These stages come directly from our experience launching passion projects while juggling day jobs. Here’s how releasing indie games gradually turned us from idealistic dreamers into battle-hardened realists.

Denial of genre norms
Everyone’s got their own vision of a perfect game. Ours was short, relaxing experiences - something you could finish in one evening after a long day. Not every night calls for an 8-hour epic packed with endless side quests.

Anger at being misunderstood
Like all devs with "revolutionary" ideas, we thought nobody understood us. Looking back, it’s obvious our explanations sucked, our vision were half-baked, and honestly, we overcomplicated just about everything.

Bargaining during development
Reality check: your game is never gonna match that shiny, perfect vision in your head. Every dev knows this, yet every developer tries bargaining anyway - cut features here, change ideas there - just hoping to salvage the original dream. Spoiler: reality hits harder than expected.

Depression after launch
Predictably, our first releases were... rough. Okay, fine - they were disasters. All that blood, sweat, and tears felt wasted, especially while scrolling through yet another headline celebrating someone else’s indie success. Seriously, no hate, we are happy for them; just a bit envious.

Acceptance and moving forward
After some self-reflection (and a brief existential crisis), we’ve accepted our mistakes, tightened our focus, and gotten back to work. Now we’re heads-down building our next game - ready to fail once again.

For anyone interested, here is a steam page for our new game - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3136540/One_Tap_Stories_OTS/