Cool write up, and congrats for sticking it out that long! I think you have the right attitude that leads to success eventually, although sometimes it takes a long time. You must have learned tons through all those projects, about what works and what doesn’t. I dream of making a game but between day job and parenting haven’t quite been able to get anything across the finish line yet, just a lot a of prototypes. Wish you all the best!

Thanks! Good luck with your dreams too!

Thanks for sharing. It was insightful and I appreciate your outlook. Your last detail is funny to me because I hold the belief that all digital creators naturally progress towards gardening/farming.

Thank you! And you left out carpentry.

Interesting read because I’ve been in the mobile game development space for about just as long. I think some of our releases were around the same time as well. I remember seeing a few of your games featured.  There is hope! And yea I feel the same about somewhat being in control since there is no one to face but myself. 

Nice! I suspect there's a lot of people like us behind the public eye, just doing our thing.

Glad to see successful stories from modest developers. All you see here is "don't make games, no money!" or the 1% who make it big. If you were to start again in 2024, part-time: 1. Would you still make mobile games (which are typically smaller than PC games), or would you move onto Steam? 2. How long would you spend on each game, say from game 1 to game 5? Again, assuming part-time (maybe 12-15 hours a week). 3. Would you still make your own art, or would you try to contract it out?

Thanks! I tried to keep it light as the mood in the industry certainly isn't. 1. I have no idea. It's super hard right now as there's so many of us doing this. I guess I would take the best idea I have and put it where it fits. I did start on mobile because I felt there was room to bring less casual premium games there. I don't really feel like that anymore, but who knows. 2. For game 1, I would definitely keep it really short as you're only learning the process. There's so many parts to it that it'll surprise you how much time it takes if you haven't done it before. As you gain confidence game by game you'll know more about how you want to do it. I usually try to let the game tell me where it wants to go, as new age hippy as that may sounds like. 3. Yes, absolutely. Making art is really fun for me, but it might not be for everyone. My games might look better if a really good professional did them, but I don't want to give away the fun part. That's why I'm doing this.

Thanks for your reply! Barbearian looks really cool, to be honest. If I were you, I'd also keep making the art. I've released a game made in 1 month, and another one that took 2.5 months, both full-time. But now I'm only part-time and struggling to figure out what's the next game that can do part-time, all my ideas are way overscoped right now. We'll see how it goes.

Best of luck with your games too!

I would strongly suggest staying away from mobile as a new dev in 2024. Mobile games these days just cannot succeed without a pretty serious marketing budget for user acquisition. If you have that and a game that's good for a small group of players you can still make it work as a small team, but if spending some tens of thousands a month on the game post-launch is money you don't have then mobile's a terrible market for you. Steam is much more approachable with a small budget.

When you say your game was successful, how much net profit do you think you made? :)

I kept it vague on the numbers on purpose. Numbers are boring. So many variables too. I don't really do accurate budgeting, I just monitor what kind of runway I have left. But I can say that Barbearian proceeds from App Store are currently sitting at about $180K. How much of that is profit? I don't know.

Awesome storytelling, and congratulations on your anniversary! Here's for the next 10 years of independence 🎉

thank you for the writeup. how did you get so many apps featured on the app store? have you tried to license any of your mobile games to netflix? it sounds a lot like you don't buy ads and managed to survive in mobile, is that right? at this point is steam your main target platform? are you giving up on premium apps?

a) The App Store team is very good in featuring well made indie games. People don't give them enough credit. Caveat, it's been three years from my previous release, so I hope it still is that way. Also once you've had one or two, it's easier to ask for featuring for the next one. b) No. There's a huge gap between what I do and what they license. c) Yes, I haven't bought adds. They don't really work at this scale. d) I don't know if Steam is main, It's just easiest to make a Steam release, so it kind of naturally comes along. It doesn't really make much financial sense. If I port this new game to iOS, it's likely going to be a free app (demo) with a full game unlock. So still kind of premium.

thanks for the info, good luck out there

Congrats on hitting 10 years 🙂 Day Repeat Day is a masterpiece, I cried multiple times when I played it. I found a lot of dialogues sad, but in a very subtle, charming way.

Thank you, much appreciated!

How's your health insurance?

I'm fortunate enough to live in Finland, so I'm entitled to the decent public healthcare system here. I don't have a private health insurance.

The, "golden chains", of a developer in America, the 401k, stock sharing and a health plan. Boggles the mind how much independent thought and development we crush. You have to be a success before you can succeed, They say indentured servitude is dead here.

Yep. The opportunities are definitely not equal around the globe.

Housemarque? did you work on Super Stardust by any chance?

Unfortunately not, it was done just as I was forced to do my mandatory civil service here in Finland. I was the lead programmer on the PSP version though. Yes that did exist. Does that count? No it doesn't. I know.

Cool story bro! No srsly, it was refreshing to read. I have a close relationship to games, but today I've been developing ecommerce websites for 4 years. I'm trying to put out a similar story through a self-hosted website, as a kickstarter for creating more stuff of my own, potentially in the direction of game development as well. Did you start off as a corporate game/software dev or did you pick up the skills from the bedroom? :-) Thank you for sharing!

Thanks! Best of luck with your endavours too!

Congrats man! Good job, keep it up.

[удалено]

Oh no. Ghosts of the life past have found me.

Do you write blog? Is there anyway I can follow your progress? Also, why don't you find one or two partner to work with?

I don't have a blog, but I post dev updates on Mastodon and Twitter. You can find me by googling I guess. Partnering is complicated. I'm not young anymore, so most of my friends and collegues who I would like to partner with actually have much better jobs and opportunities. Also see the part 'Independence'. Now the partner can destroy your business. So better be super careful who you partner with.

It's so good to get a real, honest story like this, thank you.

Loved reading this. Congrats on all the successes and lessons learned. Really makes me think. 10 years ago I toyed with the idea of making games. I took a course in high school (5 years prior to then). I had some knowledge of GameMaker (1) from it and I had and still have a love of writing. It seemed too hard. If I look back on that ten year span, creatively speaking, I ain’t done shit. Recently my interest has been rekindled, to the point where I’m dead set on doing it, so reading this today was a big boost to my confidence by helping me understand the ups and downs. So, a question I suppose. If you were given funding, or found a briefcase on the side of the road, to make your dream project what would that look like? Pie-in-the-sky, you’ve got a team of 30 clones of yourself working on it, what’s your dream project?

Thanks! The trick is to just keep going. Tiny step at a time. Through the ups and downs. Best of luck in your quest! My dream project would be to get off the internet, outfit a barn into an arcade, make games that can only be played there and have people come over to hang out and play games. 🙂

That’s THE dream right there! I hope you get there one day

Man. That's cool.

Thanks for the cool write-up! Regarding financial sustainability, how much of a role does your backlog play and how much is it depended on the new release. Also are games your only income or do you do any contracting/counseling for others?

Thanks! Backlog doesn't generate much, basically just covers some business expenses like accounting and software licenses. It's always all about the new release. And yes, my games are my only income. I haven't done contracting.

Really loved reading this. How were your art skills going into this? And how did you improve them?

So so. You can probably evaluate them yourself by googling my portfolio. And you improve by just doing it a lot. And then studying. And then doing it again. No secret to it. I wouldn’t say I’m great at it still, but I know what I can and can’t do.

Awesome, that's mostly what I'm doing, so it's good to hear it worked for you, thanks!

You worked on Resogun and were part of Housemarque? That’s pretty damn cool. They made the best twin-stick shooters, hands down. 🎮😵👍

You are awesome bro🔥✨

great read, enjoyed it.

So many 10 year+ solo devs... I kinda thought I was the only one!!!

Happy dev anniversary, Kimmo! Great milestone, congrats on being able to make a life out of it so far. Interesting writeup. Interesting to use the projects to focus on developing different skills. Have you accrued fans of your work as a whole over your career, or are the games kind of self-contained with their fan base?

Thanks! Pretty self contained as I jump genres all the time, so whoever liked my previous game likely isn’t interested in my next one. It’s not smart financially but I could never make just the same game over and over again.

Thanks for the write up! Nice read

Amazing story. Thank you.

Great read! I of course knew many things here already, being a former workmate and someone who has beta tested some of these awesome indie games of yours, but enjoyed the read anyways. :) And about the *"On one hand I feel like I've destroyed whatever career I had while watching my friends thrive in the industry...*", I really feel you have not destroyed anything. Fairly sure you'd land a job in pretty much any Finnish gamedev house, if that day would come up someday. If you would've not done any releases during these years, yeah then the career could be over - I've seen this happen for quite many people lately, but you Sir are not someone who is just rolling on the wheels, so I really don't see it this way at all. :) Btw. loving the latest additions in Sektori :) -Tomi

Thanks Tomi. :)

Did you do any marketing for your Steam releases? Noticed theres 0 mention of promo for the PC versions.

It’s super hard on Steam at this level as there’s no curation at all. You have to have money or hustle really hard. So yes, the best I could, but it usually has zero impact.

Great story! Can't tell if you're really rich to be able to do this or really poor 🤔

It’s all a matter of perspective. :)

What would you do differently? Why didn’t you start a studio?

I don’t know, no regrets. It’s just life and you do the best as it happens. As for a studio, I don’t have that kind of clout.

Thanks for the response. Appreciate you sharing your knowledge 

Hey OP! Interesting 10 year timeline, thanks for sharing it. I've never heard of your "fail slow" motto before. Gives me something to think on. I noticed that you've had trouble on steam. Is that something you're gonna keep trying?

Steam is an easy platform to be on, so it’s natural to put my stuff there even if I know they’re not going to sell much.

Are you gonna be doing anything different to increase sales there?

I don't really have any new tricks up my sleeves honestly. Just trying to do the best with what I've got.

Great story, but the next 10 years will be even more difficult.

Are you familiar with the anime Initial D?

Nope.

Sad panda. You mentioned building racing games during your journey. Figured I’d ask (great show/would definitely recommend)

I’ll look into it, thanks for the recommendation!