So You Want to be an Indie Game Developer?

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So you want to be an indie game developer? You probably have an idea of what indie game development is like. My job is to assure you that you are wrong. I'm going to talk about misconceptions around indie game development and all you need to know before getting into it.

This talk has been presented at JS GameDev Summit 2022, check out the latest edition of this JavaScript Conference.

FAQ

Starting with browser games can be beneficial because it allows players to easily try out your game without the need for downloads. This can increase the likelihood of people playing your game and becoming interested in your future projects.

Tamta Satyani, also known as Tam, is an indie game developer who started learning game development five years ago. She has been seriously involved in the field for the past three years and runs a YouTube channel called Space Nomad, which focuses on indie game development.

A common misconception is that game design is not a skill. Many assume that all you need are coding, art, SFX, and music skills. However, game design is essential for creating engaging and functional games.

No, overnight success is rare in indie game development. While there are examples like Undertale and Stardew Valley, most developers do not achieve such levels of success overnight.

Yes, you can make a good game without being good at art or coding. Examples like 'Thomas Was Alone' show that you can have simplistic art and still create a beloved game. Many game engines also support visual scripting, making coding easier.

Game design is crucial as it determines how the game plays out, including its genre, mechanics, and finer details like level design. A game with poor design can be confusing and frustrating to play.

Indie game developers can market their games by sharing knowledge, interacting with the community, participating in events like Screenshot Saturday on Twitter, and making their games easily accessible, such as starting with browser games.

Indie game developers can stand out by choosing a primary platform that aligns with their strengths, whether it's Twitter for art, TikTok for short videos, or YouTube for humor and longer content. Experimenting with different platforms and types of content is also important.

Indie game developers should focus on what they enjoy and are good at. Avoid taking on tasks that you dislike, as this can lead to burnout. Balancing motivation and workload is key to sustaining a career in indie game development.

One way to support the indie game development community is by sharing knowledge and resources, participating in community events, and providing feedback and support to fellow developers.

Tamta Asatiani
Tamta Asatiani
30 min
07 Apr, 2022

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Video Summary and Transcription

This talk provides insights and advice for aspiring indie game developers. It emphasizes the importance of game design and marketing, as well as the need to stand out in a crowded market. The speaker shares their experience with YouTube and experimenting with startups. Starting as an indie game developer requires self-motivation and a focus on strengths. The talk also highlights the challenges and opportunities in the indie game development industry, and encourages support for Ukrainian game developers.

1. Introduction to Indie Game Development

Short description:

Hi, welcome to my talk called So You Want To Be An Indie Game Developer. I'm going to talk about useful things and my experience as an indie game developer. I started learning game development five years ago and took it seriously three years ago. I have a YouTube channel called Space Nomad about indie game development. There are assumptions about game development, such as game design not being even and the indie game dev space being polar. The reality is that success varies, and your first game may not be good. Game design involves making decisions about how the game plays out and its finer details.

Hi, welcome to my talk called So You Want To Be An Indie Game Developer, where I'm going to talk about a bunch of useful things and my experience from what I learned as an indie game developer and it'll be useful for those of you who are thinking about being indie game devs or who just started and could use some advice.

So first of all, who am I? My name is Tamta Satyani, but people call me Tam and I started learning game development five years ago. I've been an indie game developer sort of I've only took it seriously three years ago and I've had a YouTube channel called Space Nomad about indie game development for a little over two years now.

Back then, all those years ago when I was just starting, I had a lot of assumptions about what game development was like, as I'm sure a lot of you that are starting out or just started out do. So what were those assumptions? The first one was that game design isn't even. You don't even think that game design is a skill until you get into game development, you just think that the genre of the game and the rules of the game come by themselves or there are genres that are already made up, you don't have to make up anything new, and you just think that all the skills you will need are coding, art, SFX, music, all those stuff, but the realisation that something is off takes a while to set in, because when you make your first game, you're in the sort of honeymoon phase like wow, I made something that works and then when the honeymoon phase passes you're like wow, this is actually very boring to play. So assumption number two is that the indie game dev space is very polar, so there are those who became successful overnight for no reason, and like extremely successful, we all know those games and those developers, things like Undertale, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, there's more, there's Five Nights at Freddy's, yeah, all those games. And then there are those who nobody has ever heard about, and I can't give you examples because I've never heard of them. So yeah, that also, you can't really do anything to become one or the other, it's dependent solely on chance, which one of those you'll be. But perhaps the worst of them all is the assumption that you will be in the first category. That your game is just so amazing, that it will magically gain success overnight without you doing anything aside from just making a great game, and that you'll make a lot of money with it. I hate to break it to you, but you won't. First of all, your first game is probably not even going to be good. And second of all, you're not special, and neither is your game, and neither am I. None of us are special.

Alright, so, now that I've crushed all of your hopes and dreams, let's get back to reality. So what's reality like? First of all, there's a lot of space in between the extremely successful and the nobody-has-seen-my-video-game-ever. A couple examples of these are Dashing Fire by Blackthorn Prod and Willy the Snail by Jonas Tyroler. They're not quite Stardew Valley level of success, and even those are more on the upper side. There's also a lot of things in between this level of people are hearing about your game and also the completely lower part. There's a lot of games that the developers are able to... There's a lot of indie game devs that are able to sustain themselves even though not that many people have heard of them. There's indie game devs that are able to live of indie game development.

Getting back to game design now, just so we're all on the same page, I'm gonna talk a little bit about what it is. It's the functional design of video games. So, how the game plays out, the genre of the game. For example, I want to make a roguelike or I want to make a first-person shooter. That's all game design decisions. The finer details of your game are also game design decisions. For example, okay, I have a first-person shooter but what kind of weapons do I have? How do they fire? Do the bullets ricochet? Do I have a double jump? If I have a double jump, how high is each jump? Etc.

2. Importance of Game Design and Marketing

Short description:

Game design is a crucial aspect of game development, and it has different branches like level design. While art and coding are not mandatory, bad game design can make a game confusing and frustrating. To market your game, focus on giving back to the community, creating tutorials, and interacting with other indie game devs. Be present on social media platforms without being annoying.

Those are also game design decisions and game design is such a big field that it has different branches. For example, there's level design which corresponds to just the placement of things in a level which you might be thinking, why would I need to learn that? It's not hard to just plop some trees and a couple rocks. But as somebody who constantly gets confused and lost in video games and doesn't know what to do or where to go, I'm begging you, please study level design.

Another thing very interesting about game design and very counterintuitive is that game design is the only mandatory part. You can go, the list of things that I talked about, art, coding, SFX, et cetera, you can be bad at them all and still make a good game. For example, Thomas Was Alone is an example I really like for the art part. The art is extremely simplistic, it doesn't require you to know how to draw well, but the game is still loved by many and I really like it myself and, yeah, it's a lot of fun. So yeah, art isn't mandatory, being good at art isn't mandatory when making a video game.

As for coding, so what I like to call the big four, the four biggest public game engines, all of them support visual scripting. So like visual scripting, for those of you who don't know, it's just you don't have to write any code, you just move a couple notches around and then the function L of the game creates itself, so to say. So yeah, visual and coding games making the functionality of the game is only going to become easier and easier as technology advances. So yeah, being good at coding is also not mandatory.

But imagine a game that is confusing and frustrating and it's just not fun to play at all, that's what a game with bad game design is. And if you're not good at game design, if you don't study game design, that's what your game is going to be like. So let's say you release your absolutely amazing game, you've figured out game design, but you're going to be, and you publish your game, and then you let the existential crisis set in with the cricket noises as your game receives two views. And this is because a lot of people, starting in the game devs, assume that a good game will sell itself, or that my game will magically be known, and that, like we said, we're going to be in the first category, the extremely successful game developer's category, and it's all up to chance etc etc. So the good news here is that you can actually do things in order to tilt the scales in your favor. You can do a lot of things to market your video game, and you can afford it, because a lot of it is free. So here are some things that you can do. First of all, think about what you give to the community instead of what you're just taking stuff. So for example, you can give knowledge, you can make video tutorials, perhaps about game design if you studied it, perhaps, or not necessarily video, you can make, I don't know, text tutorials I guess too, perhaps about art if you're good at art, perhaps about programming, etc. Also interact with the community a lot, interact with other indie game devs, you know, be out there. And speaking of be out there, also be everywhere but not in an annoying way. An example of this I really like is that, so there's on Twitter, there's this hashtag called Screenshot Saturday and people host it. So for example, somebody will make a post, tag it Screenshot Saturday and say, show me your video games. And then there was this one game that I kept seeing on every Screenshot Saturday post and because brain likes things that it recognizes, I just sort of, I thought, wow, I've seen this thing so many times, I wonder what it is. And I checked it out. At the same time, this person wasn't annoying because they didn't do it in an inappropriate place. Yes, they put the link to their game everywhere, but where people asked for links to their game. Definitely don't do the annoying stuff.

QnA

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