u/ABGAST

One of the most common pieces of advice given to new developers is to not start with their dream game and instead make something small first. But game development is extremely difficult and requires a lot of motivation, patience, and discipline. For many people, working on their dream game is the only thing that keeps them going because it is something they genuinely want to see finished.

A lot of developers start with projects they are barely interested in because they were told to "start small", but they never finish them. They move on to the next idea, then the next, without ever completing a single game.

The real problem is not starting with your dream game. The problem is having unrealistic expectations about the outcome. Your first game will most likely not sell more than a few hundred copies, and it probably will not turn out exactly the way you imagined. But that is not why making it matters.

The point of a first game is to learn how to make a game, how to finish a project, and how players respond to your ideas. The best way to learn those things is by working on something you genuinely care about. When you actually like the game you are making, you are far more willing to push through the difficult parts of development and improve your skills along the way.

That does not mean beginners should immediately try to make a massive MMO or an enormous open world RPG. It means they should make a smaller and more realistic version of the game they truly want to create.

Instead of telling new developers "don’t make your dream game" the advice should be: make your dream game, but scale it down into something you can realistically finish. And since you still don't know what you can realistically finish yet. Whatever you think is small, go smaller.

I started this Eletta 3 years ago, it's a souls like with inspirations from Home Alone and The Wind Waker.

Don't start with your dream game is terrible advice.