HOW TO MAKE AN INDIE GAME (HONEST GUIDE FROM A SOLO DEV)

I make indie games alone. I've shipped games. I've also abandoned games. Both experiences taught me things, but the abandoned ones taught me more. Here's what actually goes into making an indie game, with the glamorous parts and the terrible parts given equal weight.

Start smaller than you think

Your first idea is too big. I guarantee it. Whatever you're imagining, cut it in half. Then cut it in half again. The game you can actually finish as a solo developer is smaller than the game you want to make. This isn't defeatist. It's practical.

Stardew Valley took four years of full-time work by one person. Undertale took nearly three. These are exceptional people working at exceptional intensity on games that are, by AAA standards, small. If your first game idea is an open-world MMO, you need to recalibrate.

Start with something you can prototype in a week. If the prototype is fun, spend a month building it into a demo. If the demo holds interest, commit to the full game. This filtering process kills most ideas, and that's the point. The ideas that survive are the ones worth your time.

Pick your tools and stop changing them

Unity, Unreal, Godot, GameMaker, RPG Maker. Each has strengths. None is objectively best. What matters is picking one and learning it deeply rather than spending six months evaluating options.

I use Unity because I know it well. That's the entire reason. Not because it's the best engine for every project. Because the time I would spend learning a new engine is time I'm not spending making my game. Familiarity is a feature.

The same applies to art tools, audio tools, and version control. Pick, learn, commit. Optimization of your tool chain is a form of procrastination that feels productive but isn't.

The actual process

An indie game goes through roughly these phases, and they're not as clean as this list suggests.

Prototype: Build the core mechanic. Does it feel good? Is it fun for five minutes? If no, scrap it and start over. This phase should take days, not months.

Vertical slice: Build one complete level or area with final-quality art, audio, and gameplay. This is the most important milestone because it proves the game can be finished. If you can make one level, you can make twenty. If you can't make one, the game is too ambitious.

Production: Make the rest of the levels. This is the boring part. The exciting creative decisions are behind you. Now you're executing. Making content. Fixing bugs. Playtesting. Iterating. This phase takes 60-80% of total development time and feels like 90%.

Polish: Audio, UI, tutorials, accessibility, performance optimization, platform-specific requirements. This phase always takes longer than you budget for. Always.

Release: Store page, trailer, marketing, launch timing, community management. The game being done is not the finish line. The game being in players' hands is.

What nobody tells you

You will want to quit. Not once. Regularly. The middle of production is a desert where the game doesn't look good yet, doesn't play well yet, and the finish line is invisible. This is normal. Every developer I've talked to describes the same feeling, a stretch of weeks or months where the project feels fundamentally broken and you can't remember why you started. Push through it or take a break and come back. Don't abandon the project during the desert phase because that's where every abandoned project dies.

Marketing starts before development. Your Steam page should go up as soon as you have a name and a screenshot. Wishlists accumulate over time and the longer your page is live, the more wishlists you collect. Waiting until the game is "ready" to start marketing means launching to an empty room.

Playtesting with strangers is essential and brutal. Friends will be polite. Strangers will find every problem you overlooked. They'll get confused by things you thought were obvious, ignore the mechanic you spent three months building, and quit at a part you considered easy. The feedback hurts but it's the most valuable data you'll get.

The honest summary

Making an indie game is the hardest, most rewarding creative work I've done. It requires programming, art, design, audio, marketing, business, and project management skills. You don't need to be great at all of them, but you need to be adequate at most of them.

The games I've shipped are smaller and simpler than the games I imagined. They took longer than I planned. They sold less than I hoped but more than I feared. And starting the next one was easier because everything I learned carries forward.

If you're thinking about making an indie game: start today, start small, and finish it. A finished small game teaches you more than an unfinished ambitious one.