The Indie Game Development Survival Guide

Indie Basics

The first section serves as a gentle introduction to the world of indie development. It explains what an indie developer is, why people decide to go indie and what being an indie entails.

Once this introduction is over, the section moves into more important issues, such as how to start business, choosing a business structure and some time management hints. The business structure information is not particularly in-depth, but it gives the fundamentals that are useful for making a decision.

Game Design for Small - or No-Budget Games

It's very easy to let your imagination run riot when thinking of game ideas, and this chapter helps explain some of the limitations that you'll face as an indie.

This section also covers the dreaded design document. Most design documents have to encourage a publisher to sign the game, so often contain information that is useless to the average indie. Thankfully, unlike other books and articles, this section is tailored towards the indie approach. Examples are given from the Paintball NET design document, which help if you've never seen a design document before.

Production Planning

Once you have a design for your game, it's time to move on to planning how you're going to create it. Setting tasks and milestones are a big part of project planning, and are discussed in this section. Examples from Paintball NET are used here, and are useful for seeing how a real project divides up its tasks.

Budget and risk management are also covered, which will help prevent you from receiving nasty surprises during your game's development.

The final chapter in this section covers "creative funding", which discusses several approaches to raising money for your fledgling project.

The Team

You don't have to work alone to be an indie, and the internet allows people to work together on a project without sharing an office. This section details the basics of having a team, as well as how to find and manage your team. It also discusses how to compensate your team, which is definitely worth looking at if you don't intend to work solo.

Building the Game

Once you've designed your game, planned how it's going to be created, and possibly roped in a few unsuspecting souls to help, it's time to build it!

There's a lot to cover in this section, and it touches on iterative development, resource management, documentation and testing. Hundreds of books cover this information in great detail, but these chapters can help point you in the right direction.

Selling the Game

And now for the bit where huge sacks of cash are delivered to your door, and everyone buys swimming pools and personal jets.

This section covers all the important aspects of selling your game, such as choosing a payment processor, setting a price and letting the world know about your wonderful product.

The Future (Evolution via Feedback)

The final section covers "Evolution via Feedback". Once your game is finished, there will still be improvements that can be made and features that can be added, and the last few chapters describe how to obtain feedback, and how to use it to improve your product.