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The first question I think you should ask yourself is: why do you want to go into game development? Is it to take part in making a AAA hit? Do you have lots of

The first question I think you should ask yourself is: why do you want to go into game development? Is it to take part in making a AAA hit? Do you have lots of your own game designs that you'd love to see the light to day? Do you want to work on a 500-person team on a AAA title, or with two other people on your thing? What sort of games do you want to make? Depending on the answer to those questions, the path you'll want to take will be very different. My personal dream was more on the "I want to make my own things and control everything" side, so after leaving traditional tech, I focused on releasing lots of freeware games, an active Twitter presence, and building up "brand" recognition for myself in preparation for the first commercial title. I'm now a somewhat successful solo indie dev, and my latest game Slipways [1] pays my bills as I'm getting ready for my second big project. So this approach can work, but it is very... effort heavy. And probably nowhere close to what you want to do if your goals are different from mine. But: if you really want it and have the programming chops already (and it looks like you do), getting into gamedev is mostly a matter of taking the plunge and seeing where that path takes you. [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264280/Slipways/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264280/Slipways/

rytor718 4y ago
As a quick aside: I love Slipways. Amazing job, very interesting little game :) On topic, I'm working in the same vein as you currently (without the indie hit) - I like building worlds that I want to see the light of day. I've found itch.io to be an amazing community and resource as a part-time games developer. It makes it stupid easy to get a game to the web and similarly easy to use sophisticated tools like Unity to make games for other platforms.
- krajzeg 4y ago
  Itch.io is great and has single-handedly made it much easier to get an early audience for a freeware game. It's been a great help for me as well. It's harder to actually earn money there (at least in my case, it's orders of magnitude less money than eg. Steam), but you can't beat it for ease of publishing something and seeing what people think of it.
eerikkivistik 4y ago
@krajzeg Do you happen to know the 1997 game Into The Void? Took a look at Slipways and had a nostalgic moment.
nerdchum 4y ago
As an indie dev did you write your own game engine or use an off the shelf option?
- vvilliamperez 4y ago
  Almost all indie devs these days use Unity or Unreal. You'll get more output out of these quicker, and that will encourage you to continue developing. Don't be put off from writing your own engine, but it is quite a daunting task, expecially for 3D. Besides rendering, these off the shelf engines provide tooling that make game development easier on you. Map editing, animation editing, sound editing etc all built in.
  - luxuryballs 4y ago
    I looked hard at Unity but ultimately couldn’t get myself past the learning curve and went with MonoGame instead, this allowed me to prototype my game idea in a mere 8-12 hours of coding without any clunky interface getting in the way. I am not sure if I made the right choice or not but the engine I’m working on is indeed very satisfying to build though I am aware I could have had a playable game by now instead of still be implementing hand cranked shader animations and trying to architect a custom rendering stack… but I figure if it’s not one thing it’s another! Plus if you do succeed don’t you end up owing Unity a bunch of money?
    - cmehdy 4y ago
      You made the right choice if you're still working at it. Staying on target is more important than the bad choices you might make - otherwise you'll end up like me and thousands others who are indecisive and consequently produce nothing. Unless the licensing scheme changed, you can see the graph of licensing costs for Unity on articles like this one: https://gsnook.wordpress.com/2019/01/19/for-indie-developers-unreal-is-probably-the-smarter-choice-but-im-using-unity/ https://gsnook.wordpress.com/2019/01/19/for-indie-developers... (specifically: https://gsnook.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/enginecost.png?w=768 https://gsnook.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/enginecost.png?w=... ) I wish you all the best, and primarily to keep your passion.
yoyohello13 4y ago
Thank you so much for making Slipways! It's such a perfect 'Sunday morning over coffee' game.
cableshaft 4y ago
Ooh, I own Slipways :). I don't know if I really sat down to play it (I have a bad habit of buying games and they sit for months before I get around to playing them) so I should do so. I'm working on a game I'm hoping to release on Steam Early Access in roughly six months. It'll be my first proper game release in over ten years (life happened and a five year detour into board game design), so I really don't know how to market these things very well anymore, and it's an abstract strategy game (specifically a sequel to a game I released on Xbox 360 a decade ago[1]). And my video game industry network is practically nonexistent now, except for a handful of people I used to work with back when I was doing it professionally. Do you have any recommendations for building up a brand? I was going to start live coding on Twitch, especially since there's going to be some Twitch features in the game I need to test anyway, but beyond that I don't really know what's effective anymore. [1]: https://youtu.be/Yqe0hS7AvOE https://youtu.be/Yqe0hS7AvOE
- krajzeg 4y ago
  > building up a brand That's a big topic, and one I'm not an expert on - if I was forced to pick my weakest gamedev suit, marketing would be it. What worked for me was picking a social media outlet I felt comfortable with, then using it to its fullest. For me, that was Twitter, back in the 140-character days way before all this Musk mess. Twitch might work for you, if you enjoy building up an audience around a stream - though with a coding stream you're mostly going to get other programmers (not necessarily a bad thing depending on the game). The biggest boost in recognition for Slipways was as a result of Twitch/YouTube content creators featuring it. Content creators (not necessarily limited to YT/Twitch) is where I would focus my efforts these days when trying to get the word out. The smaller-to-medium-sized ones are usually very approachable and eager to try stuff out.
ddaletski 4y ago
Why it's always that when I see some good indie gamedev, it's from Poland? Pozdrawiam
- sobkas 4y ago
  > Why it's always that when I see some good indie gamedev, it's from Poland? Pozdrawiam Free high quality schools, robust safety net, many technology companies, eastern angst that doesn't allow soul to settle, etc.
  - badpun 4y ago
    What safety net? (I’m Polish)
    - sobkas 4y ago
      First of all when you are unemployed you get free healthcare, "urząd pracy" have some ways to help you, for example getting job experience like paid internships, some education about jobs/getting them, unemployment benefits. "MOPS" also have ways to help. You got paid when you are on long sick leave. Parental leave that is long enough to be useful. You can get sick leave on your child. It's not perfect but
epolanski 4y ago
Very interesting title, I'll give it a try. Do you happen to blog?
jackling 4y ago
Any advice on how to improve on art/graphics for a developer? I always find that I can program just fine, but when it comes to creating models and splash art, I have no idea what I'm doing.
cx42net 4y ago
> "an active Twitter presence" What is your Twitter handle?
YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
I love Slipways but I have to finish the corrections to my thesis so I'm staying well away :P Thanks for a great game!

rytor718 4y ago

As a quick aside: I love Slipways. Amazing job, very interesting little game :) On topic, I'm working in the same vein as you currently (without the indie hit) - I like building worlds that I want to see the light of day. I've found itch.io to be an amazing community and resource as a part-time games developer. It makes it stupid easy to get a game to the web and similarly easy to use sophisticated tools like Unity to make games for other platforms.

krajzeg 4y ago
Itch.io is great and has single-handedly made it much easier to get an early audience for a freeware game. It's been a great help for me as well. It's harder to actually earn money there (at least in my case, it's orders of magnitude less money than eg. Steam), but you can't beat it for ease of publishing something and seeing what people think of it.

eerikkivistik 4y ago

@krajzeg Do you happen to know the 1997 game Into The Void? Took a look at Slipways and had a nostalgic moment.

nerdchum 4y ago

As an indie dev did you write your own game engine or use an off the shelf option?

vvilliamperez 4y ago
Almost all indie devs these days use Unity or Unreal. You'll get more output out of these quicker, and that will encourage you to continue developing. Don't be put off from writing your own engine, but it is quite a daunting task, expecially for 3D. Besides rendering, these off the shelf engines provide tooling that make game development easier on you. Map editing, animation editing, sound editing etc all built in.
- luxuryballs 4y ago
  I looked hard at Unity but ultimately couldn’t get myself past the learning curve and went with MonoGame instead, this allowed me to prototype my game idea in a mere 8-12 hours of coding without any clunky interface getting in the way. I am not sure if I made the right choice or not but the engine I’m working on is indeed very satisfying to build though I am aware I could have had a playable game by now instead of still be implementing hand cranked shader animations and trying to architect a custom rendering stack… but I figure if it’s not one thing it’s another! Plus if you do succeed don’t you end up owing Unity a bunch of money?
  - cmehdy 4y ago
    You made the right choice if you're still working at it. Staying on target is more important than the bad choices you might make - otherwise you'll end up like me and thousands others who are indecisive and consequently produce nothing. Unless the licensing scheme changed, you can see the graph of licensing costs for Unity on articles like this one: https://gsnook.wordpress.com/2019/01/19/for-indie-developers-unreal-is-probably-the-smarter-choice-but-im-using-unity/ https://gsnook.wordpress.com/2019/01/19/for-indie-developers... (specifically: https://gsnook.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/enginecost.png?w=768 https://gsnook.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/enginecost.png?w=... ) I wish you all the best, and primarily to keep your passion.

yoyohello13 4y ago

Thank you so much for making Slipways! It's such a perfect 'Sunday morning over coffee' game.

cableshaft 4y ago

Ooh, I own Slipways :). I don't know if I really sat down to play it (I have a bad habit of buying games and they sit for months before I get around to playing them) so I should do so. I'm working on a game I'm hoping to release on Steam Early Access in roughly six months. It'll be my first proper game release in over ten years (life happened and a five year detour into board game design), so I really don't know how to market these things very well anymore, and it's an abstract strategy game (specifically a sequel to a game I released on Xbox 360 a decade ago[1]). And my video game industry network is practically nonexistent now, except for a handful of people I used to work with back when I was doing it professionally. Do you have any recommendations for building up a brand? I was going to start live coding on Twitch, especially since there's going to be some Twitch features in the game I need to test anyway, but beyond that I don't really know what's effective anymore. [1]: https://youtu.be/Yqe0hS7AvOE https://youtu.be/Yqe0hS7AvOE

krajzeg 4y ago
> building up a brand That's a big topic, and one I'm not an expert on - if I was forced to pick my weakest gamedev suit, marketing would be it. What worked for me was picking a social media outlet I felt comfortable with, then using it to its fullest. For me, that was Twitter, back in the 140-character days way before all this Musk mess. Twitch might work for you, if you enjoy building up an audience around a stream - though with a coding stream you're mostly going to get other programmers (not necessarily a bad thing depending on the game). The biggest boost in recognition for Slipways was as a result of Twitch/YouTube content creators featuring it. Content creators (not necessarily limited to YT/Twitch) is where I would focus my efforts these days when trying to get the word out. The smaller-to-medium-sized ones are usually very approachable and eager to try stuff out.

ddaletski 4y ago

Why it's always that when I see some good indie gamedev, it's from Poland? Pozdrawiam

sobkas 4y ago
> Why it's always that when I see some good indie gamedev, it's from Poland? Pozdrawiam Free high quality schools, robust safety net, many technology companies, eastern angst that doesn't allow soul to settle, etc.
- badpun 4y ago
  What safety net? (I’m Polish)
  - sobkas 4y ago
    First of all when you are unemployed you get free healthcare, "urząd pracy" have some ways to help you, for example getting job experience like paid internships, some education about jobs/getting them, unemployment benefits. "MOPS" also have ways to help. You got paid when you are on long sick leave. Parental leave that is long enough to be useful. You can get sick leave on your child. It's not perfect but

epolanski 4y ago

Very interesting title, I'll give it a try. Do you happen to blog?

jackling 4y ago

Any advice on how to improve on art/graphics for a developer? I always find that I can program just fine, but when it comes to creating models and splash art, I have no idea what I'm doing.

cx42net 4y ago

> "an active Twitter presence" What is your Twitter handle?

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

I love Slipways but I have to finish the corrections to my thesis so I'm staying well away :P Thanks for a great game!