Industry veterans Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* get together to chat about game design and trains…

It can be difficult to find a theme for a game, sometimes you just need to look around the world and the creators of Mini Metro and Train Valley 2 did just that. Watch the full livecast to discover more about these games.

(*Rick has more than 14 years experience in the game dev industry, working on IP's that include Mario, Transformers, Captain America and Mortal Kombat. He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's very own Instructor extraordinaire. Tim Ruswick is a successful YouTuber and indie dev, who's created more than 30 games in the last 5 years (wow!), and joined GameDev.tv as our marketing monster).

Listen to the whole chat here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxUpNH2AOE8

Our 'AHA' moments

  • Take inspiration from the world
  • Be prepared for negative feedback
  • Tell people if your game is still in beta
  • Be consistent with your learning journey
  • Make sure your mind is clear when you try to learn new things

How To Handle Post Launch Feedback/Issues (1:23:15 - 1:27:12)

It can be demoralising when people say your game ‘sucks’. It can feel like all the years of work you’ve put in have been a waste. The best way to tackle this is to find friends within the community to play your game and offer both positive and negative feedback. When someone says something bad about your game, you can counter this by looking at all the good things people have said about the game.

Some people will always be negative, try to be emotionally prepared to deal with it. It can be hard to deal with the negativity after putting so much of your soul into a game.

If your game is still in beta, make sure people are aware. Include a link or section within the game that explains some parts are still being worked on and what your plans are to address any issues.

Finding Time To Finish GameDev.tv Courses (1:27:27 - 1:28:58)

It can be hard to finish courses when you don’t have a lot of time but consistency is key. Don’t get burned out by doing 50 hours in a week, instead concentrate on doing at least one hour a day consistently.

Time isn’t always a factor, sometimes it’s context switching. Your mind can be full with other information, try to have a clear mind when you sit down to start learning. This helps your retention and ability to store the information from what you are learning.

We hope this game design deep dive helps you get a better feel for how to deal with feedback and how to find inspiration for making games.

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Remember, we host live develogy livecasts every Tuesday at 10pm BST on our YouTube channel. You can catch all the recordings, including this episode, in the Devology Livecast course - it's free to join, and also on our YouTube Channel.

Until next time, happy dev'ing!