Are You Struggeling With Learning Game Dev?

Are you trying to learn game development, but you just can't stick to it and you quickly lose motivation? Well, I did.

I want to tell you how I came up with a strategy to minimize lack of motivation and improve my perseverance, and how you can do the same!

Although this article focuses on game development, you can of course adapt it to any other type of programming.

📊 Analysis

First, I thought about the things I struggled with the last time I learned game development, and I came up with these three main problems:

1. I find it boring to just follow YouTube tutorial series and I lose motivation very quickly.
2. I struggle to organize my thoughts and I have no clear structure for how to approach the development process of a game.
3. I have trouble staying motivated, when a project gets more complex and I don't have the knowledge to implement the things I want to implement (e.g. animations, maps, ...).

Now take a minute to think about what caused your loss of motivation, when you were trying to learn game development. I suggest you write down everything that comes to your mind. This will help you with the next step.

🧮 The Evaluation

Now that I have identified the main factors that caused my lack of motivation, let's try to think about, how to fix them.

1. Watching YouTube tutorial series might not be my way of learning, so I try to watch only videos about specific skills, not full series where I follow the process of making a whole game.
2. Keeping my mind organized is important, so I start writing down everything that comes to my mind, along with a basic concept of the game. I use Notion for this, but you can use whatever medium works best for you, even if it's just a plain piece of paper.
3. Long-term projects are not my way of learning game development. I am better at working intensively on short-term projects.

Now it is your turn! Look at the things you wrote down in the last step and think about how you can fix them, just like I did.

🎮 The "Trash Games" Strategy

So, of the three main problems I had, the last one was the biggest problem. And that is how I developed my "Trash Games" strategy!

It is very simple:

1. I think about a specific skill I want to learn (e.g. movement, map making, animations, procedural map generation, shading, sound FX, etc.).
2. I choose a basic game concept that emphasizes this skill (e.g., a platformer/jump-and-run for movement, an open-world hunting game for map-making, ...)
3. I start coding!

These games are called "trash games" because I only focus on the one skill I chose to learn and implement the rest as simple as possible (no custom textures/models, no ultra-dynamic codebase, etc.). My deadline for each of these games is about 2 weeks (depending on how complex the skill is).

For me, this strategy has several advantages:

• I don't get bored with a game because I know I'll only be working on it for about 2 weeks.
• I use the basics of Unity over and over again when I create a new project, so I learn them more deeply.
• I can focus on researching one topic without having to watch entire courses/series on YouTube.

Now you! Want to try this strategy? Go for it! Feel free to come up with a completely different approach if you think this strategy will not help you.

📝 Conclusion

The most important thing after a fall is to take a deep breath and get back up. If you lose motivation, take a break, whether for a day, a week, or even a month. When you are ready, think about what caused your loss of motivation and work on those things, just as I described in steps 1 and 2.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in the comment section. Feel free to give me feedback on my thoughts!