The Best Game Dev Content Might Be the Small Stuff
Why I’m leaning into Notes.
Hi, I’m David, and this is my space to discuss what I love most: creating video games with my 14-year-old son, Luke.
Who are devlogs for?
Are notes good?
Lately, my content has drifted away from where this whole thing started: showing the before and after progress of the games we’re working on. When I’m low on ideas for articles, the traditional devlog is usually what I fall back on. But I’m not sure that’s where my best writing comes from.
I enjoy a good devlog. I’m a game developer, of course, I like the nuts and bolts of the process, but most people probably don’t. What I know I do love are those big “2 years of development” videos that condense a massive journey into something digestible and satisfying. Though now that I think about it, they also kind of trivialise the process. You only really get one or two of those per game anyway, so they’re not exactly a sustainable content pipeline.
Because of that, I’ve been leaning away from constant devlogs and waiting instead for inspiration to strike, for an article that feels like it has a bit more substance.
That said, the development itself is still happening every day. So with the arrival of scheduled Notes, I want to try a different approach to sharing progress.
The articles will stay the same. They’ll come when inspiration hits. But the running list of updates I build during each dev sprint is now going to become smaller daily Notes instead.
They’ll focus mostly on visual changes to the games, since those are easier and more fun to show off. I’ve used Notes before, but having to manually post each one individually made it hard to keep the habit going. Being able to batch and schedule them might finally make the format click for me.
I’m not really sure how it’ll go, but I want to experiment more with the Substack and improve what it offers. It doesn’t take much for me to write a short paragraph about a feature I’m working on and attach a quick screenshot or video. And maybe those smaller snippets will lead to bigger ideas later on.
Let me know what you think.
Current games can be played below feedback welcome.
Maybe consider sharing your thought and decision making process. Why you chose one thing over another. Or you've initially decided on this but changed your mind after implementing it and reasons why.