An ode to gamedev
and a cautionary tale of not giving a single cluck!
Gamedev is hard.
Saying this today is almost self-evident. It looks silly. It's like saying: the sun is shining or after every night, there will be a day too. You know, like the never-ending cycle of darkness and light. So yes. It's obvious. Gamedev is hard. But no one could ever tell me how unbelievably hard it is before I started to work as a full-time game developer...
My name is Bánk, I am the director-writer for Chicken Police, and this is the first finished game of my life. I rarely finish things. Yes, I finished some short stories, some comic books, even a self-published novel, but I have 100-times more unfinished work in the uncharted, dusty void of my drawers. Chicken Police was the first "several-year-long" project I ever finished. I say "I," but I really mean "Us"; a whole team of dedicated, professional, and more than anything: AWESOME people who became developer-buddies before we formed The Wild Gentlemen. (which is not just a team... but a family!)
Gamedev is hard. Even becoming one is hard to start with...
I used to flirt with the idea of being a game developer since I was a little brat, but instead, I did everything, literally, almost everything else than being a gamedev. I was a shop assistant, night-watchman, real estate agent, loader, stage builder, marketing manager, cameraman and worked in a video game store for a year, and I'm sure I forgot to mention something. I always wanted to create something. That's for sure. And no matter what I did for a living, I always worked on some personal projects in secret; when others were on coffee break, I wrote things; when others went to lunch, I stayed and wrote things. I always wrote things, no matter where I was and what I did. It's a cliché, yes, but I never gave up dreaming about being a creator, being a game developer, and I'm sure that's why I became one. Yet, both I and my entire environment have questioned a thousand times whether it is worth it or not. I always said, "No, it's not worth it. But fck it, I will keep on doing it anyway."
Gamedev is hard? Well... let's see...
So, long story short: I met with Peter (our lead programmer since and Co-Founder of The Wild Gentlemen), and we started to work on some game concepts. Not Chicken Police yet, it was something totally different, but I already had the idea of the misadventures of Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken in some shady corner of my brain. (I had them pecking im my head since 2011) Years went by (and life went by too, we had kids, and families, various jobs, etc.) but we kept in touch, and one day I showed my (brutally amateurish) pitch to a friend of Peter, Tamas, who was a real veteran in game development. The rest is history, as they say. We formed our company (three of us, Tamas, Peter, and I) and our studio, got some fantastic people to work with, and started developing our game. Yeah, that's how it is, right? Like in the movies. Credits roll...
But this is just the short version. The idyllic version without the struggle, the uncertainty, the insecurity, the many sleepless nights, and the question which was floated above our heads, as a huge, blood-soaked sword: "Is this really worth it?!"
Péter and I - The Kitchen Police!
Gamedev is hard. Especially when it hits you in the face! (with a shovel)
Indie game development is an infinitely nerve-wracking thing, you know...
The indie game developer does nothing but tries to satisfy himself, his team, his dream, and his vision, and of course, he trying to finds his audience and trying to be relevant and visible in an endless ocean of new and exciting games. Which - let's admit it - is an almost impossible, gargantuan mission. (And man... there are literally thousands of great, moreover genius games out there you never even heard of. It's suffocating!)
Brainstorming with the (almost full-sized) team
So... tell me, you have a unique art style? Great! An interesting story? Awesome! Fantastic soundtrack? Wow, how cool is that? A gripping atmosphere? Superb! Engaging gameplay? Hellyeah! - but... you know, this all means nothing if you can't reach your audience - the players who might never know but kept waiting for your game to play, for years or maybe for their entire life. You need to catch them! Catch 'em all!
Gamedev is hard. Fly you fools!
So, you have a vision; you have a game under development. That's a start... And then comes the real deal: SOCIAL MEDIA! VISIBILITY! PR AND MARKETING! - the unholy trinity of endless struggle! But you just want to make your game and nothing else, eh? You are a game dev, not some self-made marketing guru or whatever, right? Well... just get used to it; you need to be open to everything. Open to a new world of joy and suffering! Welcome to indie game dev child, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." - no, but seriously. It's an enormous struggle and also a journey around your own mind, which is on the brink of total madness.
Gamedev is hard. Gamedev is beautiful!
You have to challenge yourself literally every day. You are making art, yet you are an engineer, a problem-solving machine, and some kind of social scientist. You need to be everything, and you need to love it if you don't want to burn out fast. I mean really fast! You'll have to be a real renaissance man. Hell, If Leonardo Da Vinci was alive today, he would surely be an indie game developer! No question!
But you know... this is the real beauty of it. You have the opportunity to be free. To be creative. To make errors and learn from them. To be yourself and not just a cog in an unimaginably big, sentient machine. And this surely is priceless!
Gamedev is hard. But eventually, it becomes a part of you.
So, there will be times when you want to give up. Fck it, I don't need this shit! What if the players will hate this?! What if the players will hate my dream?! Hate my vision, hate everything that I created?! (Hate me?!?!) You question yourself every day, and you know how it is - no matter how many friends, family, colleagues saying that's this is something truly special, you won't believe it till the big day comes. The release day! - which could be Nirvana, the Limbo, or the Apocalypse too. And you know what? You'll never know... You'll never know until the very last moment...
Yes, you can have as many good predictions, praises, reviews and previews, even awards as you want, but the final judges will be the players. And man, they judge fckn hard! The players are like a thousand-headed monster with a never-ending appetite. And you have one more apple in your bag. Will it be the golden apple? Or a rotten one? You will find out soon.
Three... two... one...
Gamedev is hard. Gamedev is life!
The doorbell ring. Twice. It's the postman. I run down the stairs like when I was five - when my mother rang this little bell, indicating that the gifts were already waiting for me under the Christmas tree. So I'm running like a maniac, like a lover in the rain. You know how it is. And I got it. It is in my hands. A small package. Unbelievably small. This is it? Years of work, sweat, blood, and tears? This little package of joy and suffering? My... life?
The human mind could be a real asshole. You are waiting for years for something like this, then you got it, and the only thing you feel is emptiness. What happened to me? - you ask. This little thing in my hand was the sole reason for my whole existence for years. Why don't I cry? Why don't I yell? Why don't I feel... anything? Did I become some kind of sociopath? (that would explain some things for sure...)
But no... don't worry.
This "emptiness" you feel is the silence that you haven't heard in years, the sighs you had to keep inside, the tears you didn't shed, and the peace you never found. Don't be afraid: The emptiness is your friend. Enjoy it. Become one with it. Feed on it. Remember it, because it won't stay for long.
Then comes true joy and absolute relief. Then you will cry. Then you will know that it is over, and you have to start it again because this madness became your life, your passion, and your love.
Then you will realize...
Gamedev is hard. But you became harder!
Bánk - The Wild Gentlemen
Chat with me, with the devs, and with other fans on our Discord Server:
https://discord.gg/r4t4zAz