
Moonman: 3 Years of Solo Gamedev and 2 Left to Go - eigenbom
Hey HN<p>3 years ago I started working on a game called Moonman -- a procedurally-generated adventure game.<p>I posted here two years ago with my blog entry &quot;The Last 2 Years&quot; ( http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bp.io&#x2F;post&#x2F;1501 ). 18 months later and I&#x27;m still working on the game by myself. I&#x27;m now in my final days of a Kickstarter campaign aimed to help fund one more year before the public release ( http:&#x2F;&#x2F;kck.st&#x2F;1DElnw3 ) and I&#x27;m happily on track to reach the goal.<p>It&#x27;s taken me 3 years of solid development before I felt comfortable to launch a Kickstarter, and I&#x27;m excited to be able to finally hire an additional person to work on my game. The game will take one more year before a public release and then probably another year after that to fix bugs, do the console ports, etc. Here&#x27;s a visual history of the last 3 years ( http:&#x2F;&#x2F;imgur.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;NnEmN ).<p>I never would have thought I would be working on one game for 5 years, but I understand now that these things take time. Instead of thinking of it as one long project, it helps to think of it as a series of prototypes -- each one building on from the last and getting better along the way. After a few grim periods of uncertainty and depression, I&#x27;m finally feeling pretty proud of where it is going.<p>The best thing about this whole Kickstarter campaign is the great support from the whole gamedev community. I&#x27;ve been tweeted by Notch, chatted briefly to Vlambeer, received a shout-out from Ron Gilbert, and have spoken to many other awesome gamedevs.<p>There are a lot of solo gamedevs out there, and I&#x27;m sure there are also a lot of solo start-ups. If you&#x27;ve been working alone for years on something and are unsure about its future then I hope my little story assures you that long-term persistence can pay off. I&#x27;ve still got a long way to go but excited to enter this next stage in my gamedev career.
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eswat
Was linked to this a few days ago. Good luck with the funding campaign, looks
like you’re nearly there!

I’ve been getting into gamedev in my spare time recently and have been reading
a lot of devlogs to learn a bit more about the process solo gamedevs in
particular go through. Out of curiosity how have you found the past few years
to be, working on this full-time while trying to provide a decent living for
yourself?

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eigenbom
Thanks :)

My wife and I have lived off one salary while I have been working on the game.
We're not able to save any money or go on holidays, but we live much better
than 99% of the world, so I can never complain. :)

Extra costs, like a desk in a co-working space, may seem unnecessary, but I
worked from home for 2 years and it drove me a little stir crazy. The KS will
be able to offset some of those things, so we can start saving for bigger
things in the future -- like hopefully attending GDC next time around.

My gamedev story is probably a bit longer than it needed to be, because I
wanted to start 'from scratch'. I've got a CompSci background and was really
curious how a game engine works, and so Moonman uses a custom game engine that
I built. If I had used an existing engine then I have no doubt it would have
shaved off a year of work. So I guess my advice is to use an engine like Unity
for your first commercial game, then when the financial pressure is less, go
explore downwards into the tech -- if that's your kind of thing.

Cheers!

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rajacombinator
It looks pretty neat, good luck!

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eigenbom
Thankyou sir :D

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iwwr
Have you considered getting some help to finish it faster? It looks great, by
the way.

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eigenbom
Thanks! And yep, that's what the Kickstarter was for.

I've had people help with little bits along the way, but I've never been able
to afford to bring someone on in a bigger capacity. Now I can and I've just
got to find the right person.

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nlx
Great dev blogs, good luck!

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eigenbom
Thx, I'm pretty proud of my devlog, it'll be fun to look back in a few decades
:)

