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
Note: These tips are not arranged in order
10. Keep It Simple
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!
9.Free Assets
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.
8. Play Games
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!
7. Game Engines
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!
6. Trailers & Teasers
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.
5. Social Network
example from Twitter feed
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!
4. Building Fan Base
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!
3. Keep Updated
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
2. Learn Everything
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.
1.Practice A lot
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.
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