Being an Indie Game Developer: My Story (2016–2021)
For a long time, I’ve been reading about the inspiring stories of creative pursuits shared by people on Medium. Today I also wanted to share my first story and I remembered that I was once an indie game developer and wanted to share the story of it. This story includes what I learned and my thoughts from the first simple game I shared to the last one.In 2016, I decided to code mobile games. I had a few ideas but didn’t know where to start.How to code a game, what language is needed, I started researching. We started to learn Java at school at that time, so I decided that Unity was the most suitable game coding engine for me and I started researching to code games with C#.
I found the channel “Sebilgi” on Youtube and I started watching the playlist he coded Angry Birds game in unity. I was taking notes, writing the same codes so I could get used to it. Thus, my first game, which I coded and published in August 2016, appeared “Witch Hunt”. My sister had started drawing at that time and I wanted to use her drawings. I used the concept of the witches head with the drawings. A game with drag and throw gameplay like Angry birds emerged.
Days after published the game a few people downloading and commenting on it, I wanted to keep learning. This time I chose Flappy Bird as inspiration. I tried to code a game similar to it. And “Fast Chick” was born.
And I’ve released another unsuccessful game with even worse interface “Homeless Life Simulator”.
With a single language option, bad appearance, of course, it did not attract anyone’s attention and was not downloaded. But I kept learning and trying new things. By the way, I’ve always published with ads until now, I was using mobile advertising, which was called Startapp at the time and now Start.io.
Then I decided to make my first paid game “Cezalı Bardak Çek”. This was a game I saw on a weekend program I watched as a kid. People took turns drawing the glasses and whoever had the glass tower collapsed lost and the others punished him. I prepared it in a short time, it was simple. And at that time, I published the application for 59 cents, which was the lowest price.
A few days later I got the first download and I think it was one of the happiest days of my life, it was great to see a product I produced reaching people.
And strangely, Google Play ranked the game on the paid list and the purchases continued. People kept downloading and commenting, good or bad. If they didn’t like it, they got their money back. But what I felt at that time was great and I was very happy.
I decided to code this game in 3D. I did not find the same success in this publication, but I took a small step towards 3D coding.
While I was in 3D, I made another game. In the game, you try to shoot the zombies in the maze with a ball made of flame.
And we have come to my favorite game among the games I have coded so far, “The Ufo Attack”. I think the idea came to me while looking at the drawings on freepik. In the game you are managing a UFO, you can move sideways, you can shoot objects and animals into the UFO.
With this game, I learned how to animate using Adobe Affer Effects, started using Admob for ad placements (it definitely gives you more than startapp), localized by country.
I even prepared a small video for the game, again using After Effects.
Every day, I was looking at how many people downloaded the game from which countries. It was such a sweet thrill.
Then I decided to make a pixel game. In the apartment full of zombies, you have to save the people given in the task by passing through the right doors. Gorgeous characters have emerged with my sister’s wonderful pixel drawings.
First, I published the game for a fee, and Google Play listed another game of mine again and organic downloads increased.
After publishing this game, MyAppFree emailed me and said they wanted to publish the game on their site. I happily agreed and it greatly increased organic downloads. However, it is definitely difficult to rank high in the “zombie” keyword without professional help, and it took its place on the dusty shelves in this game.
Then I decided to try 3D again. I started coding some of “pull the pin” games. This kind of games were very popular at the time.
However, I was not very successful. Because I still did not have a full command of ASO, I could not get to the top of the search. And I still insisted on not advertising. I wanted it to be found organically and it was not a successful game for me. This was the last 3D game I coded.
Later, while I was browsing freepik again, a game idea came to my mind. It’s was a market game. The aim was to pass the products they bought through the cash register without making the customers wait too long at the cash register. I was separating the drawings one by one in Adobe Illustrator, this time I made the animations (walking, running, etc.) using Unity animations without using After Effects. Thus, it became easier and lighter for the game. It was a game that I had a lot of fun while coding and animating, but the game was not successful because I think I couldn’t draw images that attract the user and there was no reward system that motivates the user to stay in the game.
Then I remembered a game I played when I was little. Maybe you will remember.
When I typed the keywords about this game, I realized that there was not much of this kind of game and I coded the same for android.
This time I translated the Titles and Descriptions for each country one by one. I took care to use keywords. Organic users were coming into their own. It was downloaded every day.
And I coded “Sling Drift Water”, the last game of my indie game development adventure. Again, I was inspired by another game that is in the store. However, I was not very successful in reaching the players.
I no longer develop games. But I learned a lot. To summarize briefly:
- Networking is very important. Find people like you to keep grow and learn.
- Joining the game developer community is necessary to keep the game development motivation going.
- Tools for ASO, keyword search, localization should definitely be used.
- If you want to reach more audiences, you should learn how to advertise, A/B testing.
- Not to be stubborn that you can handle everything alone, you should work with professionals.
- Not working with a single ad provider. If admob stops advertising, remember that there are other options like Unity Ad, be prepared to be banned.
- Not to forget that you can publish games not only on google play, but also on the App Store, AppGallery etc.
- To analyze the in-game behavior of the player, tools should definitely be used.
- Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with game development, it is necessary to constantly analyze player behaviors, and to organize activities that will keep the motivation of the player high.
- You need discipline and endless passion.
In short, this is a matter of continuity, innovation and discipline. Of course, my dream was not to be an Eric Barone (creator of Stardew Valley), but my respect for everyone who developed games on their own increased and I learned a lot on this path. Now I develop applications only with kotlin and android studio. Maybe I can try game development again in the future, I put my game ideas on the shelf for now.
Thank you if you’ve read this far. ❤
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