My advice for hobbyist game makers

I have been making games for almost a decade, and the Museum of Screens for six years. And I often wonders: Did I acquired any wisdom on game making? Well, not really. Since there’s no such thing as “game making wisdom”, and also, there is no wrong way to make games. All the advices for game makers out there are way too often to make marketable games. Which is an honorable goal, but it also boils down a lot of gamedev to a bunch of check marks to reach. No game making advice is absolute, you can make whatever you want. Moreso, I would argue that the best games are the one that try to divert from conventional wisdoms. Like a sage man said once, “Only shooting stars break the mold”. That being said, having played thousands of small games on platforms such as Newgrounds or Itch, I feel like I’ve acquired a bit of an eye for small games by solo developers. You don’t have to take those advice as gospel, but I think it could be useful to at least read a few of them. If you use generative AI…