One wo/man shows in game dev Event

Joshua Hollendonner aka Stuffed Wombat
Game Designer, Graz/SWE

How to maek gaem

This talk is about what I learned while making games alone, with limited ressources and capabilities. When I started, I consumed a lot of media about making games, in order to learn. I heard that I should keep my projects small in scope, and I did. I learned about feedback, and I used it without questioning it. I became better at designing levels, but never considered why players would want to travel through them. I created social media content without being able to use its opportunities. I obsessed over the specifics of input and movement instead of creating experiences. I copied structures, but not their purpose. In short, I lost track of the bigger picture.
Now, slowly trying to regain perspective, I want to share what I have learned after following some of the advice most commonly given to aspiring indie developers. This talk is not about dismissing this advice as useless, it is about realising that all advice comes from a certain context. This talk is about trying to summarise what I learned about game developement, in all its aspects, so far.

After the talk, a panel of solo game developers discuss their approaches, chances and challenges, fears and victories and their daily lives as game enthusiasts:

Participants:

Sarah Hiebl
James Patton
Maximilian Csuk

Biographies

Joshua Hollendonner has no higher education and learned to develop games through participating in game jams. He likes to make small things and puts them on the internet for free. Since this is a bad business model, he also does design consulting. He has given talks about his work at the Vienna Game Dev Meetup and the Game Dev Days Graz. His first commercial project was the “most surprising game” at the Amaze Festival in Johannesburg in 2017. He is still hoping to be able to publish that game and works on some new things.

Sarah Hiebl makes games that are mostly about personal experiences. She uses games as her preferred medium for expressing herself artistically and has exhibited her games around the world, most recently at TADAEX Interactive Art festival in Tehran. When she’s not developing games, she is writing haikus about dicks.

James Patton (Jamie to his friends ;) is a creature of the British establishment: he attended a grammar school then read English at Cambridge. He was able to break out of this mould when he studied Interactive Media at Goldsmith’s (the first school he ever went to where people sometimes had pink hair), moved to a different country, figured out how the world worked and decided to become a full time indie game dev. After working on games in his spare time for several years, he eventually ran a Kickstarter for his latest project (cyberpunk management sim “Spinnortality”) and used the money to go full time. After a further year of development Spinnortality had a successful launch, allowing him to go full time permanently. His hobbies include reading Tarot cards, being pet by cats and talking about himself in the third person.

Maximilian Csuk studied Software Engineering at the Technical University of Vienna and currently works as a freelance software developer, sadly on non-gamedev projects… But this is all just part of the plan! With enough money in the pocket, yet still enough free time, he gets to work on his own games. Finding the balance somewhere between a hobby and a job, Maximilian slowly but surely gains experience, fame and gold in the quest to become a successful indie game developer. His latest finished project is the grappling hook synthwave fiesta “Rifter”. Currently, he is working on a new project that mixes turn-based strategy with card game mechanics and rogue-like elements.