Late in life indie game developers, Talk to me.

Hey guys, im 33 and wanted to make games all my life but ended up finding more conservative creative/computer work like corporate design and web development. ate my soul open until i decided to truly focus and pour my real energies into making a game last november and have been focussing on cosmochoria ever since. Releases on early access september 29 so we'll see if im on the right track or barking up the wrong tree haha

hugs, pals.

—

I've posted an announcement about Cosmochoria's early access release in my Collection of Construct 2 games on Steam

Good luck with the release.

OddConfection Wow thank you so much!!! I really appreciate the support.

Dude, Cosmochoria looks amazing. Everyone should check it out.

OddConfection

Have you posted/do you mind if I post your list over on reddit?

JJEvil

I've not posted it on reddit, but feel free to share the list on reddit or anywhere else. The more support for Construct 2 and Construct 2 created games we can get, the better it is for all of us indie developers.

—

You're welcome. Cosmochoria is a great looking game and I know how important success on Steam can be to an indie developer. I'd say you're definitely on the right track.

— An awesome-looking game! Congrats on pursuing your dream, I'm doing a similar thing but am 26, ha ha. Glad to see your KS campaign came through, must be a pretty amazing ride through development and now knowing you have actual gamers - actual consumers - investing in your game, . I'll do my part to spread the word, keep up the great work.

inquiesco thanks a bunch dude -- yeah it has been an unreal experience to say the least.. never thought in a million years it would have gone as good as it has been going. i just gotta keep on working hard and at the very least ill rest easy knowing i did my very best.

I'm 24. I made 4 years of Law but i dropped it. I changed for computer science this year. In 2 years I'll have a job and will be able to do games on the side.

I worked as an indie composer for 2 years also. But it's very difficult to have jobs. On the other side there is a BIG lack of programmers. That's what I will be learning for 2 years. I would like to gain a good understanding of GLSL programming because I'm very interested to build a game from scratch.

But in the following months I will be designing small little games in 2D and enhancing my art skills. Modeling is on the table too. Basically I feel like I can learn all the aspects of the video game creation (sound, music, modeling, texturing, programming)

36 here. Same boat. Glad I'm not alone I've been a graphics guy my whole life (I'm a freelance designer by day) The leap into game dev wasn't to bad. Except for coding and maths.. Construct2 made it easier for me. I'm currently working on a game called Scum Slayer. I worked on 2 other games prior, that never got finished due to my lack of understanding and pre planning. I spent at least a year learning Construct by dissecting capx examples and reworking them/hacking them to see what does what. I have a soft spot for 2D pixel styled games, and being an art guy.. I enjoy creating sprites and artwork for games. It's been a fun journey thus far and I look forward to the future.

— just curious, are you working on Cosmochoria full time or do you have a full time also?

I'm only 27 but having hard time balancing between my full time database consulting job and trying to finish the many projects I have started. Also my terrible ADD does not help keeping focused on projects.

I'm hoping for a nice break in a couple of my games when I finally release them to do marginally well which then I would take as a sign to maybe cut down some hours at my other job to hopefully work on more games.

Either way though, i really enjoy just trying out random things in C2 and playing around with them. I always go back and forth with just trying to force myself to learn Unity but it's such a huge investment of time and effort when I think C2 has more than enough capability to create great games.

— - I have been 'playing' with Construct 2 for the past couple years just sort of learning the ropes. Last november, work died down a bit so i had a week or 2 of what felt like 'free time' away from my normal freelance client work so i decided id make a "Quick Game" well after 2 weeks I was in DEEEEP and basically began blowing off client work for the next 3 months as i burned through savings.

FFWD to February of this year I was mad busted but had a very playable version of cosmochoria i started trying to get attention for, with the sole thought that i would try and build a community to help support a kickstarter that I would run in April. ffwd to april and I had some decent press behind the game thanks to the demo and art style, etc. I launched the kickstarter and shit blew up by the end of april. By that time i was doing enough contract work to get by but really struggling financially with huge bills since working on the game and the kickstarter campaign became a massive priority. (i literally put almost ALL my eggs in the basket of making it a success so spent every day for the month leading up to the campaign and every day of the campaign itself with full time hours trying to get people interested / pledging.)

Finally with the succesful kickstarter I was able to rely on the game dev for months after. Which is where im at now.. Basically ive been doing skeleton work with freelance clients just so i basically dont lose them as clients, since if the game doesnt work out, im hooped, but the kickstarter funds have relieved a huge amount of the pressure. They're starting to dry up now too though, since i did a bit of spending on extra tshirts/merch in case i got a booth at a conference or something--extra stickers / marketing materials for when i went to pax, hired out consulting for the game, etc. So now i'm back to balancing between game dev and freelance work in probably a 70/30 ratio in hopes that the early access launch at the end of the month is going to mean sales -> money -> ability to continue putting a focus on the dev.

I took a HUGE risk with my family's well being at the beginning of the month by backburnering almost 90% of client work so i could focus on the game / kickstarter, but it was well worth it in the end. My goal is to be almost near a final version by this november meaning i successfully started, greenlit, kickstarted and released a game within 1 year.

Thats my story! Ask me anything!

Mid 30s. Been a hobbyist game dev since I was a teenager and "hunt the wumpus" was still around as a viable MUD.

I've completed two games in 15 years, both when I was much younger. So I have no advice on how to complete games. I find most my enjoyment in mechanics and coding something new, but I get bored very fast the second I need to produce actual content. I'm hoping C2 helps me with that part since it's so easy to use.

Best of luck mate!

skelooth

I had similar trouble with actually completing a game. B.LAST will be my first full game once it's finished. I think you'll find that, once you've learned C2, it goes a long way toward getting you to the content creation stage. It won't do everything, but is a perfect tool for helping make rapid progress.

I've been whatching your updates here and on reddit, great job so far!

I'm still stuck in code land though, making AI and path finding routines as behavior plugins. I have any army of design docs I've written and not a one that's been seen through. The closest I came was building a full demo level of a game I wrote in impactjs, then I fizzled out.

Someone needs to invent stronger coffee that doesn't kill me.