I thought game dev was my calling. I was wrong.

Have you ever chased a dream and discovered it wasn’t what you expected?

That happened to me when I shifted from running my own SaaS business to trying to start an indie game dev studio.

Chasing an old dream

For years, all I’d ever wanted was to run my own company. Eventually, in 2019, I started Jetboost, a SaaS that extends Webflow’s functionality without requiring any coding.

Jetboost grew into a nice lifestyle business, but after four years of running it, I felt burned out and couldn’t understand why.

Perhaps I was running the wrong company?

I thought about how I first learned to code by making games on my TI-83 graphing calculator in high school. I continued to mess around with game dev in college, but I gave it up once I got a “real job” post-graduation.

I became convinced that to solve my burnout, I needed to follow my original passion, game development. Confident in my next step, I installed Unity, ran through tutorials, and spent several months learning how to make games in a modern game engine.

The reality check

Surprise! It turns out that making games is far more than coding.

While I enjoyed programming the underlying game systems, the real struggle was graphics, modeling, lighting, level design, sound, animation, and everything else needed to create a world people actually want to explore.

Lucky for me, a friend of mine was an experienced game dev and working on a game, Night Stones, that would be his first Steam release. Night Stones was a Zelda-inspired, 3D adventure game and by joining up with him, I jumped right into the deep end and was able to experience working on a real game project, not just simple game prototypes.

He handled most of the actual game development, while I worked on things like controller input, UI, localization, and other programming-heavy pieces.

Eventually, I had some spare time and wanted to take a shot at building a real part of the game.

The fishing feature that broke me

I decided to implement fishing, which I’d always imagined would be fun. On the surface, it seemed like a simple enough feature.

The reality, however, was frustrating.

For days, I battled 3D animations, physics, water terrain, and NPC AI. Once again, I saw that the code wasn’t the hard part, it was everything else.

During that slog, I realized how much I appreciated web development and working with databases, APIs, and even CSS! It dawned on me that the game dev process didn’t give me the same energy I felt when I built web apps.

I missed not only the familiar technical challenges but also working on a product that helped solve a real problem for people.

Lessons learned

Take action! You’ll never know if something is right for you until you try.

In my case, I was certain that game dev was my next step, but only after diving in did I realize it wasn’t the right path.

The key is to go deep, fast. I could have spent years on tutorials without a clear answer, but tackling a real project was the quickest way to test my true interest.

By partnering with an experienced friend, I gained direct exposure to working on a real commercial game. I quickly saw that while I liked some parts of game coding, I no longer had the same passion for it as I did when I was younger.

If you’re considering a pivot, find a way to test it in a real-world setting. Work on a collaborative project, shadow someone in the field, or take on a small, hands-on challenge.

You might discover things you love. You might determine it’s not for you. Either way, you’ll learn something.

What comes next

In the end, I’m glad I tried game development.

That lingering question, “Was I neglecting what I was meant to do?”, was gone.

Ironically, I moved on from my SaaS business anyway and ended up selling it.

Now, I don’t know exactly what’s next, but I’m carrying forward the biggest lesson from this experience: the only way to know is to try.

If there’s a dream that won’t leave you alone, give it a real shot. You might find your passion, or you might realize it’s not what you expected. Either way, you’ll trade uncertainty for clarity and get closer to what truly excites you.