The path of an indie developer: how to create your own game?

The path of game development has never been easy and carefree, especially if you make games alone. We will tell you about the path of an indie developer, as well as how to achieve success in this case.

Large projects are created by companies that employ hundreds of people. When creating games yourself, you will face constant problems and tasks that will need to be solved only by you.

In the article we will talk about creating games, about their publication on various sites, as well as about special tools that will greatly facilitate the life of the developer.

What’ll we do?

The very first stage when creating a game is to decide what you want to get in the end result. It’s very difficult to think through all the details, but you need to be aware of how your game will look, what functions it will have, how it will interest players, and how the gameplay will be built.

Having drawn all this in your head, and preferably on paper, you can safely proceed to the first lines of the code of your future masterpiece.

Technology selection

Surely you know how to work in any game engine or have already looked at the technology you need. Everything seems pretty simple here, but in fact, the choice of a game engine is a very important point that should not be missed. We have already written an article on the topic of the best game engines, but we will add a few more words.

If you want to create games, it’s best to use game engines – written games will look much more beautiful and dynamic than those created in a programming language. In addition, they are easier to implement.

When creating a large game, you will need a large team. If you have it, then feel free to take the Unreal Engine, which has incredibly great functionality for projects that are difficult to implement. If you work alone, then it’s best to use Unity – it’s a free engine with a wide range of different functions for creating both large projects and small 2D games.

Creating the game

Having an idea in mind and choosing an engine, you can safely start creating a game. This stage is the most difficult and long: you need to register all the functions, create a menu and training, think over a beautiful interface and in-game logic. This stage can take months or years.

But even after creating the entire game, you will face additional problems, such as icon design, monetization, adding an in-game store, working with the user (authorization, player rating, etc.), as well as promotion of the game.

How to succeed?

Creating a game is only half the job and success does not lie in it at all. To succeed, you need a good idea, a beautiful implementation, good functionality, as well as proper promotion.

You will have to come up with the idea yourself, and you can implement it by taking good courses, lessons or webinars on the technology you need.

Training of personal qualities and the right attitude will help to achieve professional success. An indie developer needs:

• to bring all the projects to the end, not to give up on development after negative reviews, but to continue to improve it regularly;
• attract potential users not by the quantity, but by the quality of games;
• try to come up with original ideas and not be afraid to conduct brainstorming sessions with teammates or other indie developers;
• take a responsible approach to marketing the result of your work – create art, press releases, press kit, use various Internet resources to promote the project;
• decide on the target audience of your games;
• think over strategies for explosive growth, retention, training, motivation of players, monetization and localization of the product;
• actively interact with the community.

It is difficult to achieve success, but it is possible. The presented tips are not a panacea, but they helped me a lot and, I hope, they will help you too.