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Comment by msephton | Hacker News Reader

Solution: go independent, work on your own ideas, and sell them to consumers. That might be your own start-up, but for me it was to become an indie game developer.

One of my games, YOYOZO, was featured in Ars Technica's "Best Video Games of 2023" so I feel my decision was the right one.

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Out of curiosity, how did you support yourself financially while creating the game? Did you also do freelancing or did you use savings etc?

I funded myself with the proceeds of earlier games. The game in question took only 23 days to make. I'd say I make one game every couple of months.

The initial short ramp up to the first game sales was funded by COVID-19, some freelance, some savings, some ebaying. But on the whole my game sales fund the next game.

How did you do this transition? How did you feel about your decision before your game was featured? I've been thinking about this path, but I feel too hesitant to jump.

Basically, lockdown project.

I made the decision in early 2020, shortly the first C-19 lockdown happened in the United Kingdom. I had extra time every day given that my usual routines, childcare, etc were disrupted. And I had a Playdate developer preview unit. I switched from web and app development to purely games. I'd previously made games but only occasionally, as a hobby. Though I do live and breathe classic video games.

During lockdown I created many prototypes and a couple of them showed enough promise to become full games. That was the point I went all-in and I haven't looked back. It took time for the device to launch, but again largely coinciding with C-19 restrictions. Through itch and Playdate's Catalog store I make enough money for my modest way of life, so I'm happy. Life gets in the way occasionally, but I keep pushing forward.

The accolade was a complete surprise and very encouraging.

I wrote a bit about my past year https://blog.gingerbeardman.com/2024/03/07/a-year-in-the-lif...

Thanks a lot for sharing. I love your approach for smaller games with faster cadence, and that it worked as full time job. I know the market is tough, but I hope you can make it work as long as you want.

Thanks so much. Keep on truckin'

what game Dev stack do you use?

I develop mainly for Playdate, so use the Playdate SDK and write Lua code.

So everything is created from blank files. A far cry from Godot, Unreal, Unity, Game Maker.

You might find this interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372936

interesting thanks!

Thats cool!

I haven't even heard of The playdate before.

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