I Just kept crawling and it just kept working - How I became a full time indie developer.

Hello. So, first of all, I'm not an influencer. I don't know how to make

influencer. I don't know how to make this entertaining. I'm treating this

this entertaining. I'm treating this more like a live talk. Like, we're just talking at each other. There's going to be no cuts or fancy stuff to keep you entertained. I don't know how to do

entertained. I don't know how to do that. I don't really care about doing

that. I don't really care about doing that. Just imagine you're in a room with

that. Just imagine you're in a room with me. This talk comes from a conversation

me. This talk comes from a conversation I had with an aspiring game deer friend of mine who uh he called YouTubers and influencers an echo chamber for people

who have never released a game.

I don't know if I agree with that. I

don't think I do. But I do think we could use a bit more nuanced content from people who aren't making videos purely for entertainment and more kind of more educational. So that's what this

is, I guess.

Okay. There's a SL this slide exists on like every talk you will see and it's always comes across as like braggy and I've never really understood why it was there until I had to make one myself.

It's just to build create like uh cred credibility.

So, I'm keeping it short. I'm just going to be like I've released three games in 5 years. I've released I've sold over

5 years. I've released I've sold over 230,000 units. Mostly solo developed.

230,000 units. Mostly solo developed.

More on that later. Um it's focused on PC releases. Um some have the games have

PC releases. Um some have the games have made it to console, but they're really made for PC. And if you're like a mobile game dev, then this probably isn't for

you. I I have no idea about that um that

you. I I have no idea about that um that environment and that world. So, this is mostly focused on PC releases.

And this is my process. No, this isn't my process. This is the opposite of my

my process. This is the opposite of my process. This actually is a image I saw

process. This actually is a image I saw online. I think it was posted on Reddit

online. I think it was posted on Reddit and it was basically their plan for releasing a game from start to finish and it was pretty pretty in-depth. And I

and I just remember seeing it and being like that is the complete opposite of how I do things. I do things like this for better or worse. Uh it's kind it's

kind of chaotic. It I kept I just kept crawling and it just kept working is basically my motto at this point. In

retrospect, I obviously had reasons for the things I did. Um but it was never really planned out.

Okay. So what is the point of this talk?

I'm not going to tell you how to do it.

because everyone's situation is completely different and everyone's journey in indie development will be different as well. I can't tell you how to do it with any certainty at all because it's likely won't be applicable

to you. At the end of these slides, I

to you. At the end of these slides, I will go through some tips and some things I've learned. Um, not until I've created some kind of context about why I

think those things are important.

My first job out of uni was at an online gambling company. And that industry is

gambling company. And that industry is something I fundamentally disagree with now, but at the time I was young, I was like, "Cool, looks good on my CV. Might

as well do it." Blah, blah, blah blah.

Um, yeah, this whole industry is basically funded by what in gaming we would call whales. In online gambling, they're

whales. In online gambling, they're basically addicts. Uh, imagine an

basically addicts. Uh, imagine an alcoholic having a drink in their pocket at all times. That's kind of what online slots are for a gambling addict. I think

if you were in this industry, you're not a bad person. I mean, I was in the industry, so I can't really blame someone for being in that industry. Um,

it's not an industry I like, but the individuals I don't mind. Like, they're

just people at the end of the day trying to collect a salary and get some experience in game development. What I

don't like about it is it kind of pulls super passionate game developers from a young age into that environment and then they take a job being like it would be good for my CV. They think they're making games but ultimately what they're

doing is kind of making something adjacent to games like the game's evil cousin or something. So yeah, I stayed there for a few years um just cuz it would look good on my CV and I I kept

getting like promotions or kind of applying for promotions to be like oh that looks good. So, I was a tester, then a test lead, and then a producer.

And then because the company's ethos was so bad, it was like a a constant blame game. And it kind of like gave me, this

game. And it kind of like gave me, this is hyperbol, but um gave me PTSD for working in big office environments. And

I already had from childhood like a problem with authority anyway, and a reluctance to be told what to do. So,

that kind of compounded it. And I was pretty depressed. Uh if I can quit, I

pretty depressed. Uh if I can quit, I was like, I'm outie. When I quit, I moved back to my mom's like one-bedroom flat. Um, converted a like a closet, I

flat. Um, converted a like a closet, I guess you'd call it, cuz there's no window into like a bedroom and stayed there for a few years. This was kind of during CO. And

during CO. And whenever I'm in like a bad headsp space, I usually create stuff. I I think during that time and just before that time I did a bunch of kind of creative stuff

just to kind of get out of my own head which was I I wrote a pilot for an animated TV sitcom thing. Um tried

pitching that to Adult Swim. Didn't

work. Didn't work. Didn't go very far but whatever. Uh I wrote like a small

but whatever. Uh I wrote like a small novel that I just deleted when I finished it. Um bunch of weird weird

finished it. Um bunch of weird weird stuff. But one of the things I did do is

stuff. But one of the things I did do is I I started making like an indie game again as as a hobby. didn't expect it to go anywhere. Um, it was a Metroid Vania

go anywhere. Um, it was a Metroid Vania and then I saw a video of a streamer or I guess a live stream of a streamer playing a game in a similar genre to the one I was making as a hobby and that

game was on Kickstarter at the time and it was being pretty successful. It was

Hike with a Robot by Mr. Morris Games and he was on a small streamer called Taco something. I'll put a link

Taco something. I'll put a link somewhere. Yeah. And I saw that that

somewhere. Yeah. And I saw that that game and I was like, "Hey, that guy looks like mine. and if he can do it, I can do it. So, I thought, "Fuck it." And

I've done a Kickstarter, raised about 12K, and that allowed me to move out of my mom's flat and into a three-bedroom flat with both my brothers.

That brings me to game one, which is Zapling Bygon. It's a Metroid Vania

Zapling Bygon. It's a Metroid Vania where you stole you steal the skulls of your enemies and you wear them to gain new abilities.

Very similar mechanics to Hollow Knight.

Um, the only real difference is the protagonist, the art style, and some kind of unique abilities and obviously the story.

M, this game was basically made mostly with the Kickstarter funds, all with the Kickstarter funds and whatever savings I had left. And when I hit that release

had left. And when I hit that release button, it was the same month that I had to borrow money to pay rent. So, it was really kind of on the edge.

Initial sales were pretty slow. Um, so I had to start my next game like straight away even though I was quite burnt out.

So what my plan was to do was to make a bunch of small prototypes, see which one is the most fun and then roll with that.

But what ended up happening is I made one prototype and then a publisher messaged me or emailed me and was like, "Hey, could we publish this?" So I I was

like, "Yeah, I need money."

During this time, I also joined like a private Discord server with a bunch of other small indie developers that really kept me motivated. I don't think I would have finished this game without them, or at least it wouldn't have been as good

as it was without them. They definitely

helped me. And I learned a lot about marketing and what does and what doesn't work simply by bouncing off ideas off them and sharing struggles. And that was super important. Um, I'm still in that

super important. Um, I'm still in that group today.

So, yeah, Heretics Fork is the game that got published. Many people are very

got published. Many people are very anti-publisher, and I am too to a large extent. But the truth is, sometimes you

extent. But the truth is, sometimes you kind of need their cash to make what you want to make. Publishers are kind of a necessary evil in a lot of ways. They

allow games to be made. These days, I kind of look at them as more like a bank loan than a publisher.

So, Heretics Fork is a game that was kind of made a bit late on the Vampire Survivors hype. So, I had to make it quite a bit

hype. So, I had to make it quite a bit different than a than a straight kind of clone. So, what I did was I realized in

clone. So, what I did was I realized in Vampire Survivors when you get really powerful, you don't have to move. At

least you didn't. I don't know what the updates are like. And you could just kind of stay still. And I was like, that just seems like a tower defense. So, if

you're staying still and you're auto attacking enemies is basically a tower.

So, I made vampire survivors type game, but you don't move and you're just upgrading a tower in the center of your screen. And you upgrade that tower by

screen. And you upgrade that tower by using like deck builder mechanics. So,

it's basically the constantly killing enemies funness of vampire survivors.

It's the strategic element of a deck builder combined with the weapon upgrade system from potato. These mechanics

aren't unique, but when they get combined, they become something very unique. I don't think there's another

unique. I don't think there's another game like out there that I've seen.

I also used the law from that random sketch thing I wrote and tried to pitch to Adult Swim as like the backdrop and the aesthetic of the game, which was an office in hell. But hell is overpop

populated, so they have to try and figure out better ways and like make a computer system to help punish sinners more efficiently.

This game took a year to development. It

took a year to develop and it sold over 140,000 copies.

So, wildly successful to compared to any expectation I had. Um, still my most highest selling game so far. Then moving

off on from that, again, I should have taken a break cuz I was getting burnt out. But I think this whole thing I have

out. But I think this whole thing I have in my head about game development and creative stuff being a escape from reality, if I'm not doing it, I kind of feel weird. So, I always have to start

feel weird. So, I always have to start something straight away. So,

um, one of the developers I met in that Discord channel I mentioned before was the same guy who made Hike with the Robot, the one I mentioned earlier. Um,

and at the time he was making a game called Fusty's Retirement and it was popping off on social media. It was

getting a lot a lot of traction on social media and marketing. Had like a really good hook. I didn't want to miss the boat. I like it's a really cool

the boat. I like it's a really cool concept. So, what I did is I made a game

concept. So, what I did is I made a game with that similar hook with it being just on the bottom of your screen or just on the side of your screen to allow you to play the game while you're doing other things. But instead of it being a

other things. But instead of it being a farming sim like Russy's retirement, it was a life sim. I feel like a life sim is still kind of cozy just like a farming sim. So, it's that same

farming sim. So, it's that same audience, but it's a different genre completely only sharing the same aspect where it's an idler and it's hooked to one point of your screen. Okay,

I know I've just been preaching at you saying like a bunch of things that aren't relevant and you can't really take much away according to what you should do in development. Kind of

intentional. Like I said, I didn't want to tell you what to do. I just wanted to tell you my experience. Um, but I do want to give you some takeaways as well.

And these takeaways are things that should be relevant to everyone. But I

don't know. I'm not I'm not here to to tell you what the gospel is. I'm not

here to preach. I'm just to tell you what I think. Okay. I keep calling myself a solo dev. I don't know if that's true. Every single game I've

that's true. Every single game I've made, I've had some help to some extent from someone else in my life or in in business, in work. First game is happening bygon. All the music was made

happening bygon. All the music was made by my friend Anders, and I think that's probably the best part of the game.

Heretics Fork and My Little Life both both commissioned some programming help from a friend of mine called Evan, who is a really good game maker developer.

Publishers from Heritage Fork were really good at making like a great release plan, one I probably wouldn't have done myself, and that was really instrumental to the success of the game.

And last, but not least, I've had like extensive and free play testing from friends and fans who are just passionate about the game and want to make the game better and they want to play it early.

So, what I'm saying here is I don't think you should be too precious about being a solo developer or doing everything yourself. And don't be scared

everything yourself. And don't be scared to rely on others. I feel like no one or it's extremely rare at least that a game is made entirely by yourself and is

actually good and delivered in good time within a tight budget. That is rare and really hard to do. Most of these solo developer games that were truly made solo, they had like years and years and years and years of development because

they were so passionate about doing everything theirself to like the perfect degree, which is great. It's an awesome way to make games, but it takes a long time.

This is probably the most important slide on this whole thing. It's got a lot on it. I probably should have split this up into multiple slides. First

thing is you you should never expect your first painting to be a masterpiece.

you've never painted before. You'd never

be able to think that you can skate as soon as you step on a skateboard. Games

are the same. That first game you make, first couple games you make, the first experimentation you do in in games, don't take it so seriously. Chances are

it's going to suck, but you're going to be proud of it anyway. So, just have fun with it. Before I made the Zapping Bon,

with it. Before I made the Zapping Bon, I made a bunch of games that never got released. I think I just sent them to

released. I think I just sent them to friends and said, "Hey, play this." And

then they'll be like, "This sucks." And

I'd be like, "Whatever." And I'll start again. I was making games as an escape

again. I was making games as an escape from reality to have fun to enjoy myself. I wasn't making games to sell

myself. I wasn't making games to sell and make profitable straight away. In

fact, that wasn't even on my radar. Next

thing is AAA games take years and years and years to make, meaning that they always lag behind all these trends in gaming. This

is one thing I've taken advantage of.

These cozy life sim cozy rusty like I don't know what to call them games made them so quickly. I made it in a year.

Heritage F was also made in a year before anyone else can really make another genre mashup of that game.

You're seeing it again now with all these fun co-op games that are coming out that made really quickly. I think

Peak is the most recently one. These all

came like out like a couple years or even a year later after Lethal Company, which kind of sprung that new genre into existence. Well, we created that co

existence. Well, we created that co genre. I suppose we can do this as indie

genre. I suppose we can do this as indie games cuz we are focused on making them games smaller and quicker. AAA can't do that because they have so much overhead.

By the time they've pitched a new game, you can have already made the game.

Another huge advantage we have over AAA is that we are making small games cheaply, meaning that we don't have to make as much money as these massive

corporations games. So, we are in a

corporations games. So, we are in a unique position where we can focus on smaller, more neglected niche player bases.

Great example is horror games. Like all

the horror games, all the good proper horror games are coming from indie. When

I say proper horror games, I mean like not Resident Evil where you can go around shooting every shooting everyone.

I mean like proper like PT inspired scary designed to scare you horror games. AAA seems to avoid that for good

games. AAA seems to avoid that for good reason cuz it's got a smaller player base. Same with idol games. Same with

base. Same with idol games. Same with

cozy games. Lots of visual novel novels.

Deck builders. You don't see many AAA deck builders because these are very niche player bases. When I say very niche, that might be a small percentage of the big pie that AAA is going for. So

that small percentage is still absolutely massive and life-changing for indie. So don't compete with AAA. Let

indie. So don't compete with AAA. Let

them focus on the multiplayer shooters, the massive open world and complex RPGs.

Watch them [ __ ] it up and absorb their player bases, especially the ones that they've neglected or even the ones or the player bases that they've annoyed by making bad games. So yeah, overall make

games quickly and try and focus on genres that aren't competing with AAA.

This one I think is going to be disagreed with by a lot of people. This

is something that I do. Um I don't know if it work it will work for everyone, but all my games I've made so far are like firmly within a genre or another game or another series of games. The

reason I do that is it's so much easier to make a game when you have like a template. Zapling Bygon was very very

template. Zapling Bygon was very very close to Hollow Knight. Of course, it had like novel ideas and mechanics and story and characters and stuff, but that core template when you're first making a

game, especially one of your first games, to have a reference point to follow and be like, this makes games fun or this genre fun is super important.

And as soon as you diverge too far from that, then it games make it a lot harder to make. Heritage Fog was so much harder

to make. Heritage Fog was so much harder to make from a game design perspective simply because the mashup of genres was so different and I was in like unknown

territory. I didn't have this this kind

territory. I didn't have this this kind of formula to follow. I had to make that myself. That was so much harder to make.

myself. That was so much harder to make.

I think if I made Heritage Fork as my first release, I think it would have sucked. Um but even Heritage Fork is

sucked. Um but even Heritage Fork is still within a genre, multiple genres.

It had tower defense. It had um deck building and it had this like weapon system from potato. So even that I didn't reinvent

potato. So even that I didn't reinvent the wheel. It came from my little life.

the wheel. It came from my little life.

My little life was inspired by the Sims. It was basically The Sims, but an idol version and the for it to be small enough to fit on different sides of the screen. Originality comes from

screen. Originality comes from established ideas and mechanics implemented in new and interesting ways.

You don't need to reinvent the boat.

It's a lot harder that way.

I've kind of touched on this, but I really want to reiterate it.

Everyone relies on other people. Maybe

you have a supportive partner. Maybe

you've got people willing to play test your games or someone to vent to when you're just struggling.

Being part of a community is super super helpful. And if you can't find a

helpful. And if you can't find a community that is within your niche, then create one. Be that guy who starts it.

And I don't mean being in a Discord server with 300 other developers all trying to pitch their game at you or people to market their game at you and just trying to get wish lists. Avoid

those kind of Discord servers. Try and

find small niche groups who are within your genre and just want to make fun games and are passionate and people in a community that's small enough for you to actually become friends with. Another

thing I really want to push is the pie of game development is so [ __ ] massive. It's not indie versus indie.

massive. It's not indie versus indie.

It's never indie versus indie. Your

competitors are never other indie games.

Your competitor, if anything, is AAA.

And in my opinion, AAA is losing.

Actually, in the stats, AAA is losing.

Indie is slowly eating up more of the pie when it comes to Steam releases versus AAA releases.

This could be a whole another talk why I think AAA is [ __ ] up and I might actually do that. But for now, just know that AAA is slowly losing and indie is overtaking it. And that's awesome to see

overtaking it. And that's awesome to see in my opinion cuz AAA is lazy and they're destroying their IP and they're not creating new IP and they're getting

boring and yeah, [ __ ] them.

Lastly, remember it's a job.

It's the best job I've ever had and I wouldn't want to do anything else, but it's still a job and it will get hard and you have to do things you don't want to do and you have to work on days you don't want to work just like any other

job. But on the flip side of that, it

job. But on the flip side of that, it doesn't have to be a job. Not all

artists want to make it their career. In

fact, I think I had more fun making games when it wasn't my career than I have while it's been my career. Soon as

there's external pressure, as soon as you need to make successful games to pay rent, it kind of warps the games to fit a commercial world where you're choosing genres not because it's the genre you

want to make. You're choosing genres because it's the one that will sell or you're adding mechanics simply because that mechanic is marketable and fun to put on TikTok. Before you had to do that and you could just make whatever the [ __ ] you wanted. In my opinion, that's

more fun. But then the problem is you

more fun. But then the problem is you have to find a different job outside of that and keep it as a hobby. It's a

trade-off, but there's nothing wrong with keeping gamedev as a hobby. In

fact, for a lot of people, I think that's probably a good idea. And that's

everything. This is when if we were in a real personal location, I'd ask you if you had any questions, but that's not how it works online. Unless it's a stream. Maybe there should have been a

stream. Maybe there should have been a stream, but then nobody would have tuned in. I hope there's something you

in. I hope there's something you learned. If not, I hope you enjoyed

learned. If not, I hope you enjoyed yourself. If I was a YouTuber, this is

yourself. If I was a YouTuber, this is where I'd say like and subscribe. If you

want to see my games, I guess I'll put another slide at the bottom here. I edit

edit it in to show my games or yeah links to stuff will be in the descriptions. Yeah, chill.

descriptions. Yeah, chill.