What I learned from my first published game
Tags: education, motivation, entrepreneur, life
Published: 2019-01-24 09:05:02

---
title: What I learned from my first published game
published: true
description: What I learned from my first game. 
tags: education, motivation, entrepreneur, life
---
3 months ago, I have begun working on my own game: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.AtomicGameStudio.DontBlink">Don’t Blink</a>

In the beginning, I wanted to test my skills. After getting satisfying reviews from my friends and family, I wanted to take my game to the next level and publish it on google play store. I admit that the concept of the game is great specially if I could’ve made it player vs player and see who can last longer, but the design of the game could be much better. Anyways, I don’t regret publishing don’t blink since I have learned the following:

<b>1- Patience</b>

I have made a mistake by launching the game after a little bit of testing. It had many small bugs that I didn’t notice while testing. Also, I have released the game without launching a Beta version. In one day, I have made 2 releases that contain bug fixes. So my advice to you is to stay patient and don’t rush.

<b>2- Plan</b>

Don’t Blink was made for fun. I didn’t have any intentions to publish the game in the first place. However, plans changed and I’ve decided to publish it. I have changed the rules of the game twice (=> lots of coding and bug fixes). Therefore, the users who played don’t blink in the first release had issues playing the game in its second big update.

My advice for you is, plan then execute. When you begin planning, don’t go into details. Keep it simple in the beginning. If you’re so insisting to begin coding, then make sure that you are following certain documentation. Changes in the plan will definitely happen but keep away from drastic modifications because it will take you lots and lots of time to code, design and fix bugs.

<b>Related Article:</b> <a href="https://dev.to/hussein_cheayto/top-5-web-developers-you-should-follow-to-succeed-without-a-degree-25lg">Top 5 Web Developers You Should Follow to Succeed Without a Degree.</a>

<b>3- don’t take it personally</b>

Always listen to your audience and accept criticisms. Don’t take it personally when someone just didn’t like your work/game/app, since you won’t be able to make all the people like it. Listening to the audience is important because they are going to play your game more than you do, hence, add the features that they would like to see.

<b>4- Commitment</b>

Commitment is the key to success. I was committed to work on Don’t Blink everyday 1 hour after work and fulltime in vacations and weekends. Making a game would take time. Some games take months or years to finish and might not succeed, thus, you should stay focused and always remember your goals and why are you making such games.

<b>Related Article:</b> <a href="https://dev.to/hussein_cheayto/why-i-started-programming-35dj">Why I Started Programming</a>

<b>5- Marketing</b>

marketing affects more than 30% of the game’s success, you need to build a community and join discord groups.

I have created my own server on <a href="https://discord.gg/tfyFtSH">discord</a>

In this server, you can find passionate and talented programmers, web developers, artists, designers, and they are ready to help you.

The goal of Codinstyle server is to gather talented people in order to create one big game that will impact the world.

Moreover, always remember that you need to give before you get. When joining discord servers, download the games that people post and talk to the creators. Build a friendship with them, therefore when you publish your game, they will download yours and share your game among their family and friends.

<b>6- Game Design</b>

Game design is as important as the game idea. Graphics and design affect your game’s success by more than 50%.

<b>Related Article:</b> <a href="https://dev.to/hussein_cheayto/how-to-achieve-your-personal-goals-in-12-months-303o">How to Achieve Your Personal Goals in 12 Months</a>

<b>7- Stop</b>

Don’t waste your time working on a single game with low KPI (key performance indicator). To know if your game is a success, then you should check if people are playing my game as much as they use their toothbrush then my game is successful.

<b>SUMMARY</b>

3 keys that control a game, apart from a great team, game idea, game design, and marketing.

<b>Related Article:</b> <a href="https://dev.to/hussein_cheayto/how-to-become-successful-episode-1-glauco-pires-3ifb">HOW TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL-EPISODE 1-GLAUCO PIRES</a>