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
Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
21–30 of 152 posts
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#22I 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
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#23I 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!
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#24I'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.
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#25I 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
That looks incredibly good for a solo high school project. I mean it looks great period, but you must be a pretty special programmer to have made that solo as a high schooler. props!
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#26For 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.)
Another route is to work on a prototype and designs in your spare time and set up a Kickstarter to raise funds and gauge interest (and try out game development of course without quitting your day job), but as the others said, you'll probably need a lot more cash than you think you do.
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#27Hah, 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...
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#28I'm doing 10 day jams every 6 months or so.
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#29For 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 also interested in this.
Currently trying get a small project off the ground while working full time at a large company. The goal is to get enough momentum on a project to find a good jumping off point.
The project is a multiplayer adaptation of frogger, where players are competing be the last man standing dashing across roads and rivers. The USP is allowing players to push each other around, this really adds to the competition (you can push people in front of cars, off of logs etc)
The target audience is "skibble.io users" so bored students / employees looking for something to do over zoom. So I'm building it out as a webpage with no login and as quick as possible time to game.
I have some info here https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=72732.0
And there is an old local-only prototype here https://danslocom.be/gamepages/crossy.html
Re: Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?
#30I 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
That looks incredibly good for a solo high school project. I mean it looks great period, but you must be a pretty special programmer to have made that solo as a high schooler. props!
Thanks. To be transparent, I started it in high school but finished recently (started it at 16 and I am 22 now)
Personally I wouldn’t recommend anyone rolling their own engine