A Day In The Life: Indie Game Development

I just wanted to check my email like there was a part of me that felt like maybe if I just check my email something will come through that will make me feel better something will come through on social media that will make me feel better and I'll be honest nothing did hey guys my name is Thomas brush in the creator of a game called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called once upon a coma I've been making games for about 10 years now and actually right now I'm an indie developer full time I have a family I have a mortgage coming soon at least a houses being built currently and bills to pay I have a life right just like you guys there are things that have to be done and somehow I managed somehow I'm actually able to make indie games as my full-time job so I don't know if I've actually told you a day in the life of it being an indie dev and I actually watched a video from thin matrix it was a great video and he did a really good job explaining what he does in his daily routine as an indie developer so I want to give you some things that I pretty much do every single day as an indie developer now like many of you the first

thing I do is actually I just wake up at 7 o'clock 7:20 in the morning throw on a t-shirt throw on some pants brush my teeth get a cup of coffee and head to the office now the office is a constantly changing setting I'll be honest with you currently right now I am in my parents basement making indie games now that's always been changing so when I first started making games I was actually upstairs same house as an 18 year old 10 years ago making games in my bedroom I went to college made games from the basement of the library of Clemson University also made games from my dormitory got married got a full-time job made games from the small little office in a house me and my wife rented also made games from the cubicle that I worked in as a graphic designer during my lunch break and when me and my wife finally built a house a previous house that we just sold we decked out the garage as much as I could and I

worked from the garage so as you can see it doesn't really matter where you are as an indie developer just as long as you stay creative and have the proper equipment actually make a game once I arrived at the studio whatever that means I just sit down and the second thing that I do is I try and get my social media and my email and all the various communication outlets for indie developers I try and get that under control discord is usually blown up overnight email has usually blown up overnight social media that includes Twitter YouTube Instagram that's blown up overnight and so for me it's really important to just clean everything up as much as possible now the way that I decide what I'm gonna work on is kind of up to me right I'm my own boss so I actually have a task list on Google Drive that I just open up and it's a list of things I gotta do and I'll sort through which ones I want to work on for the day it's actually a really cool job when you think about it there's a million things to do right so that can be pretty stressful but once you

actually look at those million things kind of embrace it learn to enjoy the constant wave of things to do you can start picking and choosing things you want to do so for me today was well I want to write a blog I want to do tax stuff cuz I gotta do some tax stuff for tax season maybe I'll work on a couple animations for the cutscenes in the game and maybe I'll work on some songs right and then I'll put that together in a task list and then I'll start from the top and just go down obviously this kind of this mentality changes the closer you get to a launch when you get to a launch things are pretty ordered you got to get things done in order but for me right now as we're polishing up once apon a coma it's not really a launch season yet I could pretty much take whatever I want from the task list and work on it so yesterday I spent a lot of time just writing music right and I found that even though it can be lonely in a basement even though it can be lonely in my parents basement or in a garage or in a home studio somewhere I found that one

of the best things indie developers can do is just start live streaming their work and you guys know that I live stream pretty much every day if you do want to see those live streams make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon also during this week I've done some some sound effect work so I'll open up audacity and there's this really cool website called production crate and actually reached out to them to see if they would be interested in sponsoring the channel they said yes so production crate is our first sponsor for this channel so thank you so much production crate guys production crate has some incredible sound effects graphics songs things you can use to bring into your game so you don't have to record fully sound effects or create particle effects or anything like that for your trailers it's all available on production crate guys I've been using production crate for two years so if that's something you're interested in head on over to production crate there's a link in the description and see if that's something for you so I'll take sound effects I'll write some music I'll open up audacity or I'll be in Photoshop I'll be programming in unity right we're just juggling all these different pieces

of software it's very important for me not to get sort of drowned in the weight and the pressure of all this stuff right I'm wearing a million hats right now I'm just wearing one but usually I wear a lot of hats that's a joke it's really important for me to to stay focused and to not lose my freakin mind it's really important for me to to enjoy my job right and things can get really stressful really fast I try and do things that get me outside of the studio and outside of my own head when you're constantly doing entrepreneurship you can get stuck in your head especially with indie games when you feel the pressure in the way of all the things you got to do it's very easy to get stuck in your head start getting stressed depressed anxious so what I do I jump out of a plane right I go on trips I go to Iceland or I go to Peru or this year we went last year we went to Italy I try and make that a priority and a lot of you think well I don't really have the budget for that well for me it was really hard to make it work with our

budget as well but I knew how important it was to travel and see things and experience the world and to do things that scare me because when I'm constantly stuck inside of this square right I'm looking at my computer I feel like I'm stuck in the matrix right all day working on games it's really important for me to sort of get a jolt get an exciting adventurous jolt to get me out of my head because once I come back to the studio after jumping out of a plane or going to Italy once I come back to the studio studio I'm energized and I'm ready to make games it's really hard to make an adventure if you're not adventuring you're self-sow the rest of the day is is you know writing c-sharp code or illustrating stuff in Photoshop animating and spine putting a scene together in unity creating a trailer or this is one of my favorite parts of making a game getting to know people just reaching out to people in the email seeing if there's any marketing opportunities or partnerships you can

make so right now YouTube is a really cool thing for me as an indie developer it really helps my studio so I actually reach out to a lot of other youtubers and see if they want to collaborate so I juggle a lot of different stuff throughout the day and it's not like I'm juggling like maybe different colored balls just go with the metaphor for a second it's like I'm juggling a knife and then an orange and then a baby doll and then a block like there's just all these different shapes and things that I have to watch out for as I'm juggling and so I'd say if you want to become an indie developer and have your own schedule that you work through just remember you're going to have to balance a lot of different things that includes marketing that includes marketing yourself and your game coding and developing and animating you need to be wearing a ton of different hats and you might feel pressure that you have to know how to do everything but there is joy there's up there's an ability to have joy in the constant change of being an indie developer some of you know that I've said this before one of the best ways that you can enjoy the constant

pressure and change of being an entrepreneur and a game developer is to cut off your day at a certain point and go straight to the gym so once it hits 4:30 p.m. for me I try and beat the traffic and I head straight to the gym now going to the gym is really important for me because it allows me to get all that stress all that pressure of being in any developer being an entrepreneur and I can sort of release that pressure into a bench press right or a squat or a deadlift or some curls right and I know it sounds kind of weird but believe it or not physically exerting yourself exercising after the end of a crazy stressful day can really help your mental health and honestly makes you want to go back to the office of the next go to the gym back to the office the next day kind of rinse and repeat it's a great cycle I really enjoy it it's being mentally and creatively active for half of your day and then the next half is going to the gym and then coming home to maybe your family and

being able to relax if you don't do those two you might really struggle with mental health as an indie developer right the final thing I do after I'm done with the gym and this is so so important is I take my phone which has all my work email on it has discord all of my social media lately I take my phone and I stick it in a drawer because it is so easy as an indie developer and an entrepreneur to constantly swipe down to try and refresh the page right refresh your email did that email come through and am I gonna get funding for this or did this person email me and want to collaborate with me or social media do people like my game and do they like the screenshot I posted that is is a very unhealthy way to be an indie developer so part of my day is actively not working in the evenings and I think my wife will tell you that this has been a real challenge for me it's been a really hard challenge because I always

want to be reaffirmed especially like yesterday was a really stressful day there was a financial situation that came up and was really challenging for me and it was really hard for me to go to the gym even I I think I just walked the track cuz I was really upset and then I go I went home and I just wanted to check my email like there was a part of me that felt like maybe if I just check my email something will come through that will make me feel better something will come through on social media that will make me feel better and I'll be honest nothing did nothing came through that made me feel better but that's part of being an entrepreneur not every day is gonna be a great day not every day you're gonna feel good about your work that's okay that's the way it is if you can't handle that maybe you should be an entrepreneur maybe you shouldn't be an indie developer so put your phone away in the evenings I've found that that's really helpful and maybe just have a beer or two and hopefully you can relax watch some Netflix with your family and be ready for the next day alright guys that is my day as an indie developer I do this

every day rinse and repeat it's a great job it's awesome doesn't mean it's not difficult I love it not gonna be in this basement forever building a new studio in a couple months and I'm gonna be moving to that I'll keep you guys updated on that if you found this video helpful if you liked it hit subscribe hit the notification Bell do all those cool things leave a comment and I'll try to answer as quick as I can finally I just want to say one quick thing the reason why I make videos on YouTube one of the main reasons is patreon helps support my game development in the studio itself so if you want to support me if you want to support the studio if you want to see more videos head on over to patreon and support for five dollars or more a month you'll see your name in the credits of videos you'll see your name in the stream if you want to see private streams if you want to participate in VIP private streams consider joining the brush club where you can join private streams and talk to me individually in the chat thanks guys I'll talk to you later see ya bye