It does get lonely. I'm a former YC founder and I left Apple earlier this year to be a solo game dev. Making games (compared to apps or tools) is especially hard because "fun" is so nebulous that "make something people want" is a blurry goal at best.

I also work on my own tools and I'm using them to build the game. I'm very interested in tools that help a very small but talented team (1-4 people) build ambitious games more successfully.

I post progress here if anyone's interested: http://twitter.com/kineticpoet

I have the same issue with making computer games too. They will try it once, say good job, and never bring it up again. I now try and approach games like, 1) what is something that I can play by myself that still brings value and 2) what is that "it feature" that will make someone curious/interested enough to come back, and focus on that.

Maybe it's the same for community sites.

Anytime I’m talking with someone at a meet-up who wants to learn gamedev, I advise them to make pong and add a new mechanic to it. If they can’t learn to do that, the odds of them making the game they envision is extremely low.

I’ve been in the industry for twelve years and have done the indie thing very successfully, and I still have low confidence when it comes to making a game that is any good. I keep waiting for it to get easier, but every time it does your ambitions increase to match.

I left gamedev years ago to launch a few startups. After selling my edtech company last year, I picked up Godot on a whim and guess what...I finally could see myself finishing game. Not messing around with engines, not writing low-level graphics code, but actually finishing a game in a few months. It inspired me so much that I'm starting a community called Quiver (https://quiver.dev). It's still in development, so I don't have much to show yet. But hopefully in a couple months we'll have tutorials, project templates, and a lot more. And here's the thing - with the right guidance and the right tools, I believe a whole bunch of new people will be able to finish their games that wouldn't have previously.

If this is interesting at all, please shoot me an email (check my profile).

People often want to replicate projects that took giant teams of very talented people years to accomplish. This is true in all industries. I remember my film teacher warning us how long a good 5 minute video can take to write a story for, film & edit.

My first game & the first game I teach beginners to make is a Trivia game. It's easy. You can finish it in less than an hour. Than you can improve it.

Automated Twister spinner is another one I recently did.

For something more advanced https://js13kgames.com is an awesome source of inspiration. Lots of great open source games that you can try to replicate & improve upon.

best way is to just start writing your games and actually learn as much as you can... to do this it is best you actual team up (like any other project) to complement your skills... if you area a strong coder, find a game designer and/or a graphics guy... and so on... start small and ship often in small increments....

now to find strong people it actually helps to be in the industry (not necessarily though)... meetups and barcamps are good places to find such people...

what kind of games are you interested in writing?? i keep trying a few things every now and then... buzz me if you are interested...

I love games, I love games technology and I have these vague ideas for games I want to have made. Yet I never seem to actually start making one.

Even though I think I really want to. But do I?

Having an interesting talk with a friend who pointed out that maybe I really don't want to make something, maybe it's just the idea of making something that appeals more than actually doing it. That if I really did have a burning passion, I would have started by now. I don't know.

I seem to be at a kind of roadblock. Every idea seems interesting enough to pursue, yet nothing seems good enough - "there are already games like that out there", "it's not unique enough", etc. I just end up procrastinating, or sort of looking to start a million different things because everything is so appealing, but end up doing nothing.

I guess this is applicable to more than just games. I'd love to hear some stories about how people got through this, no matter what the outcome (even if it is "I tried and decided it isn't what I wanted to do after all").

I personally lean on people to help stay motivated. For your example, I would find a game dev meet up or some discord community, talk shop & share what I'm working on on a regular basis. Validate or give feedback on the work of others, and get some of my own.

It's a process of constantly pushing back the thoughts and community makes it easier

The problem is I don't know what is the right next step to take in front of all the issues aforementioned, and I have been thinking that for years without taking any step ahead or risking

Right now my newest moonshot is joining a friend who's just started trying to make an educational game for developers, that teaches you in a fun cyberpunkish style how to develop an NES from scratch, step by step. It's an absolutely bonkers idea but it's something we'd have loved to have and that we're having a blast making, just for ourselves. I doubt it's ever going to be successful if we make it to the finish line and ship it, but luckily it's just for fun. I'm thankful of posts like these, it helps getting motivated to make it through.

Let's go back in time 20-25 years. I was a wannabe game programmer, and every few months I'd get a stick up my ass to write a Doom clone, RTS, or whatever game I was playing at the time. I'd recruit a buddy or two from a chat room or messageboard. Even though whatever game was out there (Quake II, AoE) was amazing and something we'd never come close to, we'd start methodically planning out the game, star writing an engine, have some test art created...you couldn't stop us. At least not at the start. Eventually we'd get distracted and go our seperate ways, but we still worked on the project like it was the most important thing in our lives for 2-3 months.

Back to today. I wanted to make a chess website, just something simple where you could login and play a game with other users. Mostly so my dad and I could play without being in the same room. I wrote a simple web-based chess engine, got about 75% of the way to what I would consider a 'completed' project. Then I went to chess.com.

Now, I wasn't planning on making something even close to that. No chat rooms, blogs, rankings...but seeing all the features on the site just sucked every last drop of motiviation I had. It didn't help that my current site was basically playable and didn't need much more work. But from that point one, every time I opened my project it just felt so futile.

I know that products evolve over time, and whatever Chess.com looked like in it's first revision probably wasn't anything special. But it's like I knew that I would never even want to take it to that level, so I just lost every drop of motiviation I had at that point.

That's the first problem. The subsequent problem, once you've realized that, is that many people that want to pursue solo development of a game are unlikely to be good PMs once they bring on others.

Secondly, I think you be honest with him and say games are hard and not something you specialize in but if he really want to invest some time learning you’ll help him solve problems and you can do it together. Make sure he’s not just your boss tossing ideas/designs that you have to go implement. Start by googling different frameworks and watching/reading tutorials together. Basically show him the process you’d go through if this was your idea to learn game development. Look into unity or godot, vet solutions, play with some demo apps. Watch some of the videos of people building simple games. Building the basic rollaball game will give him an idea if it’s even something he wants to continue with. Also look for assets that complements his game’s style/theme. Asset development is a common road block so if you start with a character rig and an environment that looks something like what he’s after it will give you some momentum on the actual game mechanics/story/etc. I think if you approach it as a team of equals willing to figure this out, you can’t really lose but don’t expect him to have the fortitude to complete it. Put in as much effort as he does.