Where To Go and How Fast?

Every solo dev faces this crossroad: chase the dream project, or build the one that actually gets finished.

I have been part of startups before, so I know this dance. I need to be very aware of the rythmn and the process of growth and launching a first project.

I have a game I want to make, and then there is the game that I should make. More limited in scope, more fitting as a learning project.

So for the next few months, I’m going back to basics. Prototyping, breaking things, rebuilding. Learning Godot inside out.

And as part of that I will work on a simpler, smaller scoped project, something that I can use as practice, then polish it into a final product and release for $4.99 on Steam (or less).

My goal is to improve my awareness of:

• The gamedevelopment process
• QA
• Publishing
• Componentizing what I build and getting organized for scale

I've seen this before

In this world of valuations over value, focusing on value is a cheat code.

Throughout my career I always see the same mistake over and over, small companies and passionate individuals not structuring their plans with a realistic view of their resources, only to end up bitting off more than they can chew and either finding themselves locked in a dead end project, or maybe with a successfully released product that can't evolve and scale, then getting crushed by competition that has built the right foundations.

The way to circumvent that, is by understanding that we don't have perfect knowledge of the market, it is better to pace ourselves and aim at the learnings than to rush to success by ignoring all the important lessons that will cultivate the growth and long term sustainability of your business.

Build a sustainable foundation, sharpen your awareness, learn fast, then build right.

What I'm doing now

I have picked up this Udemy course on Godot and just going through it lesson by lesson. Even the things I think I'm good at, there is always something to learn or at least review.

So far I'm done with Section 3 and I can say this is a really good instructor, and even though I've been going through things I already used in my other prototype, I have learned so many new things and mental models that are going to be very valuable for my future projects.

Very exciting to be starting, it will take me a while, but I will do this properly.

Talk later, Nico