use Unity in my work.

Three things strike me:

1) Who are these people who are interested in playing minimalist indie crafts??

2) How do you find developers who are ready to cut indie trash, the end of which is a foregone conclusion??)

3) How do the first and second find time for this??

After studying I barely have enough energy to work. And if I have some free time after work, I’ll definitely spend it on a high-quality AA or AAA project, and not on a dubious product from a gaming basement.

Creating a technically successful game requires education. Without fundamental programming skills, it is impossible to create a product capable of support and development.

So I wish the author success in programming; working with specialists, IMHO, will help you get pleasure and income from your work.