I started building a psychological horror game called Azirah: Don’t Let Her See You, thinking passion alone would be enough.
I was wrong, and that realization changed how I approach game development.
At first, I believed ideas and motivation were sufficient to create a full story-driven psychological horror game from scratch. But during development, I realized something important:
Creating a complete narrative game is far more complex than it looks.
Game development is not only about coding mechanics or designing environments. It also involves storytelling, pacing, level design, player psychology, sound design, optimization, balancing, and maintaining a clear vision throughout the project. Every small system is connected to another.
I learned that ambitious projects require experience, planning, and patience.
Stepping Back to Grow
I made the decision to step back from this large-scale version of the project.
Instead, I will continue learning by focusing on small, simple games and improving step by step through short projects (around 30 minutes of gameplay each). From there, I aim to gradually build my skills and one day return to this idea properly, inshaAllah.
What This Project Gave Me
Even though the journey was challenging, I do not see it as a failure. It gave me real hands-on experience with:
- Unity development
- C# programming
- Terrain creation
- Environmental design
- Puzzle systems
- Creative problem solving
More importantly, it changed the way I approach large-scale projects.
Final Thought
Sometimes the most valuable part of a project is not the final product, but the lessons you gain while building it.
Still learning. Still building. 🚀
Top comments (2)
This was a really honest read. It’s easy to underestimate how complex game development gets until you’re actually in the middle of it, trying to juggle everything at once.
Taking a step back and focusing on smaller projects sounds like a solid decision. Finishing shorter games will probably teach you more about structure and polish than pushing through something too big too early.
Also like how you framed it; not as a failure, but as part of the process. That shift in mindset makes a big difference long term.
Azirah still sounds like a strong idea. You’ll get back to it with a much better foundation.
Thanks, that really means a lot.
Yeah, I only realized the complexity once I was deep in it. Smaller projects will definitely help me improve faster.
Azirah isn’t gone, just waiting for the right time and skills.