Any solo game developers here?

I see alot of comments here who are wondering if they're good enough to join. At the same time, it looks like this group is very picky about who can join.

Perhaps there is another Discord someone could setup where part-time game creators could join. I am making a procedurally generated world simulation game that is a little bit too early in the process to showcase, and definitely not work full-time on, but it still has several tens of thousands of lines of code in it. That's just reality for making a game from zero. I would be interested in talking to other people about game creation.

Oh yeah I remember we met on video, you said how the people not chosen would be sent a link to a discord for “everyone else”, then after an email saying you went with someone else you never sent the link to the discord and then ghosted us. I made a mental note to remember that this guy was a liar who only said/did things for his own benefit.

I started a small "no-name" studio to build games handful of years ago. Built and released two games thus far -- SimAirport & SimCasino.

I'd potentially be interested, my email is in profile if you'd like to reach out. :)

I created Snake '97, the retro phone game remake that has gained some traction on Android and iOS (50M downloads): snake97.com

On how it got where it is, including a fun back story, I wrote a blog post: https://willem.com/blog/2018-02-21_updating-snake-97/

It must be said: developing a game and have it enjoyed by millions is something very special. Things really went bananas when I was invited to an art gallery showcasing art inspired by my very game: https://willem.com/blog/2022-04-18_snake-97-high-scores/

It makes me feel humble and grateful.

Yes I'm a lone indie developer. A long time ago I made a game called LOVE. Now im making a Real-time stealth tactics game called EXO. However I'm not doing it full-time.

Sounds like a great group! Making a game yourself can be very tough, but also rewarding. Having people to share your experience with is really important. If you ever want a guest who spent many long years working on a game and came out of if scared but a happier person, please reach out.

My games on the app store are MobileUO and Sandbox City.

MobileUO is a Unity-port of ClassicUO, which is an open-source C# client for Ultima Online. My hope was to get support from community on Patreon to keep developing it but the financial support didn't really materialize. But it's ok because close to a thousand people seem to be using MobileUO daily to play UO on their mobile devices and are happy with it as it is.

Sandbox City is a really mini-tiny-not-even GTA style game for mobile where the player gets to run around in a city, driving cars, and running over pedestrians and zombies. I'm working on adding more content into the game but it already gives me decent passive income from ads and IAPs. I also have it published on CrazyGames (html5/webgl online game platform) and it is also played a lot there and bring in additional income.

I'd be interested in joining your Discord. My email is in my profile.

Hah, this technically applies to me, but I don't feel I am taking my own work seriously enough to reach out even though I'm working on it full time. I've saved this post, though, and will reach out if I get to the point of feeling confident enough to say I'm actually an indie game developer.

Here's some info (okay, a lot of info) on what I'm trying to create for anyone curious:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ACH1XLCn7hkKz2dhuL1c_nx...

I recently released an open world RPG game I wrote completely from scratch while in high school (I only used OpenGL) to Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/1009960/Project_Hedra/?l=...

And now I am currently working in a few other prototypes and tools. Would be interested in joining

I am 38 and recently quit my job at Xbox Microsoft as a Senior Engineer (mostly C++) to pursue fulltime indie gamedev. As I've quit my day job, I am all in on this. I have a few friends who will be quitting their jobs in a some years and it's sorta on me right now to start generating revenue to help speed up them joining me if at all possible. I have a long runway and expect quite a few failures on the way but it's my goal to find success and balance.

I've only ever done various ludumdare or other misc gamejams, maybe 20 in my life. No substantial games to show/demo. Have used many tools and frameworks over the years, such as flash, libGDX(Java), Visual 3D, Unity, and finally a die hard Unreal Engine fan.

There is a lot of other posts already here of far more successful and qualified folks. So if not OP, if there are other communities with less restriction. I am always open to more.

Discord: namrog84#0880

For all developers who are curious about the solo gamedev lifestyle business, I’m sure there are many, what are the basic economics that can make it work? (Other than money saved at MAANG.)

I'm developing a racing game as a hobby. But I generally don't discuss my game with other developers since they are not the target audience for my game. I prefer to talk with players and get 360° feedback. I don't get the benefit of sharing the game to fellow developers.

I was a building an action RPG for six months. I made a ton of progress. Then I just gave up due to life situations and I haven't picked it up since. I'm itching to get back on it, but not being an artist is really hurting my game development journey. I need a partner for the art, or I just won't be able to make the game at all. It's unfortunate.

I've made about 30 games over the last few decades, and did it FT solo indie for a few years.

as a PT hobby currently I'm building a new interactive sim, with game-like aspects, related to democracy. Goal for UX is a mix of education, persuasion and entertainment.

I'm a Clojure developer, and for most of my career, I have worked at small to medium SaaS startups.

However, after some time, I decided to work on some side projects that were in a completely different field.

I started playing with the PlayCanvas game engine and created a 3D PvP based browser game.

Currently, the game is in the alpha stage and is called Enion Online.

Link: http://alpha.enion.io

I am a solo indie game dev - and have released Industry Idle[1] - a factory building/supply chain management/trading sim about two years ago during pandemic where I've got some free time. Now I am working on a spiritual successor called CivIdle while maintaining Industry Idle (it has a global real-time player driven market, which surprisingly takes quite some effort for maintenance, and that has slowed down the new development by a considerable amount)

P.S. Industry Idle has been open sourced a while ago, if anyone is interested in the code[3]

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1574000/Industry_Idle/

[2] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2181940/Cividle/

[3] https://github.com/fishpondstudio/industryidle

I started working full time on a game in Jan 2021, minus vacation I have probably spent a 1 year on it. I also have a side hobby job, doing some data science consulting.

I started with big ambitions the initial inspiration was Battle Brothers, Underrail, Jeff Vogel's old Exile RPGs and Caves of Qud (never played but seen lots of talks and material on it). Now it's evolved (devolved?) into a procedural simulation game of sorts. I wrote lore and world building. I want to do something deep and engaging that has high replay value - even with shabby graphics for years and years and something that I can continue to add content over time and expand the depth and scope of.

A big decision at the beginning was to build using C++ from scratch and not use an existing engine. So really I would say up about to the 10 months mark was just me figuring out application and software development - I come from an analytics background so in the beginning it was basic baby steps - like wrapping my head around doing everything in a giant infinite while loop, understanding how to manage memory, profile to figure out where frame rate is slowing down...not so much touching any content.

The hardest part was and is the architecture, how to add components, assets and generally organize the code so it doesn't become spaghetti as the game complexity grows - I started using a ECS early on but even still, I refactor the code structure a few times already and have simply come to accept some degree of chaos is inevitable. Next to that the UI is completely vectorized and drawn in-game so as to scale to any resolution and that has been a huge pain in the ass. There is a surprising amount of complexity in UI and I am devoting a lot of attention to it.

So now after 12 months I am finally close to the point of dedicating myself to mostly content creation and working on the game as opposed to the engine. After that I probably have to make a decision on whether to continue full time or devote some time to making some money elsewhere.

> Must be serious about finishing/releasing your game.

What are you talking about. Of course I'm gonna finish HoboHero [1]. Anyday now...

1 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3pnEx5_eGm-LpaFqWNN0...

I have been working on a programming game https://yare.io but kinda burnt out on it. The last 5% of polish/onboarding/marketing is so hard to get through. Would happily join the group to hopefully rise my spirit a bit!

itch.io has been my go to for both hosting my interactive projects as well as finding good community within game design. Not only is it where you can find game jams to work on side projects, but there's some pretty good forums & dev logs that allow you to find dedicated people.

I think it's only coincidental that I'm a game developer & on hacker news. I haven't seen a lot of cross-over until this post. Glad to see it though.

Yes, I've worked in multiple indie teams on various titles, I'm doing gamedev professionally, as well I'm solo dev making sideproject in spare time... on the span of 4 years or so.

My two cents - excluding people who "not work on their game full time" isn't very smart, most people have responsibilities and jobs, and can't afford to spend all the time on their pet project, and it doesn't mean they are not serious about releasing their games.

I wish you all the best on your development anyway.

You can check what I'm doing here: https://twitter.com/piropro

I've been a hobbyist game dev for several years now. I would like to transition to full-time and making a living off it but in my position (disabled for health reasons) it is seemingly too difficult. I think a team would drastically help push my efforts forward but alas everyone wants to make their idea. I know I have the creative sauce and technical competence but external motivation and time commitments on the order of months to years makes it rough.

Some of my work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7iA3_mbd4U https://explorerdude.net https://novagame.net https://choreomania.net

Something I think would sell: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11GreRAVxi-TO8zBt_Q0xKDno...

I used to be an indie game developer from 2010 to 2014. I created games using the XNA framework for Xbox360. It was a fun time, most of my games made very little money but a few them were popular.

When I switched from game development to app development I got the feeling that game development required 3x the effort to make a $1 when compared to business app development.

I guess it's like the difference between being an artist and a graphic designer

Fifteen months is major commitment. Good for you! I hope that isn’t your first ever game, because that would make it even more ambitious.

I don’t think I could do that. I’ve built a number of mobile games, but the longest I worked on before releasing was four months and that was hard enough.

I’ve always found it much easier motivationally and financially to launch early and iterate based on player feedback, but maybe the economics are very different with free-to-play mobile games.

I stopped doing it full time after a while and eventually went back to work. Game dev could support a family but not as well as a tech job, at least for me with my not-that-huge games.

Besides, for me I love that my game income is beer money/vacation money/new car money and not mortgage/health insurance/grocery money

I've gotta say, I've seen your game before. You're very good at marketing.

I'm interested to join, but I'm not doing it fulltime (I went back to uni to get a master degree). As a side project I'm developing a factory game (conveyor belts/factories/insertors..) with some Spaceflight Simulation game mechanics [1]

I'm planning on releasing the full game this December, but the game is already not doing so well (only 4K wishlists. 12K is recommended for a successful launch)

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2219580/Spaceflight_Facto...

Hi, this is really interesting! I'm working on my first commercial release and I can relate to these dev struggles. We're a small team of 3 people, a game designer/artist, a programmer and a sound designer. the game we are making is 2d crafting game about a squirrel helping a baby alien survive on earth. You can check the steam page here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1897470/Bill/ Cheers

Is there a good resources for a non-game-dev person to learn about game-dev?

Preferably a more guided approach (starts with A, then B, then C)

I'm interested to make my own game (2D, RPG, simple games, not touching 3D) just for fun.

Hello! Working full time on game right now. Been working three years on this game now.

The game is a machine building game. Hoping to finish within a year.

https://www.reddit.com/r/indiegames/comments/zolsc4/dominoes...

In retrospect, I probably should not have tried to build a full game engine, which is why it has taken me so long. Oh well... Live and learn. C'est la vie.

Anybody here going to GDC? I can meet up next week if you're interested. I'll play test your game and give feedback haha. I'm based out of Palo Alto.

Yeah! I made this science fiction VN [1] and am currently working on a follow up with overworld and graphics. I’ve got a Discord server where my friends who make games hang out — we’ve got a couple different games being made as well. If anyone’s interested in joining, my Discord handle is in my profile.

[1] https://boonbane.itch.io/firmament

Have you looked into IGDA meetups and support? Having plenty of online channels for discussions with other game devs (solo, teams, etc) with Discord and all is great but having face to face time with folks is better. I basically did what you did. Gather a group of like-minded friends that we can riff and talk about our games while we build them.

It’s been a while for me though. The recipe is still the same. People, find your people.

I am solo building a 2D game engine. Does it count?

I used to focus myself on game development, mostly mobile, several times, then I joined a game studio as a DevOps engineer and I'm not looking back, backend and scripting life is way easier but sometimes I feel that I should make an update or join a jam.

Well, the creative process for games is much broader and freeform but it's like with every art.

I currently am just hacking on a Pong clone in Bevy in my spare time, so I'm not serious at all. Just want to say props to all of you who are putting serious work into creating games full time or otherwise. It has been quite a challenge in ways that web development just isn't.

I couldn't take the loneliness and joined a small studio. Good initiative, I wish you best of luck!

> 9001 and It Usually Ends In Nuclear War

I thought this was a game about ISO certifications for a minute.

I am! But I feel like I'm already apart of 20 gazillion game dev discords and streams. Focus is a real drain doing solo game dev (using Unity to make a 2.5d platforming survival game). Good luck to you and your crew!

im not much of a HN regular, but a friend forwarded this over my direction. absolutely love the idea of more exclusive game dev communities. understandably, large parts of the game dev space have become oversaturated with a ton of "beginner-help-spam", and while getting that entry-level help is necessary to integrate into any new community, it feels as though some of the more nuanced and mature parts of the community get lost in the noise. all that to say I love the idea, and wish you luck!

I was wondering if there is anyone here trying to add matchmaking into their singleplayer mobile games? I have an SDK that could work well on IOS

I forgot to add the specific time (oops). We meet at 8:30 PM EST every Tuesday, and the meeting typically ends 2 to 2.5 hours later.

I'm doing 10 day jams every 6 months or so.

I’d love to have a group like this but for learning AI. Is it only possible for people in tech cities?

anyone interested for something similar to this should check out https://handmade.network/

> Any solo game developers here?

yes.

Cool

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