不久前我收到一封邮件，对方在邮件上问我“如何才能成为一名独立游戏开发者？”

虽然我的回复是全力以赴，但是我却不清楚他们真正寻求的答案是什么。我们经常会被问及类似的答案，所以我决定针对这一点进行阐述，并提供一些有帮助的建议。

关于我们

Mode 7是总部位于英国牛津的独立开发工作室。我们创立于2005年，并在2007年发行了一款不是很成功的多人战争游戏《Determinace》。

在那之后，我们于2011年又发行了《冰封触点》。

以下是关于《冰封触点》的一些信息：

售出了40多万份

在Metacritic网站上获得85分

在9/10 Edge，Eurogamer，Destructoid等网站上获得了较高的评分

将自己称为Humble Bundle

获得“Independent Games Festival Audience Award”，“PC Gamer Strategy Game of the Year”，“Indiegames.com Strategy Game of the Year”，以及RockPaperShotgun的“Best Glowy Lines in a Game”奖。

现在我们正致力于这款游戏的iPad版本，它将有可能会在年末与大家见面。

我和Ian Hardingham（首席设计师和程序员）均以联合管理总监和联合创始人的身份领导着公司。目前我们工作室还有其他4名成员，其中两名属于全职员工。同时我们也会与一些自由职业者进行远程合作。

自我介绍

我是Paul Taylor：我负责业务开发，市场营销，音频，音乐，写作，艺术方向，UI设计，一些简单的玩家涉及等等内容！

问题

为了适当压缩内容，我将假设你关于如何成为一名独立开发者的意思是：

“我想要从自己现在从事的工作中转变而成为一名全职独立游戏开发者。”

如果你只是出于创造性表达或乐趣而想要制作一款独立游戏，请不要怪我劝你走。

实际上，我们需要采取完全相反的方法：我在过去几年里发现，那些并未拥有任何商业细胞的人经常会做出一些让人惊讶的事。有些人甚至能够赚取巨大的利益，尽管这并不是他们的主要目标。

你可能想要基于Twine创造互动故事，或者像《Johann Sebastian Joust》这样的实际游戏体验（而非老套的计算机游戏），这些都是会提到的内容，而你也别因为我专注于其它内容便觉得自己被忽视。

在结束了如此漫长的序文后让我们转入正题。

基本要素

创造并发行一款计算机游戏的过程将突出如下元素：

游戏设计

代码

关卡设计

图像和动画

音频和音乐

文字

商业（法律，市场营销，PR，以及网页开发和其它相关事宜）

所有这些元素都是必要的，并且都是极具挑战性的学科，我们可能需要穷其一生才有可能真正掌握。

问题在于：你应该独自负责所有的这些元素还是寻找信得过的搭档，或者花钱让别人帮助你完成相关工作。

从我个人来讲，一开始最好花钱让一些专业人士去处理你所做不来的事：这也是最快，最简单以及最省钱的方法。

如果你之前从未进行过外包，我会建议你先看看Tim Ferriss的《The Four Hour Workweek》：虽然书中所呈现出的态度非常极端且好笑，但是我敢保证你一定能从中有所收获。

如果你足够幸运地了解到哪些人将成为自己的搭档，那么你就需要确保他们能够与你长期致力于游戏创造过程中，你必须相信他们并共同遵循同一个目标。这样的人是很难找的，所以你必须牢牢把握住他们。

不收钱的志愿者们经常会在遇到挫折时就选择放弃。并且他们也不会告诉你自己放弃了，从而浪费了你大量的时间。

让我们按顺序分析每个学科。

游戏设计

游戏设计是一个创造性学科，要求具有更高水平的分析头脑；这也解释了为什么我所知道的大多数游戏设计师都有点精神错乱（我是从好的方面来看）！

游戏设计师会参与游戏机制的设计，当然了，他们也经常参与复杂的叙述内容创造，但是他们的最主要任务还是涉及真正的游戏。我对于许多人不清楚这一点感到诧异。

我们还可以通过3种方法去学习游戏设计：

1）制作游戏，然后观看别人玩你的游戏

2）带着分析态度去玩别人的游戏

3）学习游戏设计理论

我并不是说（2，（3一点价值都没有，只是它们的价值性不如（1来得高。

作为设计师，如果你负责的是编程工作，那么你的生活便会轻松许多；你会发现那些非程序员的游戏设计师经常需要与一大群高水平程序员合作；除非你足够有钱并希望冒风险，否则你在一开始最好不要这么做。

当然了，即使一点都不接触编程工作你也可能成为一名独立设计师：但是你必须利用其它惊人的“技能”进行弥补。

如果你正在使用Adventure Game Studio，RPG Maker或RenPY等游戏创造软件，那便大大减少了你在开始设计时所需掌握的大量硬件编码。你也需要注意，在你深入探索这些工具的细节前，你可能会受到执行设计的约束。

虽然设计很重要，但它却不能代表一切。如果让人们为游戏设计打分（总共10分）的话，那么很多成功的独立游戏设计师会给出7或8分。

也就是说，谁都找不到一个充足的理由去瞄准平庸的设计：也许玩家会因为游戏描述和理念而受到吸引，但却只会因为优秀的设计而留在游戏中。

以下是我希望设计师能够做得更好的3点内容：

尝试让玩家能够更快地做出有趣且有意义的决定

尝试缩短玩家面对无聊内容的时间

尝试包含至少一个具有创造性的元素，即使只是一个小小的内容

总之一个广泛类型并没有什么错，但是购买独立游戏的玩家更喜欢创造性内容中的乐趣：如果你的游戏不管怎么做都很无聊的话，你就要准备好面对失败。

最后的警言是，人们在看到一些有关游戏设计的内容时会产生自己也能做到的想法，其实他们之前从未尝试过。我不知道是什么原因让他们觉得游戏设计很简单：但事实上这是件非常困难的工作。

关于设计我最后想说的是，你必须找到符合自己个性的方法和表达方式。明确你的目标，并且将其写下来，就像《Gunpoint》的创造者Tom Francis所做的那样。

理念

在美学和机制间，游戏理念占据着一块奇怪的空间。它们能为粗糙的机制添加氛围和情感，并且这也是许多人想要尝试或购买游戏的主要动机。

如果你的理念类型更多（如“奇幻类MMO”），你便为其它游戏元素附加更多压力，并更加需要修改原来的准则。

以下是我之前写下的一些原理摘录：

Scott Steinberg会建议你诚实地面对大众市场：“不管是音乐，动物，体育运动，还是养家糊口，你都需要确保游戏能够无时无刻地扎根于现实世界的参考框架中。”

另一方面，Jeff Tunnell认为你应该始终坚持于自己的热情所在：

“我会创造自己想要创造的游戏，并于之后再寻找用户。试图进行预测并不是一种艺术或科学，反而只是一种徒劳的实践。就像在Dynamix刚刚被Sierra所收购时，我们不得不从事各种市场营销工作并进行预测，但这么做却是不对的，就像我寄予了满满希望的游戏《The Incredible Machine》便获得了很糟糕的预测。”

以下是我的看法：

还有一些获得巨大商业成功的独立游戏，它们是关于相互打斗的兔子，充满吱吱叫的绿色小东西的抽象场景，以及粘乎乎的小斑点。虽然这些游戏不如《模拟人生》那般巨大，但它们的本意也并不是与之相抗衡。而关于“商业成功”，我指的是“赚到了足够的利益能够支持他们继续创造游戏。”这便是你们的目标，不是吗？

去寻找能够激发你最大热情的理念：你需要拥有足够的热情去推动游戏创造过程。如果你想出了一些古怪的理念，你便会意识到自己正在努力去寻找喜欢这一理念的用户，并开始思考在正式开发前该做些什么。

代码

这是关于设计和理念：如果你不能为游戏编写代码，那么设计和理念便失去了意义！网络上有各种关于“我该如何学习编程？”的资源，你只要在谷歌上进行搜索便可。而现在我想寻求Ian的帮助，听听他对于编写独立游戏代码的建议。

“我将假设你正在使用现有的游戏引擎。如果你正在阅读‘如何进入游戏编码’环节–如果你正在创造自己的引擎，那么这便超出我的建议范围。

学习编程必须具备注意力并投入足够的努力，而这却是大多数程序员所不具备的要素，所以这将会是一条非常艰难的道路。

不管你之前是否接触过编程，或者是否拥有编程背景，但是突然面对50万行代码的复杂游戏引擎时，你都会变得手足无措吧。不要因为‘一开始接触一些较小的内容’而烦恼，直接面向你真正想要做的事便可。但是在面对充满雄心的框架中，你必须理智地面对最开始接触的环节。找到一个更大项目的独立环节（你可以花一个月的时间在此获得真正的回报）然后将其当成第一个目标进行设置。

朝前奔跑，进入一个代码库，并推翻一切，直到你可以做出一些改变。改变某些内容的颜色然后开始庆祝。不断地将人们带进游戏引擎的社区中—-你的问题将变得更加愚蠢，而人们将开始产生抱怨，但是随着时间发展你的问题会变得越来越合理，并最终你将可能帮到其他人。如果遇到任何描写你所选择的引擎的书籍，请果断将其买回家并反复阅读，而不要一开始就进行盲目的编码实践。

假设你拥有任何编程天赋（如果你没有的话空请选择游戏开发的图像设计那一面），这时你所面对的真正敌人是不确定性。不要带着‘我不知道该怎么做’，或者更糟糕的‘我不知道这是否可能’的态度去处理问题。你能够尝试所有内容，而如果你对此非常自信的话，你便会发现自己可以更轻松地处理问题。

学习游戏编程与学习其它内容一样复杂：你可能需要花费六个月的时间去掌握任何相关知识。”

你需要找到适合自己项目的游戏引擎。如果你真的深陷于理念中，那就着眼于Torque，Unity或基于HTML5的相关引擎。当然了，你也可以追寻一些更强大的对象，但针对初学者我还是会建议你们使用GameMaker。

关卡设计

游戏设计和关卡设计是不同的技能：一种是关于系统设计，另一种则是规划如何以最有效的方式呈现该系统。

关卡设计往往是针对于讨论中的游戏，我们必须基于迭代基础进行规划；并且总是需要花费大量时间。我之所以在这里提及这一点是为了提醒未来的独立开发者能够习惯这么做，并寻找愿意在这里帮助自己的人。

最近的趋势是关于程序生成；这既要求强大的代码技能也要求你必须热心于游戏创作：不要将其当成是一件轻轻松松的工作！是的，你有可能获得巨大的回报，但前提是你需要投入大量的时间去调整生成器并手动创建关卡。

图像和动画

我很敬佩那些自己创造图像的独立开发者：我现在正在玩Size Five的《Ben There Dan That》，并发现在这款独特游戏（特别是角色的走路周期）的手绘图像真的是太欢乐且太适合游戏氛围了。

如果你并不是出色的美术人员，你便可以利用自己的优势并追求一些简单的风格（游戏邦注：或者使用像GIMP和Blender等免费工具），或者你可以通过外包让别人帮助设计图像。

我会建议你与有过设计经验的美术人员合作。那些参与过许多项目并拥有产业经验的人将知道该问哪些问题，并更有可能按时完成工作。这一建议也适用于其它学科的自由职业者身上。

你可以投入更多钱于图像创造中，所以在这里你可以想想80/20法则（游戏邦注：是按事情的重要程度编排行事优先次序的准则是建立在“重要的少数与琐碎的多数”原理的基础上）。思考你的游戏真正需要的图像是什么。你必须专注于那些最能够吸引玩家注意的内容—-如果能够拥有顺畅的过场动画就好了，但是如果你设置了无聊的主角动画，人们便会说你的游戏看起来很糟糕。

在《冰封触点》中，我们做出了一些蛮有帮助的决定：

保持简单

我们几乎没有图像预算，所以便决定从复杂的2D风格转变成较为抽象的自上而下图像，如此在带有少量的资产中看起来会更加合适。我认为在复杂的PC策略游戏中，简单的图像往往能够呈现出更棒的效果—-就像《AI War》便拥有非常出色的2D图像。

明确方向

概念艺术能够帮助你更好地瞄准方向，但是切忌做得太过分。作为一名独立游戏开发者，你需要投入有限的资源去创造能够用于游戏中的实际资产。

专注于美学奖励

当玩家杀死敌人时，他将看到一出逼真的死亡动画以及血液四溅的场景，这便是奖励。我们花费了大量时间和金钱去创造这些画面希望能够呈现出更真实的画面。

先发制人

我发现许多游戏的启动画面和菜单都很丑。我不能理解为什么他们会这么做：这些画面看起来就只是静态图像而已！

如果一家商店拥有非常华丽的室内装修，但是橱窗的设计就像是四岁小孩的涂鸦一般简陋，我想没有人会愿意走进店门吧。

设置活跃的菜单虽然看似一件小事，但是如果我正在向评论者，IGF审判员或匹配的玩家呈现游戏，那么只有屏幕上呈现出足够华丽内容才有可能快速吸引他们的注意。

优化，优化，再优化

氛围和呈现是关于创造情绪：当你尝试着这么做时，你需要关注于所有能够帮助人们理解情境的细节内容。

苹果在产品和UI设计上就做得很好；让我们着眼于iPad：这里总是不断地繁衍出各种小细节，并堆积到更加优化的用户体验中。

思考你希望玩家在玩游戏的过程中有何感受，然后为此定制所有设计，包括菜单按键和鼠标点击的音效。

所有的这些工作都不是很昂贵，你只要花些时间去确保所有内容能够有效呈现在登录页面便可，但是做好这一点真的很重要。我们总是很难做好这点，你总是会错失一些内容–但是只要你付出了努力，便一定能够得到回报。

音乐和音频

音频是独立游戏创造科目中最不重要的一点：我可以列举出许多具有糟糕音效和音乐的成功游戏。作为音频制作者的我是带着沉重的心情说出这番话，但是这却是不可忽略的事实。

你可以从SoundDogs等平台购买各种音效，然后适当地进行设置并整合到游戏中。

但是在高端独立游戏中，事物就没那么简单了。我会建议你外包音频（而如果你拥有Jasper Byrne这样出色的音频师的话也可以自己创作）。

即使你未拥有非常棒的声音也没关系，因为其他独立开发者也不是很重视这一点。

我们总是很难找到合适的配音员，而这也不是很重要，除非你真的认为游戏需要的话。如果你需要配音员，那就去寻求在电影院或电视台工作的人的帮助：再一次的，具有经验的人总是更有帮助。

如果你想要亲自学习如何创造音乐和音频的话，我会建议你购买几个月的《Computer Music》杂志，然后遵循一些教程指示。

如果对于音乐设置你拥有足够的预算（或技能），你便有可能获得许多不同的利益。你不仅可以提供音频下载，从独立音乐捆绑销售中赚取利益，同时你还可以创造一种新方法去引导人们发现游戏。

文字内容

对于某些游戏来说，文字是可选择的内容，但却能够创造出不一样的效果。它可以往一款枯燥的游戏中注入个性。再一次地，如果你未拥有任何写作经验的话，我会建议你聘请一位自由职业者，或者请求别人的帮助，让他们审查你所做的是否有意义。

你不需要包含大量的文本内容（当然这是个缺点），但是你可以尝试着明确自己所做的拥有一个合理的标准，特别是当你在为配音员撰写脚本时。

当我在编写《冰封触点》的文字内容时发现，大多数玩家都希望能够快速掌握相关内容：他们希望能够通过几个单词而清楚自己正在做些什么以及为什么要这么做。

控制你的文字欲望，并确保你将其安置在合适的语境中，然后再回去做那些你所计划的事。

你同时需要清楚，许多人会完全按照字面意思去理解你的游戏文本，而忽视语境。

关于自由职业者的注释

你可能会问：“我该去哪里寻找这些神秘的自由职业者？”这与在谷歌上搜索一样简单，或者你也可以在论坛上进行寻找。如果你正在考虑外包，你也需要发展一种独自找人的技能。

以下是一些技巧：

这是一些能够给你带来帮助的论坛：

http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-indie-game-development-forums/

像Polycount以及DeviantArt等平台便对美术人员非常有帮助。

我发现许多程序员将自己的作品发表在GamesIndustry.biz或其它产业网站上，但是自由程序员却很少这么做。

老实说，谷歌就是你的好朋友。

商务和市场营销

创造一款游戏就等于是成功的一半。而以下是关于另一半的内容。

基础

作为一名专业的独立游戏开发者（即使只有你一个人）便意味着你正在运行一个小业务。

为了有效地做好这份工作，你需要着眼于一些不同的要素：

小型项目的乐趣

你需要：

像BusinessLink这样的组织

一个了解网络并拥有其它小型游戏公司的优秀会计师

一个律师，特别是当你正与别人一起创建公司时

BusinessLink能够提供给你任何创建公司所需要的信息：你可能想要找到本国的“股份有限公司。”

会计师将为你进行年终申报，并告诉你如何省钱。

律师将阻止你犯任何错误，并处理你们公司与发行商之间的关系。当你还是一家初创企业时，他们不会因为聊天而向你收取费用。

从表面上看来这并不复杂，但是却很无聊。

关于寻找擅于长期运行的专业人士的快速诀窍是：他们会为了最初的会面前来见你，并免费提供一些有帮助的建议。那些费心做这些事的人总是会立刻吸引我的注意。

哪种规格和结构适合我？

就像我自己，既不是设计师也不是程序员，所以我选择与同时具有这两种技能的人合作。也就是他需要负责设计，编码和管理，而我需要面对其它学科处理一些零碎的内容。

我们拥有两种思维能够应用于策略型问题中，同时也拥有两种不同的个性能够评估我们的产品。这具有很大的帮助。

出于这一原因，我认为独自一人的开发者可以至少邀请一个人进行合作：这只是我的意见！当然我也不会否认你可以凭借自己的实力取得成功，只是你往往都需要通过另一个视角去分析问题。

我的长期目标是什么？

如果你之前从未创造过游戏，请先创造一款游戏并发行它，即使是基于免费模式：不要让计划转移你的注意力。你需要在思考其它内容前先明确该过程。

当你知道自己能够创造游戏时，你便是时候可以开始进行规划了。

如果你想将独立游戏创造当成毕生事业，你必须想办法找到一个利基市场，走在其他开发者的前方，并尝试着去突出你的游戏。

在这里，强大的创造性能够带来更大的帮助：如果你拥有一个很棒的理念并能够有效地呈现出来，你便能够找到合适的目标市场。

当你一完成项目后便立刻准备转向下一款游戏。坐着等候收成自然很舒爽，但是你却需要继续向前发展。

你可能想要壮大业务或者保持较小的业务：这都是可行的，尽管无论你做出何种选择都会有人跳出来职责你。不管是何种决定都是取决于个人动机：如果你对运行拥有多个雇员的大型业务不感兴趣的话，你便不会这么做了！

策略

我想出了独立游戏工作室可以长期运行的4种方法：

1）固定发行（至少每两年发行一次）的一次性付费游戏

2）带有较高转化率和ARPU的单人大规模游戏—-可能带有免费微交易模式

3）单独一款像《我的世界》那样大热门游戏

4）将上述内容结合在一起并通过外包和合同协作去实现

一次性付费

大多数独立开发者一开始都会选择1）。他们认为：“我将创造自己的游戏，将其放到Steam/App Store/Android Marketplace上，做些PR工作便能从中赚到钱。”现在的我们之所以处于独立开发的黄金时代是因为这一方法能够有效地适用于游戏中！

如果你创造了一款足够优秀的游戏，与大型经销商签订了合理的经销协议，同时还完成了PR工作，那么你便可以开始赚钱了。

即使面对着像DLC以及门户网站等额外的收益流，你也需要定期执行这一任务：这是主要的挑战。

Arcen Games和Positech Games便是遵循了这一模式的成功小型公司。

我仍会建议开发新手选择1），因为其它方法中存在着各种挑战。比起创造一次性付费游戏，创造一款成功免费游戏需要具备更大的创造性并面临更大的挑战。

根据游戏内容和深度设置一个合理的价格。确保不会低估自己所创造的内容：除了价格你还有其它优势。

免费模式

虽然这是许多初创独立开发者会选择避开的方法，但是如果你拥有一个可行的游戏设计，你也可以尝试看看。

2）能够赚取的收益远远多于1），但是我们却很难在此设计并要求更多资源（就像面对更大的多人游戏的服务和支持）以及持续的进化与发展。

当下这一业务模式非常盛行，所以人们往往会忽视其缺点：一些已经拥有自己免费游戏的开发者们曾经告诉我，如果能够回到过去，他们会重新选择使用传统的一次性付费模式。

尽管一些无聊的人在网上咆哮着，但是各种群组的用户都在默默忍受着免费模式。能够证实该模式适用于硬核游戏领域的两大例子便是《英雄联盟》和《Tribes: Ascend》。最近传出Valve的《DOTA2》将使用免费模式并通过一些美学内容而赚钱：据我所知，这是第一款采取这种方法的硬核游戏，它也将成为测试这一模式的一个先例。

当你在使用各种社区反馈和参数时，免费模式也能够实现更多长期迭代开发以及像“最小化可行产品”的实践。这让你可以直接根据游戏收益去规划公司规模。

最后，使用免费模式意味着比起一次性付费模式，将会有更多人前来尝试你的游戏。如果你真的想瞄准更大的市场，你就需要确保游戏能够采取各种方法长期留住玩家。

为了找寻一些成功的小型免费游戏，我打开了Kongregate。结果发现很难在此找到独自创造出一款成功免费游戏的开发者。

承包工作

在遭遇第一款游戏的失败后，Mode 7从最初的游戏开发转向了承包工作，在那时候这是一个明智的选择。因为我们可以因此获得足够的资金去创造想要创造的内容。

在《冰封触点》获得成功后，我们又因为如下原因抛弃了承包工作：

它是很难预测的

往往需要比预料中还多的时间

需要持续支持任何大型项目其实就是时间浪费

比起致力于最初产品的潜在利益少了许多

不存在像IP所有权那样的长期利益

像Remode等成功的工作室便努力将最初的IP开发与承包工作结合在一起。还有像Fish in a Bottle这样的网站便是基于那些具有针对性游戏设计的品牌和公司。

再一次的，你需要找到平衡。

市场营销

关于这一点我曾在Gamasutra上的一篇文章中详细阐述过。

最重要的是你必须让游戏能够成为佼佼者。但是如果仅凭你一个人的力量是很难做到这一点：你必须具有有趣的个性，如此媒体才会在你创造出有趣游戏前与你交谈。

现在我发现频率总是很重要：定期撰写博客或者每天在Facebook上发送消息能够让用户及时了解你正在做些什么。

根据人们购买你的游戏的情况来看，瞄准像RPG和Kotaku等高调的网站并结合较大的发行仍是许多开发者的目标。我们应该多花些时间去了解那些来自大型网站的新闻记者们，如此你才能让他们在游戏发行时对其进行宣传。

总之，关于独立游戏的市场营销来说，最重要的便是如何将其呈现在人们面前：你该如何创造并执行人们喜欢的理念。并且你需要始终相信自己的作品非常出色，你也已经竭尽全力去做好它了。

视频

如今视频的作用变得越来越重要。以下是面向独立游戏开发者的一些快速指导：

1）使用FRAPS去捕获具有较高分辨率的游戏画面—-这是一种非常廉价的选择。

2）Sony Vegas 11能够帮助你编辑捕获到的画面—-说实话，虽然这是较早旧的工具，但是却也是很容易掌握且便宜的方法。你还可以找找其它可行的编辑软件。

确保你在开始一个新项目时进行了“项目设置”，许多Vegas默认项目便很愚蠢。

3）作为一个未压缩的AVI而输出—-这与大文件一样愚蠢，所以你需要一个手动操作的额外硬盘驱动器。

4）使用Handbrake为AVI编写代码，从而明确适合YouTube的格式，如此你便不需要在上传视频时重新编写代码。最终所呈现出来的文件会较小。

除此之外我们也一直尝试着去创造预告片！

如果你想要创造出像电影那样的内容为视频增加吸引力的话请购买Gony HX9V，基本上来看这是瞄准即拍的机器，但也能像badass那样创造1080p的视频。专家们会将其当成倒车摄像头。我购买了一个名为Gorillapod的迷你支架，但这却没什么价值，因为我们也可以将摄像机放在桌子上进行拍摄。

广告

这是一项较为棘手的工作，并且大多数独立游戏开发者总是会忽视它，但却并不是说明我们就可以忽视这一点。如果你拥有一个使用Google Analytics的网站，你便可以将其与Google Ads真个合在一起以明确该如何做出投资。你需要多花些时间并不断坚持着，但是如果你能够有效执行的话，便有可能带来巨大的帮助。

结论

我相信一个充满技能与强大职业道德的人如果要白手起家创造一款独立游戏的话，他可能会在2年后，或者更长时间内赚取自己的利益。我打赌你不敢来反驳我的观点！当然了，我会诚实地承认大多数人都花费了3至4年的时间。不管怎样，如果你想要成为一名全职独立游戏开发者，你都需要拥有足够的存款（或争取外部投资），

你也可以将其当成是兼职工作，但是你却需要做好牺牲社交活动的准备，并更加认真地做好全职工作。这有可能会是你所面对的最困难的事，但是不管怎样你都有可能实现它。

当你在创造一款独立游戏上摇摆不定时，你最好能够接触一些其他人。参与一些事件，与其他独立开发者会面，告诉别人你正在做什么。首先，你将开始获得一些关注，然后你便会交到能够带来帮助的好友。其次，这将推动着你更有可能完成现在所面对的工作：社交元素在某种程度上能够有效地推动人们完成任务。

总是从玩家和用户的视角上进行思考。有时候这具有很大的挑战性—-同时你也需要面对可能遭遇失败的残酷现实，但不管怎样你都需要不断地鞭笞自己。你需要同时明确自己的底线以及用户的体验：避免成为Borders或Amstrad！

当你获得社区反馈时，你仍需要坚守着推动自己开始社交游戏的初衷。

游戏是一种奇妙，愚蠢，华丽又多样的艺术形式：如果你想要参与其中，你就需要先尊重它，然后思考你可以如何破坏/重塑/改变/完善它。

今年的Independent Games Festival上出现了570多款参与作品，并且这一数量也仍将继续增加：你在未来的任务便是创造出能够突显于众多游戏中的作品。

虽然我提到了许多有关业务和金钱的内容，但如果你不热爱游戏创造，这些便都是扯谈。如何成为一名独立游戏开发者具有许多不同的方法：如果你认为我是个傻瓜，并想反驳我的观点的话，你就去做吧！我期待看到你的游戏。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

How to Be an Indie Game Developer

I got an email a while back from someone who was effectively asking, “How do I become an indie game developer?”

I replied to them and did my best, but I wasn’t entirely sure exactly what they were looking for in terms of advice. We get asked similar questions quite a bit, so I thought I would write a post to which I can refer people in the future; a kind of miscellany of advice that might be useful.

Two notes: this is aimed at relative beginners who know a bit about games and will probably have a PC bias.

Who We Are

As one person commented – somewhat ominously – on a previous article I wrote for Gamesbrief:

the future success of the guest poster will solely affect the validity of these ‘tips’.
let the games begin.

Mode 7 is an indie development studio based in Oxford, UK. We started formally in around 2005 and released an unsuccessful multiplayer sword-fighting game called Determinance in 2007.

After that, we moved on to Frozen Synapse, which was released in 2011.

I always feel a bit “my apartment smells of rich mahogany” when I talk about this stuff…

Here’s FS’s rap sheet:

Over 400k units sold

85 Metacritic

9/10 Edge, Eurogamer, Destructoid; many other high review scores

Headlined its own Humble Bundle

Independent Games Festival Audience Award; PC Gamer Strategy Game of the Year; Indiegames.com Strategy Game of the Year; RockPaperShotgun “Best Glowy Lines in a Game” Award (really)

We are currently working on an iPad version of the game which will be out later this year.

Myself and Ian Hardingham (Lead Designer and Coder) head up the company as Joint Managing Directors and co-owners. There are currently four other people in our office, two of whom are full-time employees. We also work with various freelancers remotely.

Who I Am

I’m Paul Taylor: I do business development, marketing, audio, music, writing, some art direction, some UI design, some single player design…and some other things as well!

The Question

For the purposes of narrowing things down, I am going to presume that, by asking how to become an indie dev, you mean this:

“I want to move from what I’m doing now to being a full-time indie game developer.”

Let me just say at this point that if you want to make an indie game solely for the purposes of creative expression or indeed for fun, then please don’t let me put you off.

In fact, let me do the opposite: some of the most amazing things I’ve seen in the last few years have been games developed by people who didn’t have a commercial bone in their body. Some of them have even made a decent amount of money, even though that wasn’t the primary goal.

Also, you might want to develop interactive stories in Twine or amazing physical experiences like Johann Sebastian Joust rather than the more stereotypical computer games I’ll be discussing, so please don’t think I’m excluding you even though my focus is elsewhere.

That’s the end of this apparently interminable preamble: on with the show…

The Basics

The process of making and releasing a computer game will probably feature the following aspects:

Game design

Code

Level design (or some other, more tactical, “micro” form of design if you don’t have levels)

Art and animation

Audio and music

Writing

Biz (legal, marketing, PR, bits of web dev and other miscellany)

All of these are necessary and important; all are extremely challenging disciplines that one person can spend a lifetime mastering.

Here’s the rub: you will need to cover all the bases yourself, find willing partners, or start paying others to do the work for you.

Personally, I think from the outset you should be ready to pay professionals to handle the stuff you can’t manage personally: that’s the fastest, easiest and often (somewhat counterintuitively) cheapest way to get stuff done.

If you’ve never outsourced anything before, I recommend The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss: the attitudes expressed there are fairly extreme and quite amusing, but I guarantee that it will make you think.

If you’re lucky enough to know people who might partner up with you, make sure they’re in it for the long game, that you trust them implicitly and that you feel you have shared goals at a profound level. People like that are hard to find, so hold on to them if you do.

Unpaid volunteers will, more often than not, give up when things get hard. They may also not tell you that they’ve given up and waste a vast amount of your time.

Let’s look at each discipline in turn and figure out what we’re talking about…

Game Design

This, by Spelunky creator Derek Yu, is one of the best things you will ever read about game design or any creative endeavour – read that and come back!

Game design is a creative discipline which also requires an extremely analytical mind at a high level; this would seem to explain why most game designers I know are a tiny bit unhinged (in a good way)!

Game designers design game mechanics; yes, they often contribute to the high-concept narrative stuff as well, but their primary role is to design the actual game. I’m still surprised by the number of people I talk to who don’t seem to know that.

There are three ways to learn game design; I’ve put these in descending order of efficacy:

1.) Make games, then watch people playing your games

[GREAT BIG GAP]

2.) Play other games analytically

3.) Study game design theory

I’m not saying that 2 and 3 are worthless by any means; they are just worth less.

Your life as a designer will be a hell of a lot easier if you are a competent coder: the great game designers you read about who are not coders often will work in tandem with a large team of high-level programmers; unless you are extremely rich and risk-prone, you won’t be doing that initially.

It is certainly possible to be an indie designer who does not code at all: however, you’ll have to have amazing “people skills” to compensate for that.

If you’re using game creation software like Adventure Game Studio, RPG Maker or RenPY, you will reduce the amount of hardcore coding you’ll need to learn at the outset in order to start designing. Be aware, though, that until you delve deep into the nuts and bolts of those tools you’ll be severely limited in terms of the designs you’ll be able to execute.

Design is vital, but it is not everything. If you were being so crass as to give game designs marks out of 10, there are plenty of  successful indie games which would score 7 or 8.

That said, there is never a good reason to aim for mediocre design: gamers come for the presentation and concept but they stay for the design.  Also, if you do hit that elusive 10/10 then a lot of other things will suddenly get a LOT easier.

Here are three things I wish designers would do more:

Try to get the player making interesting, meaningful decisions as quickly as possible

Try to minimize the total amount of time the player has to do boring things

Try to include at least one completely innovative element, even if it’s just a small thing

There’s nothing wrong with sticking to a broad genre, but the people who buy indie games generally like such entertainment – at least partially – for its novelty and innovation: if your game is boring in any way then prepare to fail!

Finally, a word of warning. There is something about game design which makes people believe that they can do it, even if they have never done it before. I’m not precisely sure what quality it has which makes it appear so easy: it is incredibly difficult.

My final thought on design is that you need to find your own way and express your own personality. Clarify your goals and maybe even write them down, just like Gunpoint creator Tom Francis did recently.

Concept

Game concepts occupy a weird space between aesthetics and mechanical considerations. They add atmosphere and emotion to the raw mechanics; also, they are often the primary reason that people try or buy a game.

The more generic your concept (e.g. “fantasy MMO”) the more pressure you put on other aspects of the game and the greater the need for quirks or twists on the formula (“fantasy MMO where the combat is four-dimensional Backgammon”).

I wrote a bit about concepts in my Gamasutra marketing article.

Here’s an excerpt:

Scott Steinberg would advise you to aim squarely at the mass market: “Music, animals, sports, raising a family… Keep game premises rooted in real-world frames of reference whenever possible.” – Scott Steinberg, Sell More Video Games

Jeff Tunnell, on the other hand, thinks you should stick to where your passion lies:

“I make games that I want to make, and find out if there is an audience later. Trying to come up with a forecast is not an art or a science, it is an exercise in futility. Back in the day after Dynamix was acquired by Sierra we did have to work with marketing and do the prediction dance, but it was rarely correct, and the games I believed in the most like The Incredible Machine got terrible forecasts.” – Jeff Tunnell, What is My Game’s Sales Potential?

Here’s my take:

There are commercially-successful indie games about gangly kung-fu fighting rabbits, abstract computer landscapes populated by tiny green squeaking things, and small, dribbly blobs of goo. These are never going to be as big as The Sims, but they were never intended to be. By “commercially successful”, I mean “making enough money for their creators to continue making games”. That’s your goal, right?

Go for a “popular” concept only if you have a passion for it: you need passion to drive you through the process of making the game. If you’re coming up with something wackier, realize that you’re going to have to work harder to find the audience, and start figuring out how you’re going to go about doing that before you start development.

Code

That’s enough about design and concept: they both mean nothing if you can’t actually code a game!  There are a huge variety of “How do I learn to program?” resources around on the internet, just a Google search away, so getting access to the basics should be trivial. However, I’m now going to hand over to Ian for his advice on coding for indie games…

“I’m going to assume you’re working with an existing game engine if you’re reading a “how to get into games coding” piece – if you’re rolling your own then you’re already beyond my advice.

Learning to program is something which requires the kind of focus and effort which most programmers by nature don’t have or can’t muster, so it’s always a hard road.

I advise the same approach whether you’ve never programmed before in your life, or (as with me) you have a coding background but are suddenly presented with a hugely complex 500,000 line game-engine you have no idea what to do with. Don’t bother “starting small” – go straight for what you actually want to do, and start doing it. However, within that extremely ambitious framework you must be intelligent about what part you start with. Find a self-contained part of the larger project – something which is achievable in a month with a real payoff – and set that as your first target.

Run head-first, flailing, into the code-base and hack away until you can make something change. Change something’s colour and then celebrate. Badger people in the community for the game engine endlessly – your questions will start off stupid and they’ll be exasperated with you, but every day your questions will get slightly less ridiculous, and eventually you’ll be helping other people. If there are books available for your chosen engine, buy them and read them cover to cover WITHOUT doing any of the actual coding exercises first. Only then should you start doing the actual exercises.

Assuming you have any kind of natural talent for programming at all – and if you have none maybe you should go for the art side of game dev – then the only real enemy you will have is uncertainty. Don’t EVER go into a problem with an attitude of “I don’t know what to do” or, even worse, “I don’t know if this is possible”. Everything you will be trying to do is possible, and if you’re confident of that you’ll find everything much easier.

Learning game programming is as hard as learning anything else: expect it to take six months of very hard graft to get to any kind of position of knowledge.”

You should find a game engine to use that suits your project. If you’re really stuck for ideas, have a look at Torque, Unity or something HTML5-based. Alternatively, you could go for something extremely powerful but aimed at beginners: GameMaker.

Level Design

Game design and level design are different skills: one is designing a system and the other is working out how to present that system in the most rewarding way.

Level design tends to be very specific to the game in question, and is something that has to be worked out on an iterative basis; it tends to take a long time. I’ve included it here just to remind prospective indie devs that they will probably have to get used to doing it or find someone else who is willing to do it for them!

There has been a recent trend towards procedural generation; this requires both strong coding skills and a keen eye for what works in your game: don’t see it as an easy way out! Yes, you’ll get greater bang for your buck, but you’ll probably spend as much time tweaking generators as you would building the levels by hand.

Art and Animation

I have a lot of respect for indie devs who make their own art: I’m currently playing through Size Five’s Ben There Dan That and the very…erm…handmade art in that particular game (especially the character walk cycles) is hilarious and perfectly suits the tone.

If you’re not the greatest artist in the world, then you can either use that to your advantage and go for a super simple style (even using free tools like GIMP and Blender), or you can outsource art to someone else.

Art is probably the easiest part of game development to outsource: if your game engine is reasonably standard you can usually just give the artist a spec, agree a price and leave them to get on with it.

I would recommend using artists who have a good track record. Someone who has completed a lot of projects, and maybe has industry experience, will know all the right questions to ask and will have a much higher chance of doing their work on time. That advice applies to freelancers in other disciplines as well.

You can sink a lot of money into art, so it’s probably worth thinking about the 80/20 rule here. Think about the art that your game really needs. Bear in mind that it’s worth focussing on the things the player will be looking at most – it’s all very well having glossy cutscenes, but if you have rubbish main character animation, people will say your game looks terrible.

Shop around for artists: don’t just hire the first person you find: you’re really after a cost / benefit balance here.

On Frozen Synapse, we made a few decisions that I think really helped:

Keep it simple

We had almost no art budget, so changed from a fairly complex 2D style to a much more abstract top-down aesthetic that could look good with a low number of assets. I think that simple art works really well for complex PC strategy games – look at something like AI War, which has a nice 2D art style.

Know where you’re going

Concept art is really useful to give you something to aim for, but don’t go overboard with it.  As an indie, you’ll need to put your limited resources into creating actual assets you can use in your game.

Focus on aesthetic rewards

When a player gets a kill, they’re rewarded with a nice death animation and blood splatter. We spent a lot of time and a bit of money on getting both of those things to look as nice as possible in the context

Front-load the awesome

I see so many games with butt-ugly splash screens and menus. I never understand why as they are so easy to get right: they’re mostly just static images!

If a shop has a beautiful interior, but a sign and window which look like they were painted by an aesthetically challenged four-year-old, nobody is going to be quite sure what to make of it.

Having menus animate in and out might seem like a small thing, but if I’m showing my game to a reviewer, IGF judge, or jaded gamer, they are going to sit up and take notice as soon as the first nice thing happens on-screen.

Polish, polish, polish, polish…

Atmosphere and presentation are about creating a mood: when you’re trying to do that you have to pay attention to all the small details that contribute to someone’s unconscious understanding of a situation.

Apple are masters of this in their product and UI design; just look at the iPad: it’s a proliferation of tiny details which add up to a ridiculously polished user experience.

Think about how you want someone to feel when playing your game, then tailor ALL of the art to this, from the menu buttons to the mouse-click sound effect.

None of this stuff needs to be expensive – it can be as simple as taking the time to ensure that everything is lined up correctly on your login screen – but it does matter. It’s also hard to get right – you’ll miss stuff – but putting the effort in will mean that’s kept to a minimum.

Music and Audio

Audio is the least important of the creative disciplines in indie games: I can think of many, many successful games which have utterly terrible sound and music. I say this with a heavy heart as an audio person myself, but it’s true!

You can still apparently get away with just buying a load of reasonably crappy stock sound effects from somewhere like SoundDogs setting their levels appropriately and shoving them in your game.

However, things are getting a lot more competitive in high-end indie games;I really would recommend outsourcing your audio (or doing it yourself if you’re an awesome audio dude like Jasper Byrne).

Even if you don’t have very much sound, it still adds a great deal of polish simply because other indies still aren’t paying attention.

Voice acting can be incredibly difficult to get right and, as it’s not really necessary, is probably best avoided unless you feel it’s really essential. If you need voice acting, find someone who works in theatre or TV to give you advice on how to go about it: once again, knowing people can come in very useful.

If you’d like to learn how to make music and audio yourself, then I recommend buying Computer Music magazine for a few months (not just because I used to write for them!) and following along with some tutorials.

I like Ableton Live a lot; once you have that and a few free synthesizers, you’ll be able to bash out some early musical horrors in no time. You can also use Live to do all your SFX editing and processing.

If you do have the budget (or skills) for a good soundtrack, you’ll start to get a load of different benefits. Not only can you sell soundtrack downloads, and put the score up for things like the indie game music bundle, you’ll also add an entirely new way for people to discover your game.

Writing

Writing is optional or minimal for quite a few games but it can make a big difference. It can also be an opportunity to inject personality into an otherwise dry game. Again, I’d recommend hiring a freelancer for this if you don’t have any writing experience yourself, or at least checking with some other people to make sure what you’re doing makes sense!

You don’t have to include a huge amount of text (this can be a disadvantage, of course) but try to ensure that what you do have is of a reasonable standard, especially if you’re writing a script for voice actors.

Something I learned writing Frozen Synapse is that the overwhelming majority of gamers want quick, front-loaded exposition: they need to know what they’re doing and precisely why they’re doing it in as few words as possible. As a species, we haven’t really moved on from “avoid missing ball for high score”!

Put your literary aspirations in check and make sure you’ve got the basic context in place, then go back to doing all the ridiculous arty stuff you were planning on doing…

Be aware that many people will take any text in your game completely literally, irrespective of context.

A Note on Freelancers

“Where do I find all these mythical freelancers?” you may be asking. It really is as simple as Googling, looking on forums and asking around. If you are thinking of delving into outsourcing, you’ll need to develop the skills of finding people for yourself, as that’s the entire battle.

Suffice it to say, here’s a few tips…

A big list of forums to get you started:

http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-indie-game-development-forums/

Places like Polycount and even DeviantArt can be good for artists.

I’ve always found coders by posting jobs on GamesIndustry.biz or other industry websites, but freelance coders are not all that hard to come by in general.

But honestly, Google is your friend.

Business and Marketing

Making a game is approximately half the battle! Here’s some info on the other stuff…

Basics

Being a professional indie game developer (even just a one-man-band) means that you are running a small business.

In order to do that effectively, you need to look at a few different aspects:

Small Business Fun Time

You will need:

An organisation like BusinessLink

A good accountant who knows what the internet is and (ideally) has other small games companies on his books

A solicitor, especially if you are setting up a company with other people

BusinessLink (or local equivalent) will be able to give you all the information you need to set up a company: you most likely will want to find your country’s version of a “limited liability company”.

Your accountant will do your end-of-year tax return (or Satan’s Pestilent Administrative Armpit) for you and tell you about how to save money.

Your solicitor will stop you making a massive error when you’re “just trying to get a game done” and inadvertently giving away all of your company to a publisher. They shouldn’t charge you money just to chat to them when you’re a start-up: if they do then tell them where to go.

That’s literally it – it’s not complicated but it is boring.

A quick tip for finding professionals who will be good in the long run: they will travel to see you (within reason!) for the initial meeting and give you genuinely useful advice for free. Anyone who bothers to do both of those things has my attention immediately.

What size and structure suits me?

Personally, I am not a designer or coder, so I partnered 50:50 with someone who is highly skilled at both of those things. That leaves him to get on with designing, coding and managing, while leaving me to spend my time on with a catalogue of odds and ends in various other disciplines.

We also have two brains to apply to strategic issues, as well as two very different personalities to evaluate our products. It helps immensely.

For this reason, I really think most one-man-band devs should look at bringing at least one other person eventually: just an opinion! I don’t think you can hit your full potential slogging it out on your own forever: you need that second perspective.

What are my long-term goals?

If you have never made a game before, please just make one and release it, even if it’s just for free: don’t let planning distract you from that. You need to have that process figured out before you think about anything else. Just do it!

Once you know you can make games, that’s the time to start planning ahead.

If you want to make indie games for your entire career, you’ll have to figure out a way to find a niche, stay ahead of what other game devs are doing and keep trying to make your games stand out.

This is where having a strong creative lead will help you: if you have great ideas and the ability to present them well, you’ll be able to find a market for what you’re making.

Be ready to make your next game and move onto it promptly as soon as you have completed one project. It can be tempting to just sit there milking one thing (especially if you have had a hit) but you absolutely need to keep going.

You might want to grow your business or stay small: both are valid, despite the fact that people will criticise you for doing either. A lot of this is down to personal motivation and drive: if you are not interested in running a big business with a lot of employees then don’t do it!

Strategy

I’ve come up with four ways that an indie game studio can set itself up for the long-term. Obviously these are crude, and there are many other valid approaches. Here they are:

1.) A regular (at least one release every two years) string of strong (but not necessarily hit) pay-once games

OR

2.) A single large-scale – probably free-to-play-with-microtransactions – game with a decent conversion rate and ARPU (average revenue per user)

OR

3.) One singular Minecraft-style breakout hit!

OR

4.) Any / all of the above combined with outsourcing and contract work

Pay Once

Most indies start (even if they don’t know it) with 1.), because they are making a pay once game. They think, “I will make my game, get it on Steam / App Store / Android Marketplace, do some PR and make money”. The reason that we are in a golden age of indie development right now is that this can actually work with the right game!

If you make a good enough game, get a decent distribution agreement from a big distributor, and get some good PR behind it, then you can make money.

However, it’s most likely, even with additional revenue streams like DLC and ports, that you’ll need to do this on a regular basis: that’s the major challenge.

Successful small (or one-man-band) companies who follow this model are Arcen Games and Positech Games.

I still recommend that newer devs start with 1.) because of the challenges inherent in the other categories. Making a successful free-to-play game is more creatively restrictive and simply harder than making a pay-once game, whatever the free-to-play camp will say.

Set a fair price that you feel is appropriate for your game based on the amount of content and depth it has in it. Make sure that you don’t undervalue what you’re doing: you can compete in areas other than price.

Free-to-play

The technical abilities and funding level of many start-up indies probably preclude 2.) but it is certainly worth looking into if you have an applicable game design..

2.) is certainly capable of making many times the revenue of 1.), but is harder to design and requires many more ongoing resources (like servers and support staff for large multiplayer games), as well as continuous evolution and development.

This business model is very in vogue at the moment and so its disadvantages can be overlooked: I have been told by the developers of several free-to-play games that they wish they had gone with a traditional pay-once model.

However, despite idiots ranting on the internet, customers of all demographics tolerate free-to-play models. The only evidence you need that it works in the hardcore space (if that is your target) is League of Legends and Tribes: Ascend. It was recently announced that Valve’s DOTA2 will be free-to-play and monetised entirely by aesthetic content: to my knowledge, this is the first time that a core game as done that and it will be a fascinating test case for that model.

Free-to-play also allows for much more long-term iterative development and practises like “minimum viable product” where you develop your game in tandem with a lot of community feedback and metrics. This also allows you to scale your company directly proportional to the revenue your game is making and build things up that way.

Finally going free-to-play means that many, many more people will try your game compared to one released under a pay-once model (even with a demo). If you want to truly aim for the biggest possible market, and you’re convinced that your game will retain players for a long time, by all means give it a shot.

For examples of successful smaller free-to-play games I’d check out Kongregate (they have a great presentation from GDC this year over at GDC Vault as well). The results that lone developers can achieve with free-to-play games on there are nothing short of astonishing.

Contract Work

Mode 7 switched from original game development to mostly contract work after the failure of our first game, and it was a great move at the time. We were able to get funding to make exactly the game we wanted to make on our own terms.

After Frozen Synapse’s success, we have largely moved away from contract work again for the following reasons:

It is very unpredictable

The time spent is always greater than the amount quoted for

The ongoing support needed for any large project is a huge time drain

The potential upside is always lower than working on an original product

There are no long-term benefits like IP ownership

Some successful studios like Remode manage to combine original IP development with contract work in a very considered way. Others, like the brilliant Fish in a Bottle are based pretty much entirely around very targeted game design for brands and other companies.

Again, it’s all about finding your own balance.

Marketing

Here’s the link to my Gamasutra article again, because I don’t like repeating myself…even though I just…did.  Um.

I think many of the things I said there probably still stand up.

The most important thing is to let your game take the lead. It’s pretty difficult to take the lead yourself: you’ll have to be an intriguing personality that the press want to speak with until you at least have some kind of intriguing game in development, and if that’s going to happen to you it will happen naturally, so don’t worry about it.

One thing I am finding at the moment is that frequency matters a lot: blogging regularly and tweeting / posting on Facebook every day is a good way to keep people engaged with what you’re doing.

In terms of people actually buying your game, hitting high-profile sites like RPS and Kotaku combined with a sale or big release is still the best thing to aim for. It’s worth taking the time to get to know journalists who work for the larger sites while your game is in development so that you can hit them up when it comes to launch.

All in all, still the most important thing about marketing an indie game is to think about how it will speak to people: how you can create and execute a concept which people will genuinely love. All of the other activities need to be driven by a strong belief that your product is amazing and that you have put all you can into it.

Video

Video is ridiculously important these days. Here’s a quick idiot’s guide (as in, a guide written by an idiot) to video for indie game dev:

1.) Use FRAPS to capture footage from the game at a good resolution – there’s basically no sane alternative and it’s very cheap. FRAPS is great.

2.) Sony Vegas 11 for editing your captured footage – frankly, it’s a bit ropey and proper video people will laugh at you, but it’s easy to learn and not too expensive. Other editing software is available!

Make sure you set the “project settings” to something sensible when you start a new project, as a lot of the Vegas default projects are stupid – I think 1080p, 30fps and non-interlaced is good.

3.) Export as an uncompressed AVI – this will be an unbelievably stupidly big file, so you may want a spare hard drive handy.

4.) Use Handbrake to encode this AVI to a format suitable for YouTube – you’ll be wanting H.264 – that’s YouTube’s native format so it won’t re-encode it once you upload (APPARENTLY), leading to better quality. The resulting file will be much smaller.

That’s the sum total of my current knowledge and we’ve managed to do alright with trailers!

If you want to film stuff with a camera to spice up your videos buy a Sony HX9V – basically point-and-shoot but can do 1080p video like a badass. Professionals use them as backup cameras, and that means something. I bought a mini tripod called a Gorillapod with mine and that’s been invaulable too – can just sit it on your desk and talk into it then.

Advertising

This is tricky to get right, and most indies don’t do it, but don’t write it off. If you have a site which is metricated using Google Analytics, you can tie that in with Google Ads to figure out where to spend your money. It will take time and persistence but if you get it right, it can be very useful.

Final Thoughts

I believe it will take a skilled person with a strong work ethic starting from scratch a minimum of two years to get any kind of significant financial return from making indie games, probably longer. I dare you to prove me wrong! I would honestly expect most people to take three to four years. In any case, you will need to have some decent savings (or external funding) if you’re going to jump into full-time indie game dev.

It is possible to do it part-time, just be prepared to have no social life (I’m not being hyperbolic here) and to somehow figure out how you can work on something seriously around a full-time job. It’s one of the hardest things you can ever do, but, as I said, it is possible.

Once you’re in the swing of making an indie game, it’s a good idea to start reaching out to other people. Go to events (like Bit of Alright), meet other indies, tell people what you’re doing. Firstly, you’ll start to get a bit of attention and you’ll make friends who can help you. Secondly, this will make you much more likely to finish what you’re doing: the social aspect of committing to do something is usually the most powerful driver for actually accomplishing it.

Always try to think about things from the perspective of the player and customer (when you have them). This can be difficult and challenging at times – also you will face the harsh reality of areas where you’re failing – but it is worth doing and worth pushing yourself to improve. You need to think about your bottom line and your customer experience simultaneously: try not to be either Borders or Amstrad!

While you’re taking community feedback, stay true to your own ideals and don’t deviate from the concepts which drew you to design your game in the first place.

Games are an insanely wonderful, silly, beautiful and diverse artform: if you want to get involved with them you need to respect that and then think about how you can destroy / remake / change / evolve it.

The Independent Games Festival had almost 570 entries this year and that is definitely on the increase: your mission is to make something that will stand out above the crowd in the future.

I have written quite a bit about business and money, but ultimately there is no point doing this unless you love making games.   There are as many different approaches to being an indie dev as there are indie devs: if you think I’m an idiot and you want to go out and prove me wrong then please do so – I look forward to seeing your game.(source:mode7games)