Game development can be overwhelming, especially if you don’t know where to start, and while I’m not a seasoned developer yet, I’ve learned a lot and am loving every step of the way!
I began my game development journey in the Winter of 2020 after taking a game development course. After the semester ended, over winter break, I began working on a game that I had an idea for a year prior. After about a month and a half, I had a simple game which I called Dungeon Rollers. The game is a dungeon crawler where you battle enemies by rolling dice. My game had no animations, one looping song and was just generally clunky and rough around the edges. With this game, I experienced first-hand what I always hear from established game developers. Don’t spend long on any of your early projects. I had learned so much in the short time that I was working on Dungeon Rollers that to move forward in development I would have to completely redo most of the groundwork that was in place, essentially starting from scratch! Although the game was not what I had originally envisioned, I still consider it to be a great success and it was an amazing experience. On top of learning so much from development, a Twitch streamer that I watched named Dan Gheesling played it on his show and brought fresh eyes to my game (a few hundred people watching live and over 2000 watched the YouTube video after), which led to 701 page views, 358 browser plays, and 41 downloads at the time that I’m writing this article.
After releasing my first game, I was eager to keep developing. But this time, I focused on small projects to hone my skills. I ended up creating 2 more very small games through some game jams that I entered online and although the gameplay for those games isn’t the most riveting, I learned so much from them such as how to set up animations as well as how to better handle user input. The things that I learned in these simple games are still things that I use to this day in my development!
After finishing the development on those games, I decided that I wanted to come back to Dungeon Rollers and make it more like the game I had always envisioned. I started working on the remastered version (which I had renamed to Battle Rollers as there was another game with the name Dungeon Rollers and I didn’t want to cause any confusion). Development ran from the end of April to the beginning of June. Battle Rollers has 2 playable characters, 4 original songs for different areas, and 6 enemy types with unique behaviours! I was so happy with my game and what I had accomplished, and I thought that I would try something new and release it on Steam.
For those that don’t know how releasing games on Steam works, just like I didn’t, there are a couple important things to know. Valve charges a $130 CAD fee for releasing a game on Steam and they take a 30% cut of any sales of your game, if you are selling it that is. With those things in mind, I went forward and released my game on Steam and have been very happy with the experience! While I haven’t yet sold enough copies to break even on the Steam Direct Fee, it’s a crazy feeling to know that anyone, anywhere, can open Steam on their computer and see my game. An even crazier feeling is seeing people from around the world buying my game. At the time of writing this, I have sold copies of my game in the UK, Germany, Russia, and South Korea! I’ve sold a total of 17 copies, with over 160 users keeping it on their Wishlist. At the end of the day, having this experience was amazing and I’m so glad I did it!
Hopefully I’ve inspired some of you to pursue game development in your future and I hope that you enjoyed reading my story! If there’s one thing that you should learn from this article, it’s to just develop your game. It won’t be perfect out of the gate and that’s totally okay! It doesn’t need to be.
If you have any questions about game development, or my game, then get in touch with me! The best way to do so would be to send me an email, or Tweet at me.