My first eight months in the world of game dev have been an absolute blast. There’s been ups and downs along the way but every single moment so far has been really exciting and enjoyable. It’s not been very long but I have already learned so much to the point where, when I look back to when I released Cute Cat Splat in February it’s amazing I got any downloads at all! I didn’t do anything in the way of marketing whatsoever. But you know what, I’m so glad I did it that way. The important thing was to get a game made and shipped. It was really important to hit that milestone and it made the whole experience so enjoyable. I think if I had focused on all the marketing effort I need to put in I may have lost sight of the passion I have for making and shipping games. With that said as I moved onto creating Eo’s Adventure I’d started to understand the landscape a bit more and realise that I would need to put some effort in to at least make a press list of contacts. With Cute Cat Splat under my belt, a realisation of how much I love game dev and the whole community and a wealth of ideas for new games I fully realised that I wanted to make game dev my full time career. At this point I started to take things more seriously and create a web site and YouTube channel. In the first few months of developing Eo’s Edventure, starting my YouTube channle and starting to learn about proc gen I heard a lot about how many indie games I love were actually first created in GameMaker Studio. So I decided to give it a go. Up until this point I’d accepted that I could only code in libGDX at a certain rate whilst holding down a full time job and being a father and husband. I believed any steps to becoming a full time indie dev would probably span years. Once I gave GameMaker Studio a go, I was greatly my productivity increased! Suddenly the idea of developing a game over the course of years suddenly looked like months. I was also able to create prototypes of games I previously thought were beyond my current skill level. At this point I had a rethink… I decided to put developing Eo’s Adventure in libGDX on hold and start working on a new game in GameMaker Studio, #Glo. I’d also decided to move from mobile to PC gaming. As I looked more into what was involved in releasing a PC game I realised I was really going to have to formalist the idea of Chronik Spartan as a studio. So I took the steps of registering with the UK government and opening a bank account so that everything is in place ready for when I release. I also started making marketing a full time effort rather than just a side thought to game dev, and to make sure everything flowed as efficiently as possible I started planning. Planning for things under my own control like time spent developing and building press kits etc but also for things out of my control such as wait times for banks, governments and Steam to do what they need to do verify any details I provided. That way nothing would come to a standstill because I had to just wait for a process to complete. Suddenly things got serious. But you know the best part… it’s all still immensely fun! I love the game dev and I always will, I actually enjoy finding contact information and building press kits as it feels like I’m investing in my studio and future. It’s really exciting as each piece falls into place whether it’s becoming tax registered, opening bank accounts or getting approval from Steam direct. And one of the best parts is chatting with the community and speaking to all those amazing people that are interested in what I am doing! But there’s still lots left to do before I release my first PC game! To be continued…