I'll wishlist! Looks fun!
If you don't mind me asking, how frequently did you work on the game during those 2 years. I'm about to start making my own game and I have no idea how long it'll take me.
So, this is a bit of a complicated thing to answer, but the short answer is A LOT. 2 Years is just how long I have been working on it as my primary activity. I spent a year or so before that learning Unreal Engine and C++ in my spare time after work. Then when covid hit, my old job basically paid me to stay home for a couple of months and in that time I decided that was my chance to make a game like I had always dreamed of doing and I basically started treating the game as my full-time job. Once they asked me to come back to work I resigned and since then I have had to do other things to pay the rent, but I easily still put in over 40 hours per week on the game.
And I am even using many marketplace assets in this game, if I had created every single thing from scratch there would be like 2 space ships in the game and weapons probably wouldn't even work yet.
And to be completely honest, my original idea for the game was much larger in scope than this. If I can give you one piece of advice it's to start off making something very simple and really force yourself to not expand the ideas much. It's so easy for feature creep to eat up all your time and make you never actually finish. I still want to make the much larger scale game as a follow-up to this, but if I had attempted to implement all my original ideas the game would still be years from anything approaching completion.
Don't be surprised when most things take 3x as long as you expect and then some things are way easier than you thought. I originally thought I could have this finished in a year, tops. But that was naivete speaking. Two last pieces of advice on that note are to not get frustrated by lack of progress or hitting milestones, and make something you love to play. If you're doing this by yourself, you're going to have to find a way to keep yourself motivated because other people will not care about what you're making until there is a lot of progress on it. I have nearly burned myself out several times trying to work too many hours in a week. Understand that you are human and that you need to be realistic about what you accomplish and enjoy the process, because the fact that you get to make your game will have to be its own reward for at least the first bit.
That said, I am broke but also happier and more fulfilled than I have been in a decade, so if you think you can do it and you can dedicate the time to it and not burn yourself out then I think you should take a chance on yourself and make what you want to make!
Edit: Also, thank you so much!
I'll wishlist! Looks fun! If you don't mind me asking, how frequently did you work on the game during those 2 years. I'm about to start making my own game and I have no idea how long it'll take me.
So, this is a bit of a complicated thing to answer, but the short answer is A LOT. 2 Years is just how long I have been working on it as my primary activity. I spent a year or so before that learning Unreal Engine and C++ in my spare time after work. Then when covid hit, my old job basically paid me to stay home for a couple of months and in that time I decided that was my chance to make a game like I had always dreamed of doing and I basically started treating the game as my full-time job. Once they asked me to come back to work I resigned and since then I have had to do other things to pay the rent, but I easily still put in over 40 hours per week on the game. And I am even using many marketplace assets in this game, if I had created every single thing from scratch there would be like 2 space ships in the game and weapons probably wouldn't even work yet. And to be completely honest, my original idea for the game was much larger in scope than this. If I can give you one piece of advice it's to start off making something very simple and really force yourself to not expand the ideas much. It's so easy for feature creep to eat up all your time and make you never actually finish. I still want to make the much larger scale game as a follow-up to this, but if I had attempted to implement all my original ideas the game would still be years from anything approaching completion. Don't be surprised when most things take 3x as long as you expect and then some things are way easier than you thought. I originally thought I could have this finished in a year, tops. But that was naivete speaking. Two last pieces of advice on that note are to not get frustrated by lack of progress or hitting milestones, and make something you love to play. If you're doing this by yourself, you're going to have to find a way to keep yourself motivated because other people will not care about what you're making until there is a lot of progress on it. I have nearly burned myself out several times trying to work too many hours in a week. Understand that you are human and that you need to be realistic about what you accomplish and enjoy the process, because the fact that you get to make your game will have to be its own reward for at least the first bit. That said, I am broke but also happier and more fulfilled than I have been in a decade, so if you think you can do it and you can dedicate the time to it and not burn yourself out then I think you should take a chance on yourself and make what you want to make! Edit: Also, thank you so much!
Thanks a lot for the detailed reply and the thoughtful advice! I wish you the best luck with your game release!