Heya man, I just wishlisted this because of reading your comments in this post. You’re a good dude.
I’m a programmer too, been doing it for roughly 27 years. Next year, I’m going to quit my well paying job, where I have a fully remote working position working with some of the most talented engineers in the field for one of the largest privately held companies in the world, a position I’ll probably never be able to get/achieve again in my lifetime; and throw it all away and start an indie studio with my brother and another indie dev. I’ve wanted to make video games for as long as I can remember. This is a childhood dream of mine.
Life’s too short, chase your dreams while you still can. It doesn’t get easier when you get older.
Hearing about your passion helps keep me focused on hopefully realizing my own dream one day soon :)
Edit: I genuinely don’t understand the downvotes? Could someone help me understand why please? :)
Thank you for the kind words. Personally I wouldn’t do that, seems to risk. Please make sure you have enough funds to survive for as long as possible. I grew up poor and it sucks. I hate that kind of instability. Good luck with your studio! :)
I am good on funds for a couple years of living frugally. I also grew up poor and you are correct, it does indeed suck. One of the few benefits of having been in the industry for so long and trading my sanity and health for $$ is: I’ve got a decent bit of that saved up. Which I’ll be trading away for survival during this :) If it makes money, great, if not, I gave it a shot and I can always get a job again doing the B2B thing, even though it likely won’t be as comfy as the position I’m in. I’m just totally burnt out with it today. To the point where the stress of going to work caused a major health issue to manifest that’s given me a new perspective on life.
Thank you for the well wishes! I’ll be checking out your game when it’s released!
I’m not down voting you and I applaud chasing your dreams, but a well paying, stable, fully remote job is not something to give up lightly.
Maybe that’s why people are down voting you? Not that they should but people be people.
Personally, I’m just some schlub on the internet, but I’d strongly advise you to reconsider leaving that kind of financial stability. At the very least you’ll need a pretty good amount of money saved up to live off of. Most indie games aren’t successful, most indie game companies fail. There’s a gigantic risk for you and a huge lost opportunity cost (your income & benefits, particularly benefits like health insurance if you’re in the USA) just to get started and on top of that you have to make something people want to buy.
Not doubting your talents but people would kill to be in your spot (remote, well paid, full time) - I’d think long and hard about the risk you’re accepting.
I do, however, wish you well and hope you succeed beyond your wildest expectations! Just something to chew on.
Thank you for that writeup, I suspect you’re right, that’s probably why a few people are downvoting :)
You’re not wrong though. It is a little crazy, I admit.
I have a decent bit of funds saved up to live off of, so I think I could do that for a while, and my company has offered to hire me back if I need (but likely without the aforementioned perks…). Worst case, I could take it and take the step down in comfort/lifestyle and go back to kind of what I’m doing today.
Earlier this year I had a medical disability thing that hit and put me out of work for almost 3 months due to stress related to my career.
I had to make a hard choice of trying to continue down this path I was on in B2B, where to get to where I’m at and maintain it is an easy 60+ hours a week plus a boatload of stress consuming my life.
In the end, I decided to try and follow my childhood dreams. The near death-ish experience has given me a new perspective on what is important and matters to me most in life, before I don’t have any more time left to do it.
Truthfully, I might be able to ride out the remainder of my days no longer working, if I pull in just a little bit of supplemental income. I own my own home, and have a modest lifestyle with no children and live well below my means. I’ve been saving pretty hardcore for over a decade, and while it’s not enough to live off of forever, it should cover me for a good while.
Even if this fails, I get a sabbatical from the job that’s killing me, and some new experiences to throw on my resume.
I sincerely appreciate your concern and advice, and it is well taken. I just don’t know how much longer I can even do my job today, every day is burnout day, I’m hanging in there until next year to get my bonuses and to ensure that my role’s successor-ship plan goes through so my engineering team continues to thrive when I’m gone. I’m also not burning any bridges at work, and for the most part, I’m pretty well respected/liked there so I have no doubts I could come back if I needed in an emergency.
But for now, onward :) Going to give this game dev thing a try for realsies :)
Thank you so much to everyone who has wishlisted the game—it truly means the world to me. And if you’ve never heard of it, that’s totally okay! I just wanted to share a bit about what it’s like to pursue the dream of making indie games on your own.
Balancing this with a regular job, a wonderful dog, and a supportive girlfriend can be overwhelming, and honestly, sleep has become more of a luxury than a reality at this point. But creating games has always been a huge dream of mine, and no matter how tough it gets, I’m determined to make it happen. I genuinely believe that the harder you work, the luckier you become—but it all starts with putting in the work.
I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that, even if a game doesn’t turn out perfect, most indie devs have poured their heart and soul into it, often while juggling tight budgets, limited time, or both. In my case, my brother, who’s an amazing programmer, helps out whenever he can, but he’s been incredibly busy this past year, so it’s mostly just on weekends. For me, it’s been a lot of 14-hour days.
So thank you again for all the support—it makes all the sacrifices worthwhile. And to any fellow developers out there, keep pushing forward. We’re all in this together.
Well, I’m glad this one is gaining lots of interest for you! It looks like a cool game!
I have my first game called “Enso” in the Steam Next Fest right now, so fingers crossed I’ll be able to gain a little traction too! Do you have any tips on how to promote your game without feeling like a scumbag? I hate the “salesman” type feeling I get from talking about my game online 😅
Congrats on that! To just get a game demo to Next Fest is huge! I don’t know how to not feel like salesman, but just try to be sincere and share your success with players. Despite all the rage-bait and negativity on the internet, people genualny like positive stories. That’s what I try to do at least :)
It is very much NOT scumbag to make posts on some different gaming Lemmy communities and just say like “I’m making my first game, Enso, and it’s being featured in the Steam Next Fest!” then just describe it, post some screenshots, maybe talk about what it was like to develop it if you feel like it, and pop a linky to that bad boi! That’s what OP did and I find none of his posts annoying or anything. I wishlisted it right away cuz he talked about being super inspired by The Stanley Parable.
I’m excited to see it. Your inspiration games are great (anything that says similar to Outer Wilds is going on the wishlist, basically), and I’m looking forward to your narrative. I haven’t played the demo yet and was going to go in blind.
Cheers man, hope it is okay for your work life balance soon enough.
I just went to wishlist this game and discovered it was already on my wishlist. Can’t wait for this game to release! I’ll definitely have to add it to my queue of random screenshot posts here.
In a way, this does break rule 4, as multiples report pointed out, but I’ll allow it for this time in order for y’all to congratulate our fellow gamer here for its huge accomplishments.
OP is advised, in hope to appease the report queue gods, to kindly celebrate next achievement in the most monotonous, mild and definitively not memey manner. Thaaaanks. (/s)
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How did you reach 6k? Do you think that something in particular helped you get there this time?
I’m also working on my first release - Bedroom Battlegrounds and I got just about 1k wishlists and I’m hard stuck 😅
Heya man, I just wishlisted this because of reading your comments in this post. You’re a good dude.
I’m a programmer too, been doing it for roughly 27 years. Next year, I’m going to quit my well paying job, where I have a fully remote working position working with some of the most talented engineers in the field for one of the largest privately held companies in the world, a position I’ll probably never be able to get/achieve again in my lifetime; and throw it all away and start an indie studio with my brother and another indie dev. I’ve wanted to make video games for as long as I can remember. This is a childhood dream of mine.
Life’s too short, chase your dreams while you still can. It doesn’t get easier when you get older.
Hearing about your passion helps keep me focused on hopefully realizing my own dream one day soon :)
Edit: I genuinely don’t understand the downvotes? Could someone help me understand why please? :)
Thank you for the kind words. Personally I wouldn’t do that, seems to risk. Please make sure you have enough funds to survive for as long as possible. I grew up poor and it sucks. I hate that kind of instability. Good luck with your studio! :)
I sincerely appreciate that concern :)
I am good on funds for a couple years of living frugally. I also grew up poor and you are correct, it does indeed suck. One of the few benefits of having been in the industry for so long and trading my sanity and health for $$ is: I’ve got a decent bit of that saved up. Which I’ll be trading away for survival during this :) If it makes money, great, if not, I gave it a shot and I can always get a job again doing the B2B thing, even though it likely won’t be as comfy as the position I’m in. I’m just totally burnt out with it today. To the point where the stress of going to work caused a major health issue to manifest that’s given me a new perspective on life.
Thank you for the well wishes! I’ll be checking out your game when it’s released!
I’m not down voting you and I applaud chasing your dreams, but a well paying, stable, fully remote job is not something to give up lightly.
Maybe that’s why people are down voting you? Not that they should but people be people.
Personally, I’m just some schlub on the internet, but I’d strongly advise you to reconsider leaving that kind of financial stability. At the very least you’ll need a pretty good amount of money saved up to live off of. Most indie games aren’t successful, most indie game companies fail. There’s a gigantic risk for you and a huge lost opportunity cost (your income & benefits, particularly benefits like health insurance if you’re in the USA) just to get started and on top of that you have to make something people want to buy.
Not doubting your talents but people would kill to be in your spot (remote, well paid, full time) - I’d think long and hard about the risk you’re accepting.
I do, however, wish you well and hope you succeed beyond your wildest expectations! Just something to chew on.
Thank you for that writeup, I suspect you’re right, that’s probably why a few people are downvoting :)
You’re not wrong though. It is a little crazy, I admit.
I have a decent bit of funds saved up to live off of, so I think I could do that for a while, and my company has offered to hire me back if I need (but likely without the aforementioned perks…). Worst case, I could take it and take the step down in comfort/lifestyle and go back to kind of what I’m doing today.
Earlier this year I had a medical disability thing that hit and put me out of work for almost 3 months due to stress related to my career.
I had to make a hard choice of trying to continue down this path I was on in B2B, where to get to where I’m at and maintain it is an easy 60+ hours a week plus a boatload of stress consuming my life.
In the end, I decided to try and follow my childhood dreams. The near death-ish experience has given me a new perspective on what is important and matters to me most in life, before I don’t have any more time left to do it.
Truthfully, I might be able to ride out the remainder of my days no longer working, if I pull in just a little bit of supplemental income. I own my own home, and have a modest lifestyle with no children and live well below my means. I’ve been saving pretty hardcore for over a decade, and while it’s not enough to live off of forever, it should cover me for a good while.
Even if this fails, I get a sabbatical from the job that’s killing me, and some new experiences to throw on my resume.
I sincerely appreciate your concern and advice, and it is well taken. I just don’t know how much longer I can even do my job today, every day is burnout day, I’m hanging in there until next year to get my bonuses and to ensure that my role’s successor-ship plan goes through so my engineering team continues to thrive when I’m gone. I’m also not burning any bridges at work, and for the most part, I’m pretty well respected/liked there so I have no doubts I could come back if I needed in an emergency.
But for now, onward :) Going to give this game dev thing a try for realsies :)
That’s awesome, best wishes! Sorry about your medical situation, I get stress/anxiety myself so can commiserate.
Thank you!
Good luck! I am about the same place in my career and I also wanted to actually release a game (not just make 80% of a game in secret!).
Haha, I feel that! I’ve got dozens of almost games in my wake. 🙂
Thank you so much to everyone who has wishlisted the game—it truly means the world to me. And if you’ve never heard of it, that’s totally okay! I just wanted to share a bit about what it’s like to pursue the dream of making indie games on your own.
Balancing this with a regular job, a wonderful dog, and a supportive girlfriend can be overwhelming, and honestly, sleep has become more of a luxury than a reality at this point. But creating games has always been a huge dream of mine, and no matter how tough it gets, I’m determined to make it happen. I genuinely believe that the harder you work, the luckier you become—but it all starts with putting in the work.
I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that, even if a game doesn’t turn out perfect, most indie devs have poured their heart and soul into it, often while juggling tight budgets, limited time, or both. In my case, my brother, who’s an amazing programmer, helps out whenever he can, but he’s been incredibly busy this past year, so it’s mostly just on weekends. For me, it’s been a lot of 14-hour days.
So thank you again for all the support—it makes all the sacrifices worthwhile. And to any fellow developers out there, keep pushing forward. We’re all in this together.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for an internet phenomenon boost.
absolutely :)
Congrats, that’s a massive achievement!
Thank you! I have two other games and this has never happened! I was still a newbie then. I took my time making this one. I hope people enjoy it : )
Well, I’m glad this one is gaining lots of interest for you! It looks like a cool game!
I have my first game called “Enso” in the Steam Next Fest right now, so fingers crossed I’ll be able to gain a little traction too! Do you have any tips on how to promote your game without feeling like a scumbag? I hate the “salesman” type feeling I get from talking about my game online 😅
Congrats on that! To just get a game demo to Next Fest is huge! I don’t know how to not feel like salesman, but just try to be sincere and share your success with players. Despite all the rage-bait and negativity on the internet, people genualny like positive stories. That’s what I try to do at least :)
Thank you! That’s actually really good advice, if you share positivity then you’re more likely to attract positive people! Makes perfect sense 🙂
It is very much NOT scumbag to make posts on some different gaming Lemmy communities and just say like “I’m making my first game, Enso, and it’s being featured in the Steam Next Fest!” then just describe it, post some screenshots, maybe talk about what it was like to develop it if you feel like it, and pop a linky to that bad boi! That’s what OP did and I find none of his posts annoying or anything. I wishlisted it right away cuz he talked about being super inspired by The Stanley Parable.
Thank you for the encouragement! I’m going to save this post and come back and read it next time I’m scared about annoying people ❤️
If you make a post about it, link me here if you remember! When I’m at my compy again, I’ll have my partner and I wishlist yours too!
I hope that if you do press the button
Tap for spoiler
The game uninstalls itself.
haha I know there is a way to QUIT on the Engine I’m using. I wonder if there is a way to Uninstall it haha
But only if the refund window has passed.
My PC doesn’t meet the system requirements but I’ll comment for engagement
Thank you, you are too kind. Also I’m pretty sure you can probably play it on low or medium. Try the demo if you want see how it runs
Hey, I’m one of those wishlisters!
I’m excited to see it. Your inspiration games are great (anything that says similar to Outer Wilds is going on the wishlist, basically), and I’m looking forward to your narrative. I haven’t played the demo yet and was going to go in blind.
Cheers man, hope it is okay for your work life balance soon enough.
Thank you! I will go easier with the next game or at least that is the plan
I remember seeing your toaster progress pretty recently!
Congrats!
Adolf Toastler.
One of the rare situations where that specific mustache can make me laugh!
Ah yes… the Hitler Toaster debacle :D
Thank you :)
i can’t wait for your game to be finished. as a The Stanley Parable and Title_Pending enjoyer, this will be right up my alley.
YES! I love them both too, some of my main inspirations. Glad someone else sees it!
I’m happy for you!
Thank you :)
I just went to wishlist this game and discovered it was already on my wishlist. Can’t wait for this game to release! I’ll definitely have to add it to my queue of random screenshot posts here.
Thank you! Almost two years in development now, I really hope people enjoy it. It might truly break my heart if it players are disappointment
“Inspired by the stanley parable”
Yeah that will do it. I am clicking that wishlist/buy button like i never had a choice in the matter.
I hope you’re okay
Congratulations. I wish you all the best 👏👏
Thank you so much :)
In a way, this does break rule 4, as multiples report pointed out, but I’ll allow it for this time in order for y’all to congratulate our fellow gamer here for its huge accomplishments.
OP is advised, in hope to appease the report queue gods, to kindly celebrate next achievement in the most monotonous, mild and definitively not memey manner. Thaaaanks. (/s)
Congrats dude!
Thank you for your generosity! Memes are my thing, I will try to restrain myself in the future.
You’re one of the best mods I’ve ever seen
Thank you. I do my best.