11 CHALLENGES I'VE FACED AS A GAME DEVELOPER

Hello reader! So glad to see you here. My name is Niza Songolo and I'm a Game Dev baby(7 months) as of now and it's

been a roller coaster ride in short period of time. There are so many roadblocks I've hit in each month as I've crossed

one bridge after another andI'm going to share with my Top 11 Challenges I've faced since I started this new frontier.

So without further or do, Let's ride

11. BAD WORKING CONDITIONS

 So I'd wake up at 6am in the morning. Discover there's load shedding. Spend the whole day trying not lose that thrill to

get to work till around 4pm to 6pm when the power comes back. I use a laptop but I don't do my work till it comes back. I

just hate starting then when the battery dies I have to wait for hours till it's back. So it comes back, then I switch on

and open Unity, wait for half an hour for my project to open and everything just goes. Imagine having this cycle going on

for months. My PC is not the best PC and I don't have that extremely reliable internet. I use a cracked phone all these

7 months and it becomes more obselete by the month that I have to rely on my laptop even more. I still live my parents so

I don't have that space to do this at that as I please and I'm ready for that just yet. So it gets pretty stressful to

work with all the distractions

10. SUGAR RUSH LOVE

 I find this one funny and cute at the same time. You remember when you had some passion you always wanted to start? And

then you went for it, and put your all just to complete that passion. When I just started in March this year I was down

right determined, I couldn't stop thinking about it, I focused on it so much. I could spend 2 - 4 hours just spending time

playing with Unity Standard Assets or copying and pasting code here and there. But I forgot about other skills I needed.

I abandoned a ton of things I was supposed to be learning to improve myself and as usual, the past comes to haunt us some

day.

9. MY BIG MOUTH

 Slapping my head here. You all know what that ego that develops when your very first line of code makes that cube move left

and right? Or when that grey terrain turns to a landscape after a few textures here and there. No matter what, the first 

game you decide to make will always be an AAA game. What I mean is Super Graphics, Epic animations, over the top Mechanics

and it will make you a millionaire in a moment so you just have to make it. I thought the exact same way, I was completely

ignorant of being a beginner. Plus being ignorant of the fact that games like Call of Duty, have five to ten minutes of end

credits and I want to make game, in my head, that's as cool as COD all alone? Anyway, I'm a Game Dev baby, it's not easy

watching the adults eating burgers, pizzas and cakes when all you can drink is milk. Mistake here, I bragged.

8. SCATTER BRAIN

 So I'm changing hats constantly, from the hats of a game developer, to the hats of being an entrepreneur, to the hat of being

a college student. I could be creating a temple in my game with the mouse, suddenly my mind is thinking of blogging, my free

had will be itching to check my email for Quora digest on entrepreneurship and my conscience will be saying "It's 1pm aren't

you suposed to checking for class online?" and my feet will... You get the point. No peace for 10 minutes. I didn't know

what to do, when to do it and since everything is so new to me, I didn't know how to do it because it's so hard. And the

Load keeps increasing. So it was very easy for me to just not do anything on a certain day and just play games. But then 

again, my conscience won't let me be and I hate feeling that kind of guilt, huh growing up.

7. NO SCHEDULE, POOR WORK BALNCE AND NO PLAN

 As a result of the previous points, it's easy to be randomly spending your day. Like a baby attitude, you follow what 

intrigues you now, the jump next infatuation that just crosses your mind. Many many times I burned myself out doing a

thousand things in one day without any reasonable planning. Just it I would always say, But do what exactly? and my answer

was "Anything". It's entirely bad in my case but after 7 months it's going to start becoming an issue with the way the load

keeps coming. I mostly end up, doing a little of everything or so much of one thing, and both cases are bad because it ran

that way for months. 

 

6. TO BE OR NOT TO BE A STUDENT

 The legendary decision. It literally threw me off my game for a long time. I'm still recovering. I wanted to dropout from 

college. Don't get me wrong, I love school but the course I picked isn't my main interest, also wasn't my choice so it's

very difficult for someone like me to produce good fruits from something I don't connect to very well. I love game dev, but

I don't love what I do in college but both have a some level of importance to me so my head gets deadlocked often. I had to 

ask from few friends on their opinion and I also took up the courage to ask game developers from a the Facebook Group Indie Game

Developers for advice on this decision. I'm 20yrs old, I'm a Game dev baby(I like this nickname) so it's easy for people to

think I don't know what I want to do with my life yet. Allow me to say this selfish fresh using the three selfish words

"I knows Me, better than Myself."

But I'm a humble guy too. I absorbed all your the information too. I'm not going to tell you what I decided. Just be like

me and wait for the results.

5. MONEY MONEY MONEY

 Does anyone feel that others think you're throwing cash on the floor when you post on screenshot Saturday? Or when you

watch YouTube videos where you see that lovely equipment they have, or those beautifully designed blogs and you think, "Wow,

these people must be rich." I'm in an environment where the creative industry, is a like 100% luxury. So when I show my

friends on my status a few imgaes here and there, I start receiving messages of people asking me for loans(once in a while).

I'm not going to complain about the struggle of not having money flying to me. Just know that I have the discipline to keep

moving forward with I love doing even though it's bringing revenue yet. I'm a beginner! The important thing right now is

that I started. I watch people spending notes on clothes, food, and outdoor entertainment while I spend coins building a

childhood dream. Life is funny don't you think?

 

4. LONELINESS

 So in my country, the creative industry doesn't have that trend like in Europe or America or other places. So it's difficult

to be social. I love the friends I have and care for them, but it's rough talking to about what you love when they don't 

treat like I do. Of course I can talk to people from emails, or Social Media, but it would be nice to leave the screens and

just talk to someone face to face about games you know. So often I'm quiet, and keep things to myself. I also tend to feel

silly, feel like what I'm doing is useless, other times weird because my interests differ from a lot of people. Just writing 

this point was hard

3. RESEARCH LIKE A MANIAC

 I've never googled in my life like these days. It's good to research but it becomes a problem when you're only doing 

research. Gaining knowledge is good but if it's all I'm doing, I'd feel no different than the millions out there watching

cat videos on the internet. I have read so many books and opinions and blogs and I've reached a point where it all sounds

blurred now because I'm not applying what I know. I'm supposed to be making a game not googling the types of wheels a car

can use in Hollywood. I just do that, I mean who doesn't like asking google anything?

 

2. SELF CARE

 Working whilst feeling depressed from all the load, I started giving excuses not to take care of myself. My dream is more

important I would always say. My personal hygiene went down and I kind forgot how to smile at some point. I was feeling

lonely and so what's the point of looking good when you're going to spend the whole day in your home am right? Can't take

myself out for fun because the coins you collect are spend immediately so I'd only look good when I'm going to town or to

see a friend. Otherwise I had bad self care habits. Just thinking about it is... sad.

1. HATING MYSELF

 Number One. I didn't hate anything else but myself. This happened in July and August. I lost focus of what I was doing at 

some point. The result of stress, loneliness, depression, no money, anxiety, bad self care and poor planning led me to start

hating myself and blaming others for my problems, to the extent I literally forgot why I started was a Game Dev baby in the

first place. Did I feel useless? Yes. Did I feel worthless? Yes. Were there times I thought suicide? Yes. Did I feel I can

never make it in my life and in anything because of my flaws? Yes and many other stupid negative thoughts that can come from

hating myself. And I wanted to quit and just give up on everything because it just stopped making sense. Sad times indeed.

 I went through all of this and so much more. I endured and I'm still going forward because everyday gives me an opportunity

to become better than yesterday even if I did nothing all day but just sat down and thought to myself for hours. I found the

solutions and discovering other solutions to my problems as time goes. I haven't written them today. They'll be the next post

till then. See you later.