Guys, you read this and you think: Okay, so he has no idea what he is talking about. And from a certain point of view, namely Retro Studios or Konami, you might very well be right. But that my dear friends is not the point. The point is, we are all unprofessional indie developers. All of us. If you read this and consider yourself to be a pro, give your license back. Because frankly, you are not. That may sound harsh, but as long as you are not working on a multi million dollar project for a big budget market, you are not a pro. And that is okay.

I suppose since you are reading this, you are either a beginner or like me, a small indie. And tell you what. *WE* are the good guys. You see, a good game is not created in one day. And a good idea is also not done in a day. If you are really doing this, if you really want to go through with this, then be prepared: you have A LOT of work ahead of you, and you will fail. You will fail time and time again. Your first ten games WILL suck.

So what can you do about it? Well, keep on going. Create sucky games. Heck, for the sake of it, go now, open up SED, MED and WED/GED and create a sucky game. Create a game with four to six rooms connected to each other. Create a horrible player code. GO ahead and make a model or two and then place those models in your ugly room and play. Play the game you will work on for weeks. And then realize how much it sucks and throw it into a folder named "Projects that suck". And then start again. Do the very same game again. Do not change it. Just create the same game again. And again and again. And if you can do this game in one day and still make it better than your first few tries, you are on the right track.

I remember my first game. It was so horrible. And then I had this idea of a Castlevania game. And I was lucky enough to meet a great man who actually knew what he was doing. He basically created my game. And you know what? He is a pro now. And I am very proud to have ever met him. So my point being, like I have stated above: if you cannot make a full fledged game with the tools you have been given, you cannot make any game. Because a game is not graphics or shaders or music or gameplay, all those are things a game needs. But a game is an idea. And if you have an idea, no matter how stupid it may be, just go with it. Don't tell anyone. Take your idea, take a piece of paper and write it down. Draw it out. And then take your paper and create your game. It does not matter if it is ugly. It does not matter if it is sounding any good. All that matters is that you have taken your idea and made your game.

If you do that, if you really stick around with it, you will eventually learn to use your tools. You will know the do's and dont's of creating a game and then you will make a good game. And then, please drop me a line and tell me how you made your game good because I sure as hell have no idea how to do that

Thanks for your time. Never give up! Viel Glück!