HN Explorer

Ask HN: Any solo game developers here?

264 points by YesBox ↗ HN
Hey HN,

I'm a full time game developer fifteen months into creating my city builder game. It's a lonely journey so I put together a very small group of other solo game developers.

We meet up every week (currently Tuesday nights, EST) to relate to the struggle, hang out, and sometimes rotate one person who presents for the night (they can teach or talk about anything game dev related, including their game). It's been a success and motivating for all involved. There's also a second group that meets on Thursday's, but this group is currently full. There's about 10 total people on the Discord server.

I'm looking to add 2 people to the group who can commit to weekly meetups. You must be working on your game full time. Must be serious about finishing/releasing your game.

About the group:

We are late 20s - 30s and serious about releasing our respective games. We are pretty open and honest with each other, and will question each other/provide feedback freely.

About our games:

My game: Metropolis 1998

Person #2 Game: Basketball GM

Person #3 Games: 9001 and It Usually Ends In Nuclear War

Other people's game on the server who can publicly share:

Drift

Reisha Falls

Email is in profile

151 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] thread
qprofyeh
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.)
quaintdev
The fact that this is on front page with just 1 comment indicates there are not many solo game developers
opyate
Perhaps folks aren't putting their hands up, because they're not all full time, and don't necessarily want to join a community on Discord.
drusepth
Especially one with such a high time/mental commitment, as there isn't a lot of that left to spare when you're a solo game dev.
YesBox
You need money saved (for yourself and for contractors), and publishers wont be interested in you until you are well into development (unless you have previous experience releasing something). So you're on your own until you can catch the attention of a publisher, assuming you want to work with one.

I didnt start receiving publishing offers until 13 months after I started development (and notably, when I started adding serious art to the game).

gabereiser
You need a savings. Probably 3x what you think you’ll need. You’ll need a solid plan. Not just a “this would be a cool game”. You need to be open about the development (not open source, but posting blogs etc). You also need to work with marketing and publishers to get your game(s) out there. You need to think about support and community from day 1.

In the end, the game is its own thing. It better be fun. It better be enjoyable. Otherwise all the above doesn’t matter.

Cthulhu_
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.
dananabread
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

dgb23
From what I've gathered from listening to and reading from a couple of very successful (at least originally) indie devs that worked alone or in small teams for quite a while:

They all had a day job.

Sometimes game dev related, sometimes not so much. But they all sacrificed a large portion of their free time at least until they started to generate enough money to survive on game dev alone.

quadcore
what are the basic economics that can make it work?

Ah i was coming here to warn you about that.

Ill brace for downvotes but if i can light a candle for just one person, that would be fantastic.

A big misconception about the economy of games is that they are content - economically-wise. An example of content is music or movies, think spotify or netflix.

This is absolutely not the case. Economically, games work like software: a handful of games are played for years and represents 98% of the playtime / money.

Treat games like a startup: what will make your game still be played 10 years from now?

Dont think "im gonna do one game and then another". Think "ill make one game". You wouldnt think "ill make a startup and then another and then another" even though you could its not really how youd think about this stuff right. Do the same with games.

One game. One startup. One product. Played for years on end. Diverge from that strategy and chances are you wont have a good life as a game developer like millions before you.

That being said, lets say you want to make a "content game", that is, a clone (your 2d platformer with a nice plot and rpg elements). Nothing wrong with that but just understand that on the long run it wont be sustainable economically, even if you take a lucky jump.

badpun
On the other hand, there's a lot of people wealthy enough to buy games on a whim, try them out for an hour or two, and then never launch them again (and don't refund). So, maybe that helps the situation somewhat? Otherwise, I agree - no one I know is a serial gamer. We all have our favourites which we've been playing for 10+ years. The best game studios can make in such situation is make a game with in-app purchases, or sell a newer, better version every so often.
ajkjk
I think the games people are buying on a whim, though, are the games with 10-year staying power that they haven't gotten to yet -- not throwaway projects that aren't good enough to care about.
izacus
That is absolutely not how the market behaves. None of the big (or small) moneymakers in last few years came close to "10 years" of popularity and probably won't.

Where do you get this stuff?

KronisLV
> None of the big (or small) moneymakers in last few years came close to "10 years" of popularity and probably won't.

I don't think much of the software out there behaves like this either. It might apply somewhat to game or software franchises, though.

For example, LibreOffice has had multiple major releases, but has been around for a bit over 12 years, a bit longer if you include the predecessors. Ubuntu LTS is usually supported for around 5 years, but Ubuntu as a whole has been around for almost 20 years.

Similarly, Counter-Strike was released over 20 years ago, even if there's been multiple separate games over the years. It's more or less the same story for Battlefield and Call of Duty.

That said, that's setting your own goals unrealistically high, since those are the exceptions when compared to any number of unsuccessful games. If you try to compete against games like that, you'll just burn yourself out. Most startups aren't necessarily built for the longevity either, but rather to have a product hit the market within a reasonable time frame and budget.

If you want, make games, fail, iterate, fail some more, iterate some more, maybe eventually succeed. Have a look at some grounded experiences from other folks, for example watch this video titled "How to Survive in Gamedev for Eleven Years Without a Hit": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmwbYl6f11c

ajkjk
No need to be so dismissive. I think you're misunderstanding what I mean. Big moneymakers like -- well, not the yearly sports games, but everything else -- are exactly what I'm talking about. Games like Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, etc are big, well-made games that are going to still be played in ten years precisely because they're so big and well-made. Same for small indie hits: they make a bunch of money up front and then will continue to exist for a long time, being played, building communities, etc. I was agreeing with the GP which was saying, you don't plan to make multiple games, you make one good one that has quality/staying power/whatever you want to call it. When I'm on Steam buying games randomly because they're on sale, it's _good_ games, that I've heard of and will continue to hear about, not random cheaply-made garbage (usually).
antifa
I'd say >50% of the games in my library were cheap/on-sale and I've never opened. If I were wealthy I'd probably engage in buying even more games. I like the idea of supporting indie devs who do something as simple as make a small game in one of my key genres.
gamblor956
I handled taxes for a number of video game companies. The parent comment is wrong. If it were correct, the video game industry as we know it wouldn't exist.

Most games are played heavily within the first year, and thereafter not so much. Indeed, game revenues in general are even more front-loaded than movie revenues; for most games, 80% of the game's lifetime revenue is made in the first 6 months of release, which is why DRM is a thing on new games but usually gets removed in a patch a few months after release: to stop piracy during those crucial first few months. (With movies, excluding blockbusters which live or die by their box office, most of the revenue is made after the film leaves theaters from licensing deals and consumer media sales.)

Excluding subscription games like MMOs, only a tiny handful of games continue making substantial amounts of revenue after 6 months. Games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Stardew Valley are the exception, rather than the norm.

Don't let that dissuade you. As a solo developer, you only need a few thousand in sales to make a good living.

adanto6840
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. :)

ChicagoBoy11
I just took a peak at SimAirport... just insane. As someone whose coding has amount to little else but a few small webapps here and there, it completely and utterly boggles my mind that a single person would be able to accomplish something like that. I was aware of the RollerCoaster Tycoon person, but I figured that was an abherration. Completely amazing and awe-inspiring. How on Earth do you get going on something like this?!?!
rolha-capoeira
Well, 1) we have no idea how long it took to develop SimAirport. I'd be curious to know!

And 2) Rollercoaster Tycoon IS an aberration, since it was written in Assembly by one person!

adanto6840
Initially, thought it would be easy -- it's all simple logic, right? Will be far less tedious & mundane than doing web/app development, right? Haha. I was in for quite the rude awakening, but luckily the challenges ended up being a pleasant and enjoyable surprise (at least on the whole).

Lots of work is the answer, though.

We actually got to Early Access release in ~11 months (~20 man-months). We had to learn a new programming language & learn a game engine during that time, too (and learn what a game engine really was/what it meant). Really though, I think the most difficult (and important) part was more about learning the nuances of game development, even just understanding the (understandably high) UX expectations that a player has from a game -- it took a while to really "get there" and I'm still learning, every day.

It's also worth mentioning that SimAirport was really not very good when we initially released it -- definitely rushed to release, far too early, and it was a mess at that point. After the EA release another ~3yr of full-time development went into it (and more dev resources), and it became a much better game/product in that time.

I wish I could work on SimAirport forever.

That's the downside with the games industry; it's ultra competitive and the amount of competition is increasing every day. Much of "the money" is heavily concentrated at the "top" of the pyramid, amongst a relatively small selection of titles. It's not the easy way, I can say that with confidence.

capableweb
Funny to come across you here! I've played lots of SimAirport since something like 2017 I think, somewhere around the initial version available on Steam. Thanks a lot for providing countless of fun hours managing an airport :)
adanto6840
It's incredibly rewarding & gratifying to hear that, thank you!

I still firmly believe that making games -- especially under an "old-school" business model (ie no loot-boxes, no microTX, etc) -- has to rank extremely high on the "work gratification" scale.

I'm obviously super small -- but it's AWESOME to know >80k people have played SimAirport for >20 hours and ~20k have played >100hrs (!!) -- so damn rewarding!

cfiggers
Every time I go through an airport the thought occurs to me that it could make for a really cool sim game. I will check yours out!
maxencecornet
Your games looks really good. Do you handle art + programming by ourself ?

As someone that would like to create my own (basic) games, what would be the right tools and frameworks In your opinion to create art and game logic ?

The easier to learn the better haha

sgtnoodle
Ultimately you just need to pick a goal and then struggle any way you can to achieve it. Python with the pygame package is a rather approachable way to get pixels up on the screen.
hnthrowaway0315
Looking good. Do you agree with the 1:20 review:sales ratio? BTW plz ignore if you don't want to disclose thanks.
adanto6840
I think that the ratio has substantial variance; it has also changed over time, somewhat dramatically, as Valve/Steam have made changes & added features/UI/UX that I suspect are intended to increase the % of users who leave reviews.

About 5 years ago, the belief was that the ratio was in the realm of 1 : 50-100 -- based on my own data & data shared with me by other indies. Even then, there was substantial variance; genre, theme, price point, developer involvement, discounts, review score (proxy for player experience/overall game quality), etc -- were some of the key variables that I believed were having a significant impact on review-to-sales ratio variance between games.

Over time, changes to the UX have been made (by Valve/Steam) which appear to have increased the rate at which players leave reviews -- quite substantially, it seems.

On the whole, I think that a far higher percentage of players are leaving reviews now (ie a lower review-to-sale ratio), but I also believe that the variance is even higher now than it was before. It's still helpful for making estimates, but I don't think it's as highly-correlated as it once was (~5yr ago it was much more consistent & highly correlative).

hnthrowaway0315
Thanks for sharing. Yeah I agree that the "you have played X hours, do you want to leave a review" dialog really pushes me to add a lot of reviews.
101008
I loved SimAirport - probably the only game that I got obsessive. I usually abandon sim videogames after a few minutes. I love aiports and I like casinos, so it may be a bad idea to download the second one, ha.

Congratulations and thank you for the good times!

DonHopkins
Arthur, I enjoyed playing your early version of SimAirport, and I'm glad you finished and released it -- that's excellent work and persistence!

Will Wright always wanted to make a game called "SimTapeworm", however he could never get the green light on that from Maxis or EA.

I hold out hope that some clever indie developer will figure out how to monetize the serious educational parasitic infection simulation genre.

Maybe you could make a plug-in to SimAirport, so parasites and contagious diseases could spread internationally via Vomit Waves like in Theme Hospital and Two Point Hospital and Oxygen Not Included.

https://two-point-hospital.fandom.com/wiki/Big_Kahuna:_How_t...

https://youtu.be/Z7XCXq8j4iA?t=1402

Or how about Toxocariasis Tycoon, where you try to take over the world by controlling your hosts' behavior to widely reproduce and spread out through enough people to swing the election and control the government?

adanto6840
I always enjoy seeing your posts on HN; I'm honored that you played the early versions of SA (and admittedly a little embarrassed at how rough & unpolished it was back then).

Really appreciate the kind words, means a lot coming from you -- thank you!

I don't remember if we actually shipped it or not, maybe it was only on a beta branch (or maybe it's sitting on a git branch still), but I actually implemented an "infectious disease" concept at one point. I think the idea at the time was for it to be a holiday "easter egg" maybe, but I don't recall for sure. I do vividly recall testing it one morning, though, and I had the "contagion" values (way) too high. I'm pretty sure the concept was wholly taken from Theme Park, where I recall one post-coaster puking agent could yield a rapid mess. The day I was testing my copy, I ended up making a video of the hilarity that ensued when a single infected passenger deplaned and suddenly there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of agents (passengers) all "stumbling around" spreading the ultra-contagious disease like wildfire, making a disgusting sound & leaving the floors covered with ick. I'll have to search the repo history -- maybe it's worth revisiting!

A disease tycoon, eh? Like SimAnt, but on a wholly different scale? =D

Would love to connect if you're ever in Vegas! Thanks again for the kind words, makes my day & sincerely means a lot to me. :)

DonHopkins
You could modulate the emergent vomit waves moving through huge crowds of people with a short refractory period before being able to throw up again, and tune it to produce the beautiful spiraling patterns of Belousov–Zhabotinsky reactions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belousov%E2%80%93Zhabotinsky_r...

https://www.fourmilab.ch/cellab/manual/rules.html#Zhabo

>Margolus and Toffoli make a interesting simile between the Zhabotinsky reaction and a reef of tubeworms. When a tubeworm feels safe, it sticks a plume out of its shell to seine the water for food. If a feeding tubeworm senses any disturbance nearby (e.g. the presence of several other feeding tubeworms), it retracts its plume and waits for a few cycles before feeding again.

I always thought SimAnt should be an MMPORG!

Then the ants could catch Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis Sensu Lato fungal infections, and turn into infectious zombies!

Three-dimensional visualization and a deep-learning model reveal complex fungal parasite networks in behaviorally manipulated ants:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1711673114

One of the first downloadable objects for The Sims was a guinea pig (which was later included with Livin' Large), which included a communicable disease that could spread between characters, and even kill them:

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Illness#Guinea_Pig_Disease

>Guinea Pig Disease

>Guinea Pig Disease is introduced in Livin' Large. Sims can catch it if they are bitten by a guinea pig that has a dirty cage, or from other Sims who have been infected with the disease. Objects cloned from the guinea pig can also cause this disease. Sims infected with Guinea Pig Disease will sneeze and cough frequently, and their Comfort and Energy motives will rapidly decline. An infected Sim will die if not treated within time.

>Due to a glitch, a Sim who dies from Guinea Pig Disease cannot be successfully resurrected by the Grim Reaper. Once they are restored to life they will immediately die again.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMjT1D5Nyw

>Each instance of Guinea Pig Disease is restricted to the lot the Sim was infected on, so an infected Sim will not display symptoms, be infectious, or die outside of the lot on which they caught the disease. Therefore, a Sim with the disease can safely go to a community lot or be invited to another Sim's house as a visitor. It is possible for a Sim to be infected on multiple lots, however.

>Treatment

>Keep the infected Sim home from work or school and try to keep their Comfort and Energy motives up. Purchasing The Forgotten Guinea Pig painting will clear the disease from the household after 16 Sim hours. A Sim who drinks a white potion created with The "Concoctanation Station" chemistry set will be immediately cured of the disease. Additionally drinking a blue potion will restore three random motives which, while not directly curing the disease, can help them to recover from it.

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gabereiser
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.

maxilevi
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

jackling
Looks cool, was the terrain procedurally generated?
maxilevi
Yes! Actually the entire world is a infinite voxel grid
jackling
Very impressive! I'm 3 years in Software Engineering, and can't build simple stuff in OpenGL. Really impressive for someone in HS.
DontchaKnowit
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!
maxilevi
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

harph
On the contrary, I would recommend everyone to try and make a game engine. Through my teens and university years I tried many types (3D, 2D, visual novel...) and it's an awesome learning experience. Of course, for a real project that you want to actually finish, that's a different story
maxilevi
Hahaha well yes, for learning it’s great but for shipping something it’s awful.

It’s not even the time it takes, there is a lot of compatibility issues that need to be dealt with that are overwhelming

DontchaKnowit
lol I sorta figured as much. That level of dedication to a single project is completely beyond my comprehension, very impressive.
fwsgonzo
Looks like a lot of work, and very well done! Procedural too!
david422
That looks great! That's the sort of thing I have in my head and never ever would complete. Congrats to you :)
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DvnZook
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.

Marijenburg
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
4pkjai
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

thsbrown
Full time indie game developer here. I've also done a myriad of other development in the past.

I always say the difference between software development (app, website, ect) and game development is that with software you have a predefined problem and your trying to solve it. With game development you are creating the problem and you are trying to solve it.

In my opinion software development can arguably be more straightforward as a result because you know that what you are building is meant to relieve some pain point.

I love game development but it can be very tricky to sell people on entertainment.

levmiseri
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!
syngrog66
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.

mhitza
That sounds cool. Where do you publish your games? Itch or on your own website?
SeanAnderson
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...

schizo89
I'm doing 10 day jams every 6 months or so.
onikolas7
I am solo building a 2D game engine. Does it count?
ronyeh
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.
DonHopkins
I am, and would like to attend a Hacker News game dev meet-up too!

It would be good to have it somewhere near the conference, but where people who haven't registered with the conference can attend.

ronyeh
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35139687

I posted an Ask HN to organize a GDC × HN meetup. Depending on interest level, it could just be a quick meet and greet between sessions, or it could be a bring your own lunch and hang outside Metreon on the grass.

fwsgonzo
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.

Folcon
I would 100% want to talk to you =)...

I've been working on and off on simulation games in my spare time for a few years. Written some small ones that model things like elections / voting, as well as economic systems of various flavours.

If you're interested email in my profile!

YesBox
I'll clarify:

I created a small community where everyone knows everyone's face/name. I am really restrictive with the number of people in the server not because I want exclusivity per se, but rather that I dont want to lose the deeper connections you develop with people in a small community. There's about 10 of us total right now.

It also helps that everyone is on the same page (serious about releasing their game) so we have a common goal to work towards together (and separately). It's great, I've been running the server for almost a year now. Everyone has said it's been really motivating.

So please, email me if anyone here wants that. Otherwise, the other discord links posted here are probably a better fit for you!

chaostheory
You’re saying that you don’t want exclusivity, but that’s what you have with such an arbitrary constraint. People are right to call you out.
kirab
They want a tight-knit group. Which is inherently exclusive but that's not the predominant attribute.
chaostheory
The result is the same, so it's a moot point.

Why post this to such a large community like HN if they're adamant about exclusivity? Why not post it somewhere smaller like Indie Hackers or a reddit sub instead?

ekzy
Why post your job ad on indeed or LinkedIn if you’re only looking for one person?
chaostheory
Because it’s a job board full of people expecting job posts.
oifjsidjf
He can do as he wishes as it's his group. You are free to start your own.
q1w2
Just create your own group. There doesn't need to be ONE giant group - there can be 100 smaller ones. ...OR create the huge group you want.
hitpointdrew
I would love to join a community like this, as I am a part-time hobby game dev. Unfortunately, Discord is a bit of a deal breaker for me, especially with their updated TOS. If something was setup on another platform I would be happy to join.
tcmart14
Same here. I dabble a little bit in the evenings, but it is not my full time job. Would love to get into a good group of people in similar situations where perhaps it is more of a hobby/learning experience. Since after all, my biggest reason to dabble in the idea of game dev is to improve myself as a developer. Game development seems to be on of the few things you can do where you can truly touch most to all areas of computer science. I would say game dev and operating systems. AI, ML, graphics, optimization, data structures, algorithms, fundamentals of software design, etc... It seems like there isn't an area in CompSci that can not run into with game development.
Silverback_VII
>At the same time, it looks like this group is very picky about who can join.

He is using a psychological trick to make people feel insecure and inadequate, and thus create an imbalance of power within the group. However, his requirements may backfire because being a full-time solo game developer may only be possible if you have someone supporting you, or if you live in your mom’s basement or on social security. It excludes people who are serious about their endeavors but still have to pay the bills.

echelon
Finally a game dev thread on HN that's more than an engine announcement!

> I am making a procedurally generated world simulation game

That's so awesome. Procedurally generated worlds and systems are so powerful, and they'd only going to grow more so with AI advances.

Would you or someone in this thread be interested in part time contract work at my AI startup? We're doing a lot of procedural generation and AI animation in Unreal Engine and I'd like to have more hands on deck than just me.

https://storyteller.ai

https://twitch.tv/FakeYouLabs

dimgl
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.
Madmallard
you could probably get your main systems made so that designers can go on top of them with free assets / stable diffusion then get an artist after you have all that
dimgl
I was using free and paid assets to make the game. I think part of it is that the game I was making just wasn't very fun. For my next game I'm focusing on making the game fun first before worrying about the assets. I may continue on the action RPG, but idk. So much of making a game is the actual graphics, and even some features in games are graphical features, so I'm unsure where to go from here.
Madmallard
The assets that make the aesthetic yeah probably a majority of the work unless your game is very mechanics heavy
drusepth
I put out a small card game demo a while back using Midjourney assets for most of my art. The tech has wildly improved since then (this was ~v2 and we're about to see v5, Stable Diffusion is out now and actually good, and many companies are starting up specifically to provide AI assets to game developers), so I would imagine you could get pretty far without an artist now. At the very least, you can definitely produce a good-looking demo with enough reference material to hand off to an artist before a final release. Feel free to hit me up via email (profile) if you aren't familiar with the tech; if you're on Discord or something I'm usually around to give some tips & pointers when indie devs have questions. :)
YesBox
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.
luxuryballs
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.
YesBox
I dont know who you are, but what actually happened was I decided to double the server size and accept way more people than I originally planned (which I am not going to do this time). That gave me a lot of work to do so I'm sorry if I forgot to keep you posted.
luxuryballs
you immediately blocked on discord after sending the rejection message making it impossible to even say “thank you, good luck” in response, so there was no feasible way to reply or stay in contact or even follow your game, and I remember thinking he’s going to regret treating people this way later on when it comes time to build a community around his game… lesson learned now I hope?
YesBox
I just checked my discord and I dont have anyone blocked. I close/leave conversations so I dont clutter my inbox, so maybe discord internally severs the connection? (That would be really good to know moving forward). (edit: I also dont recall "immediately" closing any chats, but I may have?)

Anyways, sorry you feel that I wronged you, it really was not my intention. I received over 30 responses last time and it's a lot of work to interview everyone, then video interview them. It looks like you are running a discord yourself and managed to build your own community, which is great. Maybe you have an idea how much work this is, and perhaps you are better at handling this type of work than I am :)

wheybags
Discord won't let you dm someone unless you share a server with them (or you're friends with them), so if you just happened to leave the server you shared, it could look like you blocked them.
luxuryballs
there was never a shared server, and I expect it was exactly that, a block or a friend removal, DMs worked fine until they suddenly didn't after the "sorry we had only one slot to fill...", but that was hardly the issue (it was the lie about the "other community" invite) and perhaps he was just afraid people would try to argue? it was just a little jarring, after having what seemed like a good faith, face-to-face convo, to write "no problem at all, thanks and good luck on your project, I look forward to..." but it didn't go through because suddenly DMs didn't work anymore
bkanber
This type of interaction is exactly why I stopped running communities online. People thrust their expectations upon you and then expect you to do either mental labor to meet those expectations, or emotional labor to make amends for not meeting their expectations that you never consented to in the first place. It burnt me out very quickly.
luxuryballs
lol there were no expectations other than those that were presented, we had a face to face call during which I suggested an idea: send discord invites to a secondary server so all the people who didn't fill the open slot could meet up since they were seeking similar connections and later during that same call he literally said "funny you should say that because it turns out that's exactly what I am doing!" but this was a lie or at least immediately forgotten (which is what made the "that was my plan all along" part seem like a lie)
bkanber
Calling them a liar publicly when you didn't have all the context definitely counts as asking them to do emotional labor for you.
luxuryballs
not my discord, but either way, just be careful what you tell people if you don't intend to follow through... and now that you can see my responses I can finally say: thanks for taking the time to video chat with me and good luck on your project!
satellites
I’m sorry that happened to you but this seems like a bit of an overreaction.
PenguinCoder
When someone shows you who they truly are, believe them.
wilg
This is one of my least favorite memes. It does nothing to help you determine whether someone is being genuine and gives you permission to project all your ill will onto them.
helloplanets
Let me get this straight based on the other posts in this thread. You suggested the idea of the other person sending out invites to another server, and he said that he's already on it? And after he did not come up with the invite, he's a liar because he said he was already working on your suggestion but didn't go through with it? Or am I getting this wrong?
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es7
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

bilsbie
I’d love to have a group like this but for learning AI. Is it only possible for people in tech cities?
EamonnMR
I've gotta say, I've seen your game before. You're very good at marketing.