Hey everybody!

I am just over a month away from finishing my game development degree. Instead of doing what all the lecturers are telling me to do: "APPLY FOR JOBS NOW, EVEN IF THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH GAME DEV!", I am looking to take time out to work full time on a game that I have been working on very slowly during my degree. So I was wondering, any tips? And by tips I mean things like, "Should I have a schedule that I should stick to no matter what?", "Should I get more involved with the community and maybe get another developer involved?".

Sorry if it's a silly question! I am just rather looking forward to getting on with my own thing!

Thanks!

Ross P

> "Should I get more involved with the community and maybe get another developer involved?".

Go Twitter. Interact. There you will find gamedevs, too, but more important, you will find gamers. Youtubers will be there, reviewers will be there. Be good at socializing on twitter (if you are not, you learn by trial and error, this is simply something I can't teach, because it's different for everyone).

Edit:

Also, don't buy followers, or do follow-for-follow. We (other devs on twitter) know when someone's else followers are fake. It can influence whether the other dev with 10k followers will retweet you or not. I know my few ~1000 followers are more valuable than some people I know that have 10k+ followers.

Publish media (art, mockups, gifs, videos of your game). Programming is cool for us, but not for the audience. The gamers don't want to see your lines of code. Art is by far the most important aspect that will attract people.

What is your plan to support yourself? To pay your monthly expenses, pay back any education loans you might have, et cetera? How long is that plan sustainable without further income, particularly income from this project you're going to work on?

@felipefsdev - That's great info, thank you. I actually just disabled my Facebook account to start focusing on Twitter. Do you recommend making a new account for a game in development or just using personal? The art advice is so true, I've been working hard to get my pixel art better but it's been difficult during uni.

P.S. pengo looks FANTASTIC!

@Josh Pertrie - I have saved during my education. Studying, game developing, and playing games when I can has meant there was no need to go out and spend haha. But I still obviously pay rent so I will be looking for part time work whilst developing. I am looking to complete it within six months but I have no real theory to back up that time estimation.

But I still obviously pay rent so I will be looking for part time work whilst developing. I am looking to complete it within six months but I have no real theory to back up that time estimation.

My advice, then, is to do the neccessary planning and research to make a more stable plan for this. Six months is an incredibly short period of time, especially if you're going to need to work part time at another job.

@felipefsdev - That's great info, thank you. I actually just disabled my Facebook account to start focusing on Twitter. Do you recommend making a new account for a game in development or just using personal? The art advice is so true, I've been working hard to get my pixel art better but it's been difficult during uni.

No need to create a new account. Mine was from 2009 and I just started using last year :P Even if art isn't your strength, you still can find an artist to work with, and you both post GIFs, mockups, etc.

As for financial advices, I can't provide any, since gamedev is just a hobby for me. :)