7 Steps to Getting Started in Indie Game Development

You have this crazy idea for a game but no one seems to offer financial support for it ? This means that it’s time you learn a little more about indie game development! In this blog post we’ve covered everything you need to know about independent game development along with the 7 helpful steps to get started. But before we get there, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page.

Indie Game Developer Meaning

What is the meaning of the term indie game development? If you probably already know, “indie” stands for “independent” and refers to someone who functions on their own. To make it more clear, let’s take a look at the Indie game developer simple definition: 

Indie game developer is a person who develops games on his own or with a very small development team, without having big financial support from large companies.

Now that all the definitions are cleared out, let’s skim through the: 

7 Simple Steps to Become an Indie Game Developer

• 1) Find the “Indie Game Developer Motivation”

First of all, you should find your motivation as an indie game developer. If you don’t have a really clear motivation in mind, it might be hard to push yourself to complete the project, especially if you’re not sure that it will be financially rewarding. That’s why you need to figure out what motivates you: is it passion for game development, a crazy game idea that you want to see live, or purely a desire to spend your days developing something without having to report anything to anyone? Whatever it is, find your motivation and define it clearly, before getting to the second step.

• 2) Start your research

This step is all about research! Yes, we know it sounds crazy to do research without having the idea yet, but trust us, it is more than helpful. During this stage you get to take a look at so many games, that you automatically get inspired, and this is when you can move to the step 3:

• 3) Come up with an idea (a small one)

From all the ideas that you have in your mind, pick the smallest one. Remember you’ll be developing this game alone or with a tiny team, so you need to be realistic about your abilities. 

• 4) Choose your framework

Which framework or library do you want to use? If you’re a non developer, we suggest you try Unity or Godot. And for those of you who already are in development, search for a game development framework in a language that you know.  

• 5) Find the assets for your game

Now it’s time to take your game to the next level by adding some art and sound to it. If you’re one of those people who love to take care of it all, and know how to create assets yourself, then go ahead and do it! But most of the time, people prefer to get their assets online. If this sounds more convenient to you, then you can check out OpenGameArt and itch.io for some good resources.

• 6) Finalize your project

It seems like you’re almost there! You have all the fragments of your game ready, now all you need to do is get them all in one place and complete your indie game project. What you need to do at this point is to implement a full game loop and include the losing, winning, and starting over stages.

• 7) Promote your game

You can skip this step if you were creating the game simply for your own portfolio, or it was a really personal project that you don’t want to share with others. In all the other cases, make sure you promote your game correctly, so that it gets the appreciation it deserves. Here are some tips for promoting your indie game.

Once done, share the link to your indie game in our comments, so that we all can enjoy it!