

To aspiring indie devs - adn
http://www.sagacityapp.com/folmerkelly/To%20aspiring%20indie%20devs

======
leafo
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](http://itch.io)

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

------
rajat
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.

~~~
sfjailbird
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.

------
sirgawain33
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](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'"

------
lifeformed
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.

~~~
philbarr
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...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplyapped.calculate)

------
soup10
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

~~~
andrewb
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.

~~~
kayoone
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.

~~~
eropple
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.)

------
agentultra
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.

~~~
soup10
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).

------
interpol_p
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.

~~~
slazaro
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.

------
mguillemot
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".

------
Jasber
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

------
platz
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/](http://terrycavanaghgames.com/)) and Stephen
Lavelle ([http://www.increpare.com/](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.

~~~
andrewb
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

------
kayoone
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.

------
jplur
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/](http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/author/jplur/)

~~~
andrewb
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/](http://andrewjamesbowen.wordpress.com/)

~~~
jplur
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.

~~~
andrewb
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.

------
lessmilk
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](http://www.lessmilk.com)

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

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

In peace, Mike

