Well, that concludes the book! Thank you for reading it. If you want to see what I and my company, Mammoth Interactive, are up to, you can go to http://www.mammothinteractive.com. We are always making new and exciting games as well as other apps and content.
Let's talk about how to really make it big in the gaming industry. Now that you have learned how to make a few games, you probably want to learn more. Learning game development is just like anything else—if you want to get better at it, you have to practice. It is very similar to how a musician gets good at using an instrument, or an athlete gets good at a sport.
Imagine for a second that you were an Olympic weight lifter. The night before the competition, you decide to cram your studies in hopes of competing well the next day. As you probably guessed, this is not the way to become a good weight lifter. It takes years of practice and dedication.
Even though game development is not physical strength but more mental strength, you have to approach it in the same way. It takes a long time to learn how to do everything correctly and efficiently.
People often ask me how they can become good game developers. The answer is actually quite simple—you just have to make lots of games. The more games you make, the better you get. It sounds simple enough but most people never do this. They never make enough games to make them better.
Let me continue with a story. When I was 12, I took a programming class at my local university. It was Visual Basic and when I heard Visual Basic, I thought it meant "making a 3D game". Visual Basic is anything but that. I went home that night and planned out what the game would be like when I completed it. It was a third-person role-playing game (RPG). I made some sketches and visualized everything I wanted in the game. I wrote a story and wanted to program it. I genuinely thought that I would make an AAA game in my bedroom with my 4/86 processor.
It was then that I was confronted with reality—this was not possible. Flash forward to my early 20s and I still wanted to make a sci-fi game in my bedroom. It still didn't happen. What's the moral of the story? Why am I telling you this?
I am telling you all of this because I don't want you to make the same mistake I did. Instead of making really big games all by yourself or with a small team, you should instead focus on making a lot of really small games.
This is going to go against everything you ever learned in school, but it is something you should do if you want to become good at creating anything. Remember, the more games you make, the better you get. But really, it isn't the game that makes you better—it's how much you improve between the games. Every game you make, you want to try and outdo your last game.
At Mammoth Interactive, we try and make every project 10 percent faster, better, and more profitable. This is a lofty goal but, for every game you make, you should try and do this. It might not happen every time but you should strive for this goal. Let's talk about what you should do in order to make games and get better at them:
Make a lot of prototypes.
Once you have mastered the basics, make a simple, yet fun game.
Release this game. It can be on your website or on the app store.
Try hard to release something on the app store or somewhere where people buy it.
Repeat the process.
If you look at people who make games or any creative project for a living, they end up spending lots of time on it. Personally, there was a time when I spent all of my days just making games. I recommend this if you want to really excel at designing games.
If you have any questions, you can always e-mail me at <[email protected]>.