Solo dev a game with blueprints and no experience? Is it possible or am I wasting my time?

I was thinking of starting a rhythm game project. I’m deciding on an engine. I hear a lot “If I were solo dev, I’d go with unity.” when researching. I’ve tried unity before, but there’s no solid visual scripting source on there, I tried C# before, and know the basics, but I really prefer node based workflows… I can animate and model / rig, and create shaders with nodes. Even did some houdini VFX for a while *that was hard to grasp lol

So I was going to rely on visual scripting. if I’m thinking what the game would need in terms of systems or game logic they would be
*dialogue system between characters
*menu
(i.e. on main menu, characters talk to eachother in with text, or to you, and it saves progress of talking)
*save system
*score system
*stage/level system from menu (I.E. go back to stage to replay it, try to beat your score, it saves, updates score)
some type of rythm gameplay system (I haven’t researched how to build these yet…)
I was also thinking of a few other neat features to add in.

Do you think this is feasiable with blueprints? or would it get way too complex especially for a solo dev?

Your project is probably too big and you’ll likely be overwhelmed.

Make something really, really small - the size of an old arcade game from the 70s. This will likely still take you quite a while, and polishing it into something half-decent even longer. Once you’ve done that a couple of times, you’ll probably have a much better appreciation for project scope and a better understanding of both project planning and how long it will take you to achieve things.

It’s definitely possible with Blueprints, and it’s definitely impossible with no experience. But of course, experience is something you gain as you progress and invest time into it. So since Blueprints are not an issue, especially for something as trivial as rhythm game, and experience is gained with time, the only factor is time.

Generally, it’s very difficult to invest enough time to finish a game if you have it as a spare time project, not fulltime. If you have to work or study alongside working on your game, the rate at which you will gain experience will be very slow, and diminished by the fact you can’t fully focus just on that during a span of at least whole single day at a time. It’s not impossible, but it’s very difficult.

So it’s not as much about the tool, but rather about willingness to spend significant amount of time working on it, and probably neglecting other parts of your life in the process, and at the same time being able to maintain motivation to pull that through to the finish.

There’s one well known 3D artist named Beeple, who is known for his incredible work ethic, and in one of his talk, he shared the secret of effective time management:
(Skip to 39:30 time mark as the time mark link doesn’t work correctly here)

I think this perfectly applies to (successful) indie game development as well.

I started my game Emberheart 4 years ago with only a little bit of experience in unity. I decided 4 years ago to try UE4 and the project I was making was quickly shaping up into something I could make into a full game. The scope was much bigger than what you state you want in the game. But it also took me 3 years of fulltime development to get where I am now. I am releasing in Early Access in just one week from now!!

So yeah. It is possible. Blueprints is very easy to learn and to program things quickly with! And if you’re a visual thinker like me. You’ll have a much easier time using visual scripting like blueprints compared to real coding in c++ or c#!

I was only able to work for 4 years without income because my parents supported me though. So if you want to do something like that (full time development i mean) than better make sure you already got enough money to continue paying your rent and food for 6 months to a year or make sure your parents support you.

While it is possible, looking at myself with Emberheart and Forests of Augusta, and for example Sanctum Breach which was also a large scope project done by a solo dev in UE4, there might be factors involved that made for the success of myself and the sanctum breach guy.

For example. I crashed heavily right before I started my UE4/Emberheart development. I ended up in the psychic hospital where they examined what was “wrong” with me. They did intelligence tests and tested for things like autism etc. Turned out I am gifted and autistic.

Being gifted, among a high IQ, means you have extreme motivation and perseverance, can think complex, often a visual thinker, are highly senstive (which often goes hand in hand with great Artistic abilities) and others.

While purely gifted people often are smart in many areas, due to my autism I’m more of an “Idiot Savant” meaning I’m only interested in Game development and nothing else. Making my skills in game development even better, cause i don’t do anything else in my life…

You don’t have to be gifted or autistic to be able to do it. Just having the motivation to work 10+ hours a day including weekends and good motivation and perseverance will get you a long way. Hell, with the scope you described, which is only 1/10th the work of what i did with Emberheart, you could go with less hours work per day/week, even do it in your spare time. Just be consistent. Like work a few hours every day, make a habbit out of it.

Hope this gave you some insight. And I hope you’re gonna tackle it, cause being a game developer and able to make a living out of it is great!