Ten years ago today, I found myself at a crossroads in my life and decided to take six months to focus on making more indie games full-time. It’s been a long six months 😛
I got to make my own games to my own vision, something I had always wanted to do. A number of years ago, a colleague once good naturedly called me a ‘cult developer’ — most people aren’t that much into my games, but there is a small number of treasured people who like my games a lot. If you’re one of those, thank you for all your support over the years.
Ten years is a lot of time, and it’s somewhat difficult to encapsulate all the ups and downs into a blog post. In that time, well over a million people have played my various games, I lost all my money (twice!) in the process, won a couple awards, became a literally starving indie for a while, got to show my games in Japan, got to have and meet fans, started several game communities, made and lost friends, got quasi-internet famous and mercifully forgotten, got harassed and death threats, been on TV, discover and build so many different skills, gave talks at conferences, joined an incubator, showed my games to my gamedev heroes, had my games translated to other languages, shipped games both large and small to PC Mobile Web and Console, and got to work with so many amazingly talented people.
Like most indie devs, I never really made much money in this gig… but the experience has been priceless. It’s truly been the adventure of a lifetime. Always follow your dreams, especially when it’s difficult.
