every step to actually make your dream game

It’s no surprise that making games is pretty… hard. Where do you even start? How do you take it from idea to a fully fleshed out game? And how do you even market it??

But not to worry, because if there’s a will, there’s a way!

Tons of indies have found massive success on Steam and made MILLIONS, forever changing their lives.

So what’s the secret sauce to not only making a game, but making money off the game?

Well, I like to break it down into 7 key steps.

STEP 1 - Mindset

Game development is like climbing a mountain filled with booby traps, the biggest being yourself.

Many beginners start out with negative mindsets or don’t even believe they can make money off a game. This is not only wrong, but incredibly damaging for your career and mental health.

I don’t have the catch all solution to improving your confidence, but know that anyone can achieve anything as long as they don’t give up and make sure you learn from your mistakes.

STEP 2 - Gear

The big question everyone always asks me… “what game engine do I choose?”

Every engine has it pros and cons, try a few and see which one sticks. Also choose one that has features that best complement the type of game you want to make.

(Hint: I built a whole tool on this site to help with that.)

Step 3 - Learning

Now it’s time to start making small projects and build up your skills in your chosen game engine. I recommend joining game jams with set time limits and themes - this helps you “publish” a game without as much worry and is a great experience booster.

You can find a ton of jams on itch.io/jams.

I also have my own bundle with the code to 49 of my free tutorials on YouTube. This is a great bundle for learning, getting started on your own project, and to support me and my work ♥

Step 4 - Planning

It’s incredibly important to plan a game before making it (a very common mistake most beginners don’t do).

I usually like to brainstorm and then put together a Game Design Document (GDD) which highlights important game design choices you and your team will make on your game.

One of my favorite tools is Milanote (they sponsored my video, not this newsletter, I just use them for literally everything). You can sign up totally free here: milanote.com/samyam

Step 5 - Development

Now it’s time to make your game! I usually write out the main features to create a simple prototype first, and then go from there.

This part can be pretty exhausting especially near the middle-end of development when you need to do a lot of things manually… so remember to take breaks and switch to another task your game may need if you are starting to feel burnt out!

Don’t forget to optimize your game while you develop, it’s a mistake to leave this to the end! You want to make sure your game will run on your target device :)

Step 6 - Playtesting

Do this often! As the creators of our game we often miss obvious things that end up not making sense or being too difficult for new players. Imagine having your game focus on one big mechanic and then finding out the week before release that most players don’t understand how to use it… you don’t want to be in that position!

Step 7 - MARKETING!!!

If no one knows about your game… how do you expect people to buy it on release?

To win on Steam you need to have a pretty substantial number of people purchasing on the week of your release.

The best way is through wishlists, which signals to steam that someone is interested in your game. Roughly around 20% of wishlists convert to sales. The more wishlists you have the better launch condition your game will be in (more people are interested after all).

You may even get featured on Steam’s front page, leading to more sales!

Marketing is tricky, from participating in Steam festivals to posting in socials constantly to making demos for your game… it’s a lot of work.

Your goal is to get at least a few thousand wishlists before launch.. even better is you get over 10K-30K. You don’t need them, but if your career is depending on the sales of this game… you should make sure it’s in the best condition to launch.

So making a game is hard, but not impossible. Many have done it and so can you.

Best of luck on your journey!

-samyam 😃