Why start making an indie game?

My love of gaming and a dream to make my own all started 30+ years ago. When my siblings and I got a Sega Mega Drive with Sonic 2 for Christmas. I can still feel the shock and excitement as I think about it now. We didn’t see that coming, a day to remember.

Trying harder in school finally made sense. I simply wanted to make something amazing like Sonic 2. I paid more attention in art classes, started drawing more. Cherished my one class of I.T. each week. All in pursuit of making games one day. I studied each game I got as much as I enjoyed playing. Many of the games I still own and play till this day.

At University I decided not to study a course in game design. I couldn’t see how this would work for me. It felt right to continue down the artist path. So, I decided to study animation. It was pretty tough going. I didn’t have a computer at home for much of my life compared to my classmates, so I was learning to use a PC while getting to grips with Maya and Photoshop. The challenge was worth it.

I got through my studies and entered the workplace. Quickly found out I was unprepared for the games industry. I needed to do even more work to get that job. You’d think that was part of the course but no. Till this day there’s a disconnect between education and workforce requirements in games, VFX, commercial / advertising 3D industries. That’s for another discussion.

I managed to break into the games industry on 2 occasions. Once in Canada and second most recently in Czech Republic. As a 3D artist first time and a 3D Animator. I was excited on both occasions, and I enjoyed my time at both companies. It did not match what I thought working in games would be. Main problem was my taste in game design. The game styles I love don’t get made anymore, not at big or medium sized game companies. They do still happen often, but only in the Indie game dev scene. Not a big chance of working at small companies like that. Budgets are tight so they don’t hire many people. If I want to work on the type of games that speak to me, I’d have to make my own. So, I started down this path 3 years ago in my spare time and between jobs.

I have enough assets created to start on a vertical slice of gameplay over the next 12 months. I don’t know if my game will find an audience but I’m going to enjoy the journey wherever it leads.