BRILLIANT Advice If You Want To Start Making Indie Games

if you want to make any games from your bedroom as a full-time job this video is for you I chatted all about this with Oliver Joyce he's the creator of the sword and sandals franchise by the way we're both full-time indie game devs so we kind of know what it takes to keep our games funded and in production full-time all while having families and bills to pay so what exactly do you need to do to make it happen for you right how do you make Indie Games alone or with a team from your bedroom fulltime let's jump into the conversation by the way if you want to take this concept A step further there's a free webinar below it's just for you and it goes into how exactly to get a full-time paycheck from your small Indie demo it's totally possible that's how I do things but anyway let's jump into the discussion with Oliver and like I've said this in the in the past um it's a it's a silly little saying but when you're building an indie game youve almost like you're building your own lottery ticket you know what I mean you going to build it to take a chance that's it's going to do well but I know I know I'm six months

into making the engine and I can f and so this trailer that on on the steam page David uh from nostalgic Realms who I'm working with with the Twan team he's put all this that's basically all smok and mirrors there's no game there that all looks like a game but I'm rebuilding all that in a proper game engine and so on wow um I'm I'm the cool thing about this and I don't know this could be like all if you interview me in four years time was what was the big mistake with that game I'm making a full-on RPG Maker so like because Dave was not really a programmer I decided to build tools that we can both edit the game with but it's turning into this full-on hey why make it so anyone could build a game with this and so it's actually it sounds like pretty crazy but it's actually been really um helpful to me to be able to build this little engine and then be able to tun out content later I I spoke with a guy called Anders lison who uh has built a very successful uh game called scald uh published by raw Fury came out last year and it's one of the

one of the it's you it's got a couple of thousand reviews which for a for a a sort of a 90s style ultimate role playing game is you know pretty fantastic and you know raw Fury did a really good job um you know promoting that and everything but I chatting to him a few times he said the main he took five years with it and he said the main thing he would stress was like if you're building a game over three or four years or more just make sure you have a good tool set to work with and you know internal tools and by by that I mean like for an a role playing game you want to have a really good map editor or item Creator or dialogue Creator and so on because if you if you're just doing the same tasks again and again and again working on this really robust tool early on we'll save your time later so that's what I'm doing right now is the first six months is literally just building tools and then I'm hoping that there's an actually compelling game around that which we don't know yet we're hoping there is but I'm really fascinated by

by figuring out what viable actually means so I've I've been interested in it let's let's say let's say lir of Le leviathan's demo sucks and it doesn't do well let's say it let's just pretend that happens to you um does it mean that everything carrying the game like the tools sucks or does it mean that the the garnish sucks the the hook the story The Mood the feeling the aesthetic maybe that's what sucks not the tools this is right to say if you did the same thing again with a different theme it couldn't do well and so important what you're creating yeah and a lot of game developers will you know build a game and build the engine behind and everything and then doesn't do well and they kind of go ah you know everything about it was bad but you can salvage stuff from that you could re

who's to say you couldn't reskin a platform game with a much more quirky theme and all of a sudden does well like you know that whe the game that came out last year was a pizza Tower or something like that um outrageously quirky platformer type game that game without the quirky theme um has none of that success and I think for many like for this layer of the Vian you're exactly right this game could do poorly but I've then got a full RPG Maker tool that I've spent a few years making you could easily reskin that with uh what's popular at the moment it might not be horror it might be now like I don't know uh western or something so you do a western role play game no one seen a western role play game in a little while it's like cool you know like Cowboys not like Western and J yeah um I think that's really smart dude I honestly I think they I think you're on to something because well to wrap this up that's what you did with sword and sandals exactly you built you reskinned

a single IP the sad part is someone else owned it and you never never fully had it for your yourself I'd have a very different background if I own the IP I'd be like this is my S of Malibu mansion you know I me but like you whatever it is yeah but we all make new we make mistakes we learn from I I for all that mistake of not owning the IP I'm still really grateful that the the guy in New York gave me a chance and allowed me to rebuild from the rubble of this whole not being able to make games again and so on so you know I think that's the any advice I could give to um new game devs and this is again pretty cliche but like don't be afraid to fail as long as you making new mistakes every time you know because you everywhere chance Reigns you know in the swirling Waters there are weights of fish that's like that's a a quote from an old Roman philosopher but it's so true because you know you just don't know when

you're going to succeed and as long as you keep trying keep trying new ideas don't worry about the negative reviews they're going to come but just focus on what you're going to do next by the way if you're like me and you always dreamt of making an indie game as a full-time job I have a free webinar below that goes into exactly how to make six figures with just a demo I was just like you for years I thought I had to make a game in its entirety before getting a paycheck but there's actually three ways to make six figures before even finishing your game I've done this multiple times so check it out below if you do want to go full-time IND and thanks for watching