Lightbulb Games Studio

Indie game development community is growing rapidly, and in fact more and more people are joining the indie ride. As much fun indie developer can be , most of the times it is exhausting and difficult and especially if you are working solo. Teams can accomplish lots of things together with collaboration. If you are a solo game developer like me, here are top 10 tips for solo game developer for better games.


Note: These tips are not arranged in order

Always keep it simple and don't ever try to make a big project or game. Since you are one developer a normal simple game would take you around minimum two weeks or month to make and making a big game is almost impossible and it will be badly produced. There are many simple indie games like AA and Rotate which are the best!

Since you may not be able to do all the graphics and sounds by yourself you can always use free assets and bundles for your games. I myself design my own graphics and do my programming but when it comes to music tracks and sound effects (sfx). You can find many websites that offer free graphics and music.

Playing games is one of the most important thing to do as a game developer rather your  indie or not. While playing games you can see what is trending right now and check out reviews and interviews to know how the game was made and its pros and cons. More you might get your next game inspiration from one of these games!

Game engines save time and make game development easier. Use a game engine that fits you well and that you feel comfortable with. Lots of professional game developers use game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine and a lot others like Construct2 for example. In my opinion it is not the tool that is important it is the production  resulting from it thus choose whatever engine you feel the best for you! You must notice that different engines requires programming language and may export to specific platforms. Keep that in mind!

Trailers and teasers are a great way to attract a player to play your game. Learn how to make a video first and know its technique and then wow your players to try your game out.

Since most indie developers don’t have the money to offer for marketing, social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks can bring audience to your game and make it exposure to potential players.  Use shortened links like by Bitly it shows you how many times it has been clicked which means you can follow up how much people and player are interested in playing your game!

One of the most important aspect of game development is building fan base. fans are the players who are interested in your works and those fans of yours will make your next game more visible and reachable to as many players as possibly. Try to expand your fan base but remember the number keeps coming down and up it's not stable but try to get as much fans as possible and interact with them like Notch did! 

Always be updated to the latest game engines and to the latest development tools and to the latest game trends because if you didn't do that you will fall in the old school category and nobody wants that

I mean everything from programming books to graphic design programs to game  engine's manual to articles and game review and interviews , always read and learn new things because you don't know when time comes to use the skills to build the next game or maybe few tips to make less bugs and mistakes.

The key to a successful indie game or to any game at all is practice. Practice is a thing that you do to make you good at your work. Since you’re a solo indie game developer give each part of the development its time since Graphic Design, Game Design, Programming are all important part of the game and it affect the game play.

 Stupid Chickens 3 is the third sequel of the series which we are plan developing it.  The first and the second sequel got positive reviews, good number of plays and views and now we are willing to make the third sequel more refreshed and improved. We are willing to also publish it for Android. This will be our biggest project and we want to make it the best. We need help from the community to build this game well polished and designed.

This will be our BIGGEST and GREATEST project yet! YOU can be a PART of it!

We really need the following roles to be filled to start development:

Graphic Designer / 2D Artist:

• Design the main characters of the game
• Design the title of the game
• Design the backgrounds of the game
• Design props and items if needed

We need a skilled 2D artist better with good experience in Adobe Illustrator 

Game Tester:
We want two game tester who will test our demo and incomplete versions.

• has passion for playing games
• send us feedback for the bugs and features of games
• send us suggestions for the game
  

Sound Designer/Developer:
Note: this is an extra role , the development can continue without a sound designer.

• Design the sound effects (SFX) of the game
• Design the main soundtrack (extra soundtracks will get bonus for it)

Our game was published on game websites like Kongregate , GameJolt, and Newgrounds.
Play the game and get familiar with it to see what kind of work your dealing with:

Stupid Chickens : Play it here
Stupid Chickens 2: Play it here

For those who applied , there names and emails will be saved in our list for later projects and games when needed.
For those who were selected for the roles will get their names and work on the credits and links for their website in the game. We will promote their work and websites and we may contact them for a payed project later on.

Note: this game is  a free game and there is no financial benefits from this project. if this game gained popularity so do you since we will promote your work and add it in the credits. It's a beneficial for your later projects and work.

First: to apply to these roles , you must contact us from the contact page and choose "Job Offers" Topic. Then say in your email/message the role your applying to then and send your portfolio and resume and anything more details you want to add.

Second: subscribe to our newsletter if you haven't already. We will announce whom were selected for the role in the newsletter and we will send them special email/newsletter for the job. Don't forget to subscribe to know if you are selected.

 We wanted to build simple yet challenging little game  that can be mobile friendly. So what could be simpler than clicking and tapping green squares? So we started right away building a small prototype and then expanded it by improving it and adding a few twist. The cool thing about the game is that the background color  changes  as the player advance  and there's a timer for players who stops tapping to be fair. Note: We published version 1.0 Web version then 1.2 Web version but the Android 1.0 Version  is the same as 1.2 Web Version

We main publish was to the Amazon Appstore but we published our web version with lots of game hosts including GameJolt , Newgrounds , itch.io , and Kongregate. We want to reach as many players as possible because this is a new concept and gamneplay!

You can support us by sharing our game links and help us to get as many views and players as possible!
Thanks all in advance for all who shared our links below.
Amazon Appstore : http://amzn.to/1GuVIHV
Web Version: http://bit.ly/SquaresGJ

 It's the spring break already! We have some new contents and updates in development and updates for our website. Here are the headlines!

As we're headed towards Unity3D, 3D is a whole new world to us , thus learning modelling is essential ! We will try to publish our finest art and models for your games. We might also add a 3D section for our  Art Assets page!

 We are working on  a new game demo before Google  removes the NPAPI plugin from its browser. More news and details can be found in our next newsletter! We will try to export our game to both Unity3d file and Webgl (HTML5) !

 We've started missing Construct2 already so we are going to make another great  2D game for our fans and all players. It will be an arcade/action game! Stay tuned for the details. 

Note for developers:  We have used Construct2 for around three years now and we say that it is the best game engine for 2D HTML5 Games and since the result is important not the tool and the type of development. We support the developers of that engine and we recommend you to try it out!

We will be writing an article about Crossy Road a hit success game made by Unity3d by Hipster Whale!
This game has made over 10 Million dollars already! 
Stay tuned for this article!