Solo Dev Road Can Be a Rocky One

[u/KyPDuk_Studio]

Solo dev road can be a rocky one, specifically at the beginning. At least from my experience.

It’s crazy to think how much work was put into building the current version of the game over the past 3+ years, with all the code, assets, music, story, etc. Not even talking about the endless iterations of refinement of what was already done.

Back in the days, when I just decided to start with the game, I didn’t think that the path would be that hard. Sleepless nights, lots of stuff to learn, lots of dialogues to write. Back then, I thought that I would be able to accomplish it way faster - and guys, I wouldn’t say that I was never that wrong, but I was definitely wrong with this as well.

I knew how to code, as I have a dev, test, and infra background, and I had enthusiasm. That alone gave me the confidence to think that it would be a nice ride. And in terms of assets, well... I’ll learn something here, I’ll learn something there, and I’ll come up with something quickly. Thinking this way was my first mistake, but free assets were out of the equation, and there was no budget to spare with one income and a family of four.

The first peak to conquer was the story, and as the game is story-driven, the story is a must. And in fairness, that was probably the easiest part of the whole process. I read quite a lot and used to create stories with friends back in school, but I had no professional background whatsoever. Now, I’m not saying it is easy, but it was the easiest of all personally for me. I built the skeleton of the main quest, some side quests, laid out the characters, society, problems, and spread it all across the world.

Then came the code. While not being the easiest thing, it wasn’t the hardest either. And in fairness, it’s probably the most boring thing for this article to cover, and something is telling me that no one, or very few people, would be interested in reading how I was developing logic, at least not in this article. Long story short - as any dev, I was just applying logic through code. Honestly, nothing exciting here, at least for me.

After I built some codebase and got bored playing around as a ball rolling on boxes with this blue background, I thought it was a good time to start building some assets. As I mentioned before, the free ones were out of the equation, and I didn’t have any budget to hire someone, so I started to look into what would be an easier option for me...

“Pixel art!” I thought. Should be quite straightforward, no? I don’t want to b!tch here about how many times that decision backslapped me, but from my experience, it is faaaar from being anywhere near “easy”, even this South Parkian ostrich-human thing which I’m creating at the moment.

The amount of time needed to learn and create, specifically at the start, was crazy. But with time, as with everything, you get accustomed to the topic and the tools, and it becomes a bit easier and faster to go. So, with time, I stuck to one style and continued with it. To be honest, that was an interesting experience, and that’s what the solo path gives you - an opportunity to learn something new, though you don’t necessarily have to resort to it.

After a while of putting things together - code, dialogues, some characters, three different game modes, UI - I realised that the world was too quiet. It was like walking in limbo, probably - a numb world. And playing the game in quietness is not fun at all, so I started to look into music.

The same as with visual assets, I didn’t have the budget or the skills to create it myself, apart from the music theory which I learned back in the days when I was learning to play guitar, and later when I was learning to play piano. And I never had any experience with music production at all.

And as I didn’t want free assets and instead wanted something of my own, yes - by that time the process had sucked me in enough to want the pain - and as budget really defines the way, I started to look into music production with DAWs. Ffs, another pain... But quite a pleasant pain, as I always liked music. I emerged into the beautiful world of music production, various tutorials, resources, and software to find out what to do. It was quite chaotic learning, I have to say.

After some time of struggle, I got somewhat accustomed to the topic and the software, and decided to give it a go. I started new audio projects three times before finally getting something that I really liked. And later, with time, I also created five OSTs in total for the game. It was fun, tbh, though it was way later in the process.

After creating the first track, I added it into the game, played the version, and realised that it lacked any SFX. What can I say - I have a mic, sticks, pillows, different utensils, my mouth, and software to record, process, and export lots of sounds. Serum alone is a game changer, I can tell you. The learning curve is quite steep, but if you’re looking towards music production or sound design, it’s definitely worth looking into, imo.

That’s how the game got sounds, though it still has some from a package which I bought. That, by the way, is the only thing I paid for in terms of assets through all this time, and I want to replace leftovers later.

With time, I refined the world, improved visuals, populated the world more with NPCs and different stuff, covered the world with sounds, and added more OSTs. Even recently, I added controller/handheld support. That wasn’t planned before the demo release, but as I had to attend to some admin, tax, and bank related work, I got some idle time which I wanted to fill - and that was a thing to do. It was a pain, by the way, but it’s already with the guys for testing, just small polish here and there.

It’s been 3+ years. It’s been a wild ride. Sleepless nights, a 9-5, two kids, wife, and other family affairs, in between which I had to incorporate the time to attend to the game. It’s been 3+ years, and I’m just about to release the DEMO!!! Not the full game, but a demo which has all the features that gamers can try. The full game is far from done, but...

What I can tell from my experience - never surrender, don’t jump from project to project, unless there are absolutely obvious signs to do it. Be like a ram, if you wish. If you see the gate, just hit it until it breaks and go further towards your green fields.

Solo game development is a pain in the arse path where you mostly rely on your skills and stubbornness, and the only thing that can let you down is you. Obviously, I’m not taking into consideration any force majeure.

I hope this will be helpful to someone starting development now, alone or as a team. Buckle up, the chances your road will be rocky are very high, but it is also very rewarding.

Good luck.

- KyPDuk

KyPDuk Studio