the best first project on your game dev journey

So… you have decided to learn game development and you even put some thought into it and understand that making your own project is a way to do it.

Well congrats, first step done.

What now?

Did you write a design document for your GTA MMO MOBA yet? Neah?
Maybe skipping that MOBA part, eh?

Let’s put a pause on the insults for a bit and let me introduce myself.

My name is Vojta and I have been professional Game Developer for past 6 years and teaching at GameReady programming and game development for about two years.
I also just recently finished my authorization as an official Unreal Instruction from Epic. I am not boasting here purely to flex, even though that is part of my motivation… But mainly for you to understand why you should continue reading. Internet is full of nonsense and most of it will send you for Uran while you are trying to fix your car.

Let’s assume that you have some interest in listening to me, so firstly here is what I am assuming.

1) You want to learn game development

2) You agree with me that project based learning is best way to do it

With that clarified, let’s actually talk about what your first project (more like first few projects…) looks like.

I have this really cool formula for figuring out your first project actually.
Alright, so think about the smallest, simplest possible game you can.

Got it?

Great, now scale it down like 10 times and bum, there is your first project.

Good job, you got it, go make it.

I am not really joking, it’s pretty much the ideal way how to do it.
Vast majority of people over-scope by a lot. Me included.
It’s a tough lesson to learn, but you have to learn it.

Think smaller.

I understand you want to make cool games you see on Steam, but that’s not your focus right now.
The only goal you have, for now is to finish it, whatever it is. Most people don’t learn specific skill, not because they are stupid but because they quit.

Motivation is a resource you need to plan around and longer you work on your project the more will your motivation deplete. Finishing projects gives you sense of an accomplishment and motivation.

90% of learning comes from first 10–20% of working on a new project anyway, so leverage that. Pareto the fuck out of this learning process.

So now we understand that your focus is on learning and you learn best by finishing projects.
We also understand that you will get demotivated and you have to plan around it.

Cool, very cool.

Doesn’t matter if you have no experience or if you have been a professional programmer for 30 years.

START SIMPLE
(I have worked with both and beginners have often a lot easier timer, they tend to have fewer bad habits…)

So now to be a bit more specific what I mean by a simple project, let’s start with examples of bad first projects:

• Anything with multiplayer (just don’t)
• Open World
• Complicated procedural generation (If it has more than simple rand bool, you messed up)
• Anything that relies on a lot of content you need to make. No story driven games
• Anything with with a lot of stats like RPGs

We have now hopefully gotten rid of all of the utterly unrealistic ideas and let’s look at examples of good first projects:

• Flappy bird clone
• Simple Mario-like level
• Simple horror game (very short, 1 hour play time max)
• Simple shooters
• Endless runners
• Cookie clicker
• Brick breaker

Do you see what they have in common?

They are very simple, usually rely on only one mechanic and progressively increase difficulty as you keep playing.
They don’t need you to make a lot of content and you can find a lot of examples of similar project being implemented online.

Make few small games like this and then you will know much better what your next steps are and you won’t need any blog post to tell you what to do.

Don’t worry about anything else until you make at least five games like this by yourself without any help.

There is few more things I would like to mention.

Build a daily habit of working on your project
Chain it with some other thing you already do. You probably have dinner every day, right? Connect it!
Every day after dinner, set a timer for 30 minutes and start working. It accumulates to a lot over time.
Don’t try to do 5 hours on Sunday. 3.5 hours with more consistency will give you better results.

Give yourself deadlines
You will fail, but that’s fine. For project like this, two to four weeks. Then scale it down, but have a deadline. Deadline makes for better and faster work.

Release your small game
Use Itch.io or just send it to your friends. You will get a bit of feedback and it will make you happy to see other people enjoy something you made. (Remember how we talked about motivation?)

Hope it helped,
Vojta

PS: If you are looking for help and mentorship on your journey, hit me up: fansi@kampairaptor.com

We have limited amount of students we accept at GameReady, but it may be just for you.

You can do it yourself tho! Mentorship is for people who want to ride a space ship instead of a car.

Good luck!

PPS: Wanna know more about how would I learn UE if I started again?