To aspiring indie devs | Hacker News Reader

To aspiring indie devs

sagacityapp.com

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If you're looking to sell your first (or any) game, I make itch.io [1] and I'd love to help you out. It's a open marketplace for hosting indie games. I'm continually adding new stuff to make it super easy to help developers start selling with no hassle. The response from the community has been incredible and I'm always looking to add new games. Feel free to email me, leafot @ gmail if you have any questions.

[1]: http://itch.io

I used itch to buy Fjordsss over the Christmas break and it was a brilliant experience. Really well put together site.

Basically, if you accept that your first 10 games will suck, and you don't try to make your first game fantastic, then your first 10 games will suck. Worse, you might get good at developing sucky games. For most developers, not just game developers, it's likely that their first some number of projects will suck.

I always thought that the mantra about your first 10 games will suck was a way to take the pressure off you and get you to develop a game. The problem is that we psych ourselves out; we don't develop anything because we're too fearful about making a bad game, and we procrastinate, and we hem and haw and never develop anything.

It's not so much that it should suck, as much as that it probably will suck, just because you don't know what you're doing yet. So as you said, it's just to set your expectations right, not your ambition.

And this is where I deeply agree with the author, and why I don't spend as much time reading articles as I once did: All of this is advice is probably right, in context. In the incredibly rich and impossible-to-convey context of the author's situation. Used outside of that context, it could be exactly the wrong advice.

It's like Soeren Kierkegaard said, you can't pass experience on through writing, it has to be lived.

also, not sucking and financial success are two different things. You can be a financial success with a game that sucks. Getting to where you're consistently making good, innovative stuff really does come sometime after your 10th game.

Notch had really similar advice in the Minecraft movie. The interview asks him for advice for aspiring game devs, and he responds in a wonderful deadpan: "don't follow any advice" (paraphrased)

Although, interestingly, the creation and growth of mine craft fit the author's advice pretty closely (untraditional marketing, huge idea, just release it)

Edit: Here's the link to Notch's advice - http://youtu.be/ySRgVo1X_18?t=1h20m36s "Do you have any words of advice for people out there" "The best advice I can give anyone is 'don't listen to advice'"

This is all true, and is similar to the #1 advice that I give to aspiring indie devs, which is to make a tiny game. Like, something that can be finished in under a week. I can guarantee they won't finish it in time - it's a lesson in scope. You spent half of the time debugging some physics bug for that puzzle platformer idea? Yup. You spent a whole day working out some UI quirk? Yep. No, those ideas are all too big: you have to scope down to a Tetris clone to finish on time.

Regardless of if you finish in time, you should still finish it. A finished bad game is a million times more impressive than an unfinished cool idea. You gain priceless knowledge and experience from just completing a project from beginning to end, so do it often - and of course the easiest way to do that is to just make a tiny, finishable project.

Once you make a tiny game, make a slightly larger one. Once you get to a multi-month project, you'll encounter the dreaded motivation gap. It's when the honeymoon period of "holy crap I have so many ideas" wears off, and you actually have to implement every detail. During this phase you will HATE working on the game, and if your life doesn't depend on it, then you will quit.

This gap separates people who like the idea of having made a big game versus the people who want to actually make a big game. I've seen so many people start so many cool projects, but never get over that hump because it's soooo unmotivating to do something you hate, making no visible progress, for the sole prospect of "it will be cool after I trudge through this another 5 months".

Once you get over that hump though, it gets super exciting again, because the end is in sight, and you're just polishing the game and adding in the cool features that were in your mind before, but couldn't add yet because the framework wasn't there. The only way past that hump is to have a really inspiring team that can inspire each other when they're down on motivation, or to have inhuman Carmackian drive, or to have your life depend on it.

What I learned from another indie dev was to stick to creating small games but each new game you create introduce a couple of new game designs.

Therefore after a while, you'll have a pretty good game framework and that big game you were dreaming of will be that much easier.

I started off making a small game [1], which I thought would be quick and easy and wouldn't take very long so would be a good starter, and it ended up taking me about 6 months to finish.

At points I absolutely couldn't stand this project any more - and there's still a bunch I need to do it like:

- add some multiplayer functionality so it goes "viral" (in the smallest possible terms of course)

- add sounds and music!

- fix bugs (when it's paused it loses the OpenGLES context so on resume some stuff goes white. Some wierd errors reported on Sony Xperia devices).

- make the UI look not-shit. I'm not a designer and it shows, fortunately a friend of mine who is spent 5 minutes doing a redesign recently which looks incredible which I'm hoping to use soon. I spent forever trying to come up with something even half decent. Lesson learnt there - get someone else to do it if you can.

Still - at least I now have:

- a bunch of code I can reuse.

- WAY more experience and knowledge

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyappe...

Better advice: Pick another industry, no field is nearly as competitive and difficult to make a profit in as indie-games. Most industries you have a handful of relevant competitors. In indie games you have thousands, most of which are some combination of better funded, better connected, and more experienced. Combined with the fact that it's a hits based market, where only a few games make a majority of the wealth.... Most indie game devs would do much better salary wise working a 9-5.

/gamedev cynicism

With no backing data, my reasoning would be it's the ideal time to jump into the industry.

Before the iPhone, I can only imagine how hard it'd be for developers to handle the business side of building a game, e.g. purchasing, delivery, website hosting, etc.

Now a days you have multiple mobile app stores, Kickstarter, Greenlight, Humble Bundle, etc.

Barriers to entry are extremely low, thats why you have an incredible amount of competition fighting for gamer attention. So in the past it was harder, but there were also a lot less people doing it.

The good news, such as it is, is that most of that competition is shit. The quantity of games is huge. The quantity of ones people play is not, and generally correlates with quality. Be interesting, be notable, and find ways to differentiate, and you have a much better chance. Get on Greenlight, get on Steam, be excellent enough to get on the radar of the new consoles (indie dev programs for both are underway). This is not easy, but it isn't impossible--I know two devs building their first game with a PS4 target.

(Also, avoiding the mobile market is probably wise. Competition is a lot harder there, and the games people generally gravitate towards so much simpler, that the barriers really are low there.)

I think the indie game dev industry is like the EDM scene where the really talented bedroom producers rise to stardom very easily while it's nearly impossible for everyone else.

I have no idea which industry is not competitive if it is programming related.

Good advice!

On top of start small I'd add: just finish it first. Maybe consider giving yourself a deadline. I got my first tabletop RPG supplement out last year because I signed up for (and got accepted into, horror of horrors) a table at a games/comics/arts festival. I had to go from idea to printed product in three months and worked my ass off in between my day job and taking care of my family to pull it off. But I did it and I am glad: finishing something has opened up my eyes to what's possible.

That being said I also took some time off of work last year to explore making games. There's a flourishing, inclusive indie developer community in my city and that was a real boon. However I'm still not sure how/if any of them make a living from their games.

Is it actually possible to aim your sights on a career in indie game development with all the responsibilities of a mortgage and family?

I want to do more games stuff but I foresee it being a hobby more than anything.

I've had similar thoughts.

My current plan is to move towards contracting work. Therefore, if there is time between contracts, instead of dwelling on loss of income, it essentially gives you time to work on your hobbies.

In your situation you'd need to ensure you are well ahead of your mortgage.

I can report responses from industry members in regards to making a living off of indie games.

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: yes, but only against the odds.

It takes a lot of consistent work, and not small amount of luck, to make net income in indie gaming. You have to treat it like the entrepreneurial venture it is, but you can succeed by the same virtues that work for other entrepreneurs. I recommend The Self-Publishing Podcast for plenty of actionable insight from three guys who actually make money writing self-published fiction (http://selfpublishingpodcast.com/).

> On top of start small I'd add: just finish it first.

Make the most MVP(G?) game that you can, and finish it, get it out there. Then start making improvements adding stuff, making it good. Just finish something and get it done and out there. So many people keep adding new features, trying to get it perfect before they release it, which they never end up doing.

Seconded on the just finish it first advice. I credit my first success NaNoWriMo victory as the spark for a lot of my creative and career progress since then, given that I've since Kickstarted a novel based on the original draft.

Usually not. A handful of indie games become big hits and make the creators lots of money. A small number of games do reasonably well and can fund a tiny studio for a year or two. The large majority of indie games fail to turn a profit.

Most indie game devs i've met are unrealistically optimistic and think their game is going to be the next angry birds. (Very similar to most startup founders i've met).

I think the idea behind prototyping first is to save your time making graphics/music for a game concept that is not fun.

That is, if it doesn't play well with boxes and circles, it's not gonna play any better with shiny boxes and circles.

If you absolutely need the graphics in place to inspire you to write the code, then sure, go ahead. But it eats up valuable prototyping time that can be used to churn through mechanic ideas and test them.

The advice also doesn't have to relate to the whole game. You might have decided you are definitely making some kind of turn based RPG. But you haven't worked out the details. That's where you prototype. You try every combination and bizarre idea you come up with, you play it, and you pick what's fun and throw out the rest. Prototyping can be as focused or as broad as you want.

I think prototyping with placeholder art works for most games, but not all of them.

Prototyping gameplay is important for games where the gameplay is king and art/story/setting is something on top. But if your game is going to be a regular platformer and the cool thing is the art, or if you're making an exploration game, etc, you should probably start with mockups and then make the game.

I agree with the author, but I think you need to look a bit further behind the common advices for their reason to be.

People tell you to make small games because they've seen so many newcomers try to make big ones and fail hard, NOT because it's impossible to succeed in making a big game from the first try.

Actually, one very common advice that is NOT debunked by the author is "finish something, however small it is, because there is more to learn by finishing something than by failing at doing something big".

To give a (personal) example: I have been making an indie MMO as the sole developer for 2 years now (see my profile for details if interested). I've been told about a bazillion times that it is crazy and that I shouldn't do that. BUT I want to do it, and since I've been making exactly that professionally for 5 years before jumping, I know that I know why people say not to do it (probably better than most of them, actually). But if someone very new to game making asked me for advice, I'd still say like anyone else: "don't try to make a MMO as a 2-person team".

Cool! I was just writing one of these for myself.

For me the most important thing is managing my psychology—keeping myself motivated on a project. So mine are all based around that:

    1. Work (hard) on what you love
    2. Ship
    3. Tell your story
    4. No big projects
    5. Collaborate
    6. Learn how to make money
    7. Be creative
    8. Think long-term
    9. ???
    10. Profit

I fell out of following video games several years ago. But I must say I'm quite inspired by the work of Terry Cavanagh (http://terrycavanaghgames.com/) and Stephen Lavelle (http://www.increpare.com/).

Maybe they just fit my more bite-sized appetite these days rather than for a 30-course-meal type of game, but the experimentation really captures something that, I think, drew me to games in the first place.

Thanks for the links. Tried a few out and they were quite interesting.

IMO, the two most exciting things that is happening right now is the Occulus Rift and independent developers.

I've had a bunch of games in my head that I'd love to build and it turns out there are plenty of indie developers who have had the same idea but are actually building them.

My current sci-fi list:

- RimWorld

- The Mandate

- Satelite Reign

Good advice in general, i don't really agree with what he said about marketing though. Depends heavily on the market obviously, but today, even if you have a super awesome mobile game it will be very hard to be successful with it if you don't know what you're doing in terms of marketing and don't have a budget for it. On many platforms, most decent games simply never turn a profit.

Nice advice! I've been an 'aspiring indie' for 6 years now [1], definitely not doing enough to promote my ideas, but like you said, I need to make something and release it.

[1] http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/author/jplur/

Excellent work. I like your perma-wield idea.

I've only just started on the "aspiring indie" path the past 6 months [1] and it's a great feeling when I've got a spare weekend to toy around with an idea.

One thing that I found useful was joining up with a indie game dev group in my city. It's always great to hear other peoples stories.

[1] http://andrewjamesbowen.wordpress.com/

Thanks, and I think that's a good idea about dev events, I'm in New York and just started realizing how many things are going on for game dev and creative coding around me.

I'm jealous about you living in NY.

I had a holiday there for a fortnight recently and for the first time in my life, I felt truly inspired.

One of my highlights was going through the MET. Specifically, seeing the flintlock based firearms. I was simply blown away by the intricacies.

Fellow New Yorker here with a long-standing interest in making indie games. Let's chat. My contact info's in my profile.

Interesting read! Especially since 3 weeks ago I threw myself a challenge: build one new html5 game per week.

If you're interested to look at the games I've made so far: http://www.lessmilk.com

I'm open for any feedback. Thanks! :-)

I enjoyed reading this - I wished it had gone on further! Thanks for taking the time to share your candid thoughts.

In peace, Mike

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