22 June 2024: 7 Years of Game Dev

It’s kinda wild that I’ve been doing this for seven years.

Like, I still remember when I was in my apartment, working in Los Angeles over the summer, and creating a board game to keep myself sane while my sister was in the hospital.

She’s alright by the way. And way better at social media than me.

But yeah, I’ve come a long way.

Look at this, for example. This was what Tyrannis was, when I got started:

A board game on the back of cardboard with that was too big, held together with duct tape with stones from a fish tank as game pieces.

Heck, we didn’t even have two game boards, despite it being a game of deception, so when I had my cousins playtest it, I just kicked out the guy trying to hunt them down to the porch so he couldn’t hear us.

If you’re reading this, Geoff, sorry about that.

Fast forward a few months to Fall 2017, and I’m in my senior year. I’m doing physics in the study room and my classmate Ben’s there. I’m telling him about this game I’m making, and he asks the question that changed my life forever:

“Why don’t you make it into a video game?”

Or something like that. It’s been seven years, alright?

Anyways, I take his advice, pick up Gamemaker with some of my money from my summer job, and get started through the year. Every waking moment I didn’t spend on studying physics was spent making Tyrannis.

Next two years are developing, and I basically end up teaching myself how to work with Gamemaker. Lots of tutorials, sure, but I mainly learned through trial and error.

“Learn by Doing,” as one man on the internet once said. Well, he turned out to be a scumbag, so I’m taking credit for that saying now.

But yeah, lots of trial and error (and spending way too much time screwing around on Discord TNO roleplay servers) later, along with learning how Steamworks works, and I launch Tyrannis in 2020. Not like I had anything else to do, and I didn’t really get out of the house even when there wasn’t a pandemic.

But yeah, Tyrannis launched in July of 2020. I wanted it to be on the 4th of July, but I didn’t really know how Steam worked.

Also didn’t really know that you’re actually supposed to advertise your game when you launch it. As the saying goes, “If you build it, they will come,” but I’m not Kevin Costner and this isn’t a ballpark in a cornfield.

Honestly, I mainly got saved by LonelyKnightess, the former Project Lead of The New Order: Last Days of Europe, a Hearts of Iron IV mod that takes place in a dystopian timeline. Okay, she went by a different name back then, but deadnaming people is something only assholes do.

Anyways, she did me a huge solid and advertised it to the whole Discord server, even promising a role for it. And people started picking it up.

And then I realized it was buggy as hell. Like, a lot.

I learned the hard way about the importance of QA that year, too. Which is kinda funny, since I was on TNO’s QA team for a while.

So, 2021 rolls around, and I make Infinite Voyager, which is basically a love letter to Sid Meier’s Pirates! (but without that annoying dance minigame). It’s still in Early Access, but I’ve made some improvements over the years.

In 2022, I nearly die multiple times (long story), and I come out with a custom faction editor, new maps, a campaign, and a whole graphical overhaul. Because, if I’m being honest, it kinda looked like crap back then, and I thought I could do better.

Also, I learned that advertising is a thing you’re supposed to do as a game developer.

And in 2023, I created Tyrannis: Co-Prosperity, which was sort of a spin-off game of Tyrannis. Originally, I wanted to create it as a sort of DLC, but I didn’t know how to do that and I still don’t to this day.

And had another possible near-death experience. It happens like once a year at this point.

But now that I actually knew what I was doing (through half a decade of trial and error), I could finally make Tyrannis into the game I always wanted it to be, and I started adding more maps and features I wanted to add on launch.

Like a full-on campaign, known as “The Revolution.”

This was kinda what I envisioned when I was starting out, and it’s really great to see it all the way through.

So, here we are.

Tyrannis is basically finished, outside of some bug fixes.

Infinite Voyager’s in dev hell right now, but I’ve got some ideas for another overhaul, so stay tuned over there.

Oh, and I got hired at a game studio.

I don’t really know what will come next, but I’ve learned a few lessons these last seven years:

1. The best way to learn how to make games is to, well, make games.
   • It’s a lot of trial and error, but experience is a good teacher.
2. Actually advertise your games.
   • Turns out that’s important, so make room in the budget for that.
3. Stay the Fuck off of social media (more than you need to).
   • No, seriously, it’s possibly the biggest way to waste your time, and that’s time that can be spent
     • I’m not even joking. I can think of a good number of game devs whose games are in development Hell because they seem to spend more time talking about video games than actually making video games.
     • Or in my case, insulting Nate Silver for being kind of a douche on Twitter.
4. Avoid outrage at any cost.
   • There’s a reason when I made Infinite Voyager, I had humanity enter a golden age when people who make money off of outrage died or became irrelevant.
   • Outrage is like a drug in the sense that it’s addictive as Hell, feels good in the moment, and probably isn’t healthy for you. There’s a reason Wrath is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
     • And there are a lot of people who make their money by getting people addicted to outrage because it gives them money and cred at the cost of their customers’ (viewers) well-being.
   • Avoid that stuff at any cost. That’s a time sink and rage isn’t good for you.
     • If “Fear is the mind-killer,” then Outrage is the mind-breaker.
       • Also, I need to go watch Dune. I heard it’s really good.
5. Make the game.
   • I know it sounds obvious, but a lot of tasks in game dev are kinda intimidating, and it’s really easy to say you’ll do them later. And then later, you’ll say the same thing.
   • Sometimes, you gotta bite the bullet and go through with it. You’ll have to do it anyways, so you might as well get it over with.
6. Sleep is good.
   • Anyone who says that you should go out of your way to crunch is a damned fool. Work ethic is one thing, but if you’re not at 100%, you’re going to make mistakes, and those mistakes can take more time than you would have spent if you got some sleep.
   • Seriously, future you will thank you for not having to go back and fix your mistakes.
7. Touch grass.
   • Okay, not literally, but it’s good to get out of the house. Do errands. Go to the park. Exercise. Just go outside, and it’ll help keep you sane and grounded.
   • And stay the Hell off social media if you can help it. Helps with the sanity.

Anyways, it’s been a wild 7 years. Made 3 games, nearly died multiple times, and I’m honestly proud of what I’ve done.

If you’re reading this, thanks for being part of this journey as a game dev.

-Chris

Also, I will probably be posting more on my website, since a lot of this stuff needs to be updated.

And I need to justify paying like $100 a year for the domain name.