What I learned spending 3 years on a failed game.
I thought about making a mopey post about how much of a failure I feel that I couldn't do my little game justice in the end but decided to keep it somewhat productive and write about my learning lessons, hopefully helpful to somebody out there.
3 years of development, after the idea came up during a game-jam. This was supposed to be a small mini project to learn programming to then build my dream game but scope-creep makes fools of us all.
Yes, really. Make the MVP (minimum viable product) or the smallest scope version of your game possible. And reiterate until that is fun. Then add extra mechanics and fluff.
Do your best to not attempt this solo. I know there's a romance in solo devving and some people are built for it with time and a huge amount of natural skill + determination but there are far more people who would thrive being part of a team.
If you're going for publishers, build a vertical slice. It's helpful for you and them. What does the peak fun/mechanics of your game look like? It doesn't have to be massively playable but just show what the game is about better than a lackluster demo of everything the game will offer.
Set deadlines. You will get carried away or stray off-course without them. They help just to sit back at the bigger picture of your game and evaluate how much time you're putting into certain aspects.
Assess your art properly. I figured 2D was more cost effective but having to draw everything frame-by-frame became a nightmare vs if I had 3D models and animated those using key frames.
Marketing. Your game will 100% fail without marketing. You either have to learn this skill or get help with it. But no game can succeed without it.
Who is your audience? Identify it early and remember them throughout the project.
If you're not attracted to playtest your game, no-one else will be. Something is inherently wrong here.
So there we go. 8 things I learned failing at making my first solo game. Take them with a pinch of salt as I'm sure there are more qualified people to take advice from but these are things I wish I knew earlier.