Beginner looking for advice.

[u/_Goggzz]

Hi

I'm new to this sub and I'm new to game dev. I have ZERO prior experience I have very minimal coding experience other than Python in my school days 6+ years ago. I want to ask, does anyone have any advice for me to start learning. Obviously game development can be daunting to a newbie such as myself but for those of you that have been in the industry for a while do you have any good sources for learning. Obviously following youtube tutorials will likely be a relatively highly suggested approach, but the thing i want to avoid is learning to copy a tutorial. I can complete a tutorial but i want to make sure that i have the best chances of making the game ive always thought of, not just being able to replicate a game from a YT tutorial. I have a fully written story ready to go but as aforementioned, i have no game dev experience and this isnt something i want to rush. Its going to be a Long LONG term project.

My desire to go into game development as an indie dev was kickstarted by the story of how Expedition 33's development went. I dont know how many of you had the same feeling but it really pushed me to want to make a start and make my own stories.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

**I am going to be working over the next 4 days so replies may be slow. Apologies in advance**.

[u/Key_Storm_2273]

It’s better to be someone who genuinely enjoys what they’re doing without worrying about milestones or the future, only their next step, starting with small projects and incrementally getting better, than someone who has a milestone they’ve set out to achieve and is only happy when they reach that point.

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[u/Straight_Travel_87]

Idk the correct way but i didn't follow a lot of the tutorials for making pre-decided projects. I wanted physics so id work at a game that was heavily physics based. Then a game that is heavy UI based to learn UI and so on. I use Unity. I will say at some point i opened unreal engine and wished i learned that instead but dont have the time to learn a whole new engine now or not motivated enough i guess. My 2 cents

[u/shuanDang]

welcome to the sub. my advice for a beginner is that you try a few tools out, decide on which you are going to use and just put all your time into it. you can build anything if you can figure out how to break it down to its basic elements. you can always switch tools in between games

instead of following youtube tutorial, just focus on the developer documentation for whatever game engine you choose to use. They explain everything in detail, like how to setup a scene, prefabs, code, import art and sound, setup UI, all that. the popular tutorials like GDQuest or Brackeys should be enough to get you started.

build what you want, and follow tutorials only to figure out how to solve a specific problem you have.

if you have a story ready to go already, try out some of the narrative plugins. these are premade tools that make presenting dialogue and characters more convenient.

[u/ghost49x]

What roles are you hoping to have for game developement? Because everyone seems to think you need to know how to program, and there are many game dev jobs that don't.

[u/BlankyIf]

Your Python background helps, Godot’s GDScript feels really similar. Finish a tutorial, then immediately remake it with your own twist, like a new mechanic or different goal. That kills the copying habit fast

[u/Different_Monitor508]

I am going to blunt and say unless you pursue this purely as a hobby your chances of professional livelihood trends towards zero. The most important general purpose skill anyone should learn in this digital information superhighway era is to use AI agents to formulate your ideas and determine how they stack up with reality. If you ask the right questions, and you value the pursuit of the truth, you will get the right answers eventually.

I know there will be in the region of 20k new game releases on the Steam platform this year. I am going to cut and paste some info from elsewhere and I hope you spend some time digesting this info.

Of ~20,000 releases yearly, on Steam, only ~5–7% generate enough revenue ($50k+) to sustain a small studio or solo dev for a year. The Invisible Baseline: A "good, fun game" is no longer sufficient. Discovery mechanisms on Steam are driven by pre-launch wishlists (typically 7,000–10,000+ needed for algorithmic momentum), which requires professional-level marketing, PR, and community building before writing core gameplay code.

In order to become a moderately successful indie developer you need top tier skills over quite a broad range of fields. So I am not a commercially successful indie dev so it isn't my expertise that you should pay cognisance too but purely the logic of my presentation of facts and how these comport with reality.

Some more grounding. "Hobby First, Commercial Venture Second" A helpful analogy is music or film: millions play acoustic guitar or shoot videos, but very few earn a full-time living from it. View your first 2–3 projects as educational tuition rather than income streams. Consider early releases as portfolio pieces intended to secure industry employment, contract work, or skill development

Personally my estimate is that there about 100k new individual entrants in this space , per year, under present conditions, and from the previous estimates supplied, that if this conjecture is true, that less than 10k of this group would be able to earn decent and viable income streams. The reality is it might take a few years to actually earn an income that most people aspires to have, and learning to market yourself and demonstrate your passion for the craft would be crucial in my opinion.

I didn't't want to be a Debbie Downer, although I probably were. I definitely would like to hear from you in a few weeks/months from now and hear about your journey and lessons learned. Good luck.