I browse the TIGSource devlogs on a daily basis and the dedication and drive of indie devs never ceases to impress.
I follow Rain World closest, and that's been in development since 2011. Or how the dev of Irkalla left his job so he can work full time on his game. Or the lengthy detailed posts about something as simple (from the player perspective) as adding audio triggers and music themed for different areas. Or how a game evolves from the most basic placeholder into a FEZ or Ghost Song or Vane.
Checked ou Gamemaker once and after a week of trying the tutorial, it only made appreciate what devs do even more
I'm terrible at maintaining Beacon's tigsource page :/
I really enjoy sharing content and posting all the things on social media, I've sort of become the main guy on the team who at least actively tries (or is more inclined) to keep up the momentum. But yah, full time 'day' job plus actually working on the project, the game design, the music, woof, it's tough.
Making our debut trailer took a few weeks of time out of focusing on the game, followed by being swept up in all the GDC stuff. That's a lot of time neglecting polish for the game!
It's just one of those things you have to commit to, it ain't glamorous, but if you know it's worth it, you just keep on pushing ahead. It's massively rewarding though if things start to work out and you can see the progress over the course of the year, even if it's slow because your whole team is essentially part time.
We went from this:
http://i.imgur.com/8HXfbMZ.jpg
To this:
http://i.imgur.com/D6YPdv8.jpg
As a bonus, this is what it looked like for the first few months!
http://i.imgur.com/659wzh2.png
It's stuff I'd like to write about once the game is done. More of the behind the scenes logistics of setting up a company (which the article mentions some of), actually trying to get a project not just off the ground, but to see it through. We had a game prior to Beacon which we literally had to shelve, as we had to switch engines after not being able to obtain a license for Source (this was in the middle of prepping for a kickstarter too), and once that game finally got back up to scratch on UE4, the scope of the project was just becoming unfeasible to manage in our small team. That was over 2 years of solid work put on hiatus. Really difficult, big decisions. It's common to have a false start when trying to establish that first solid product.
Another thing to note is that trying to sort out funding and/or publisher support is haaaaaaaaaarrdd. Even in the scenarios where they have approached you. It's never, ever straightfoward and different folks all offer a slightly different variation of the same deal. It's the rock and a hard place situation. It can be very easy to jump the gun and potentially give up something like your IP to secure funding, which if it turns out to be a smash hit, means you've lost all rights to make another one and could hurt you in the long run. But at the same time, you're pushing back a potential release window further as you try to scope out what's best for the game and delay getting the team on full time. You're never going to find a perfect deal obviously, but it's definitely a lot more time-consuming than I'd ever imagine. Nobody ever teaches you this stuff going into independent development, you HAVE to figure out, otherwise your game might just slip through the cracks. And that sucks and is super scary to consider, but also very likely.
Rami Ismail spits a lot of hard truths in this talk he did. It's definitely worth the watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZn9a9-Gyc0&ab_channel=ctrl500.com
The business side is a pain in the bum, but it's so important to get it right and start it well ahead of time. Getting professional advice is a good idea, also places like Gamasutra and here on NG are a brilliant source of advice.
Good luck and don't let the admin get you down
Hi Danny u butt <3
