How I write articles
You might have noticed that articles on Game Dev Beginner are a little bit different to articles on other sites.
They’re longer, they usually go into a lot more detail than other answers to similar questions do and, importantly, they try to answer questions that usually don’t get answered anywhere else.
This is because I started Game Dev Beginner as a direct result of how frustrating it can be learning how to make games for the first time.
For example, forums can sometimes be unhelpful or hostile places for a beginner to try and learn.
While many articles on the basics tend to only repeat the same publicly available information that can be read on any number of blogs that cover the same subject.
Which isn’t helpful.
So how is Game Dev Beginner different?
When writing articles, either myself, or when working with other authours, I follow three golden rules.
1. Genchi Genbutsu
By far, the most important aspect of my research process is Genchi Genbutsu which, translating to go and see for yourself, is the Japanese principle of directly observing a problem in order to understand it.
In practice, this means that I have personally tested everything that I write about when researching the article, even if I think I already know what’s going to happen.
This is important, as it allows me to understand the real problems you will face when doing it for yourself and is typically one of the most useful methods of generating insight that isn’t generally available.
Why? Because testing takes time, it often raises further questions and many people may assume that that articles on basic subjects don’t deserve that level of research.
I do, which is why I spent a month testing Unity’s new input system, why I wrote thousands of words on just pausing a game in Unity and why one of my most popular articles is about how to count time.
It’s also why I do not use AI, either to research my articles or to create my content. Every article is researched, tested and written by its authour which is usually me.
2. Reduce the noise, don’t add to it
When I have an idea for an article, I carry out a checking process to see if I should actually write it or not.
I do this for two reasons, 1. because my articles usually take days, sometimes weeks, to write, so I need to make sure, in advance, that it’s a good use of time. And 2. because if a good answer already exists for a particular question, there’s no point in me trying to confuse matters by answering it again.
There are some excellent guides and tutorials that exist, including many by Unity themselves, that already provide good, complete, answers to questions that I might be tempted to answer on my blog.
However, the purpose of my blog is to add insight where it doesn’t exist. Meaning that, if I feel like a topic has already been well covered and that there’s nothing more to say, I’ll pick something else to write about.
3. Get to the point
While my articles are often long and detailed deep dives into the basics of Unity game development, they typically consist of key information followed up by answers to advanced and related questions.
Some readers won’t need all of the information on the page and, for them, I always try to make sure that the information that they are looking for is either at the top of the article, where you might expect to find it or, if it’s a specific question that’s answered as part of a wider topic, that it’s linked from a contents section that’s easy to find and easy to use.
It’s important to me that my articles are easy to read, but it’s also important to me that, if you don’t need to read the whole article, you won’t have to.
Let me know your thoughts
If you’ve got feedback about Game Dev Beginner that you want to share, then I want to hear from you.
Good or bad, I want to know so leave me a comment on this page or get in touch by email at [email protected].