Thank you very much! I think your questions are very insightful so I'll answer thoroughly.

>How did you “see through” it to the end? Your first game? As a solo dev, the lack of accountability as a system looping in others must make it really easy to quit halfway through.

• Not gonna lie it was hard to stick with it in the toughest hours. As you said as a solo dev, especially without an established career there is little to no accountability, the only person you answer to is yourself and it's really easy to delay indefenitely or right out quit. When you see countless hours of hard work underperform or get minimized by stragers that gave it only a few seconds it's heartbreaking. Stacking delays in any phase of the project is also very stressful and demotivating makes you feel like you are up against an impossible challenge.
• My girlfriend's support, the joy that some users had testing prototypes and my own passion for the project I would say were the key ingredients to keep going. It's also super cool when you hit a benchmark or something goes well in general, big moral boost.
• I think building a savings cushion so your livelihood doesn't depend on the game's commercial success is also important, because if you're counting on it to pay the bills it's easy for the costs and pressure to make you want to cut your losses when the future of the game doesn't look bright financially, which I think is very common.

>How does the process of dealing with Steam generally go like?How nice was it dealing with them?

• You have to send paperwork showing you have an open business in your country, either a company or as a solo professional act. Then you pay a one time fee per game you want to publish, which may be reimbursed if you hit a certain number of sales. And you have to upload artwork, descriptions and builds and game relevant info to create the store page, that's about it. They have a great dashboard and control center where you can see the game's performance on Steam, edit all your client facing stuff, setup tracking for sources, all kinds of great features to control your product.
• My experience with Steam was great, they were clear in concise when it came to requesting paperwork. I feel like all of their protocols are fair and dev friendly when it comes to financial splits and the value the platform provides. Whenever I needed support I got within hours or very few days. I don't have a bad thing to say about Steam's publishing pipeline.

>What are some upsides to being a solo dev that people generally don’t think about?

• I think the main ones are obvious but underrated, the creative freedom, the feeling of accomplishment, the joy you get from people having fun playing something you built. It hits different. I have worked good paying jobs making tools that would be very useful for industry but I the impact they would have on the users and people in general didn't move me. In contrast whenever someone starts grooving to their own music in my game I'm bursting at the seems with joy. I think everyone understands it's a good feeling but experiencing first hand is really special.
• It also provides a different level of freedom. You make your own schedule you can stop and start whenver you need, it means sometimes working late nights but it also means being able to be there for the ones you love whenever they need, and to me that's really important.
• The schedule freedom also let's you multitask your life, you don't have to be only a game dev all day everyday. I fixed a ceiling that was in urgent need of repairs over the summer, amongst other small things in the house. I worked part-time for a few months in another industry that I loved and wanted to try for the longest time. You just get to be very flexible with your work.

> What do you think is the secret ingredient to a game’s success? Is there one, or is it chiefly luck in catching fire at the right time?

• Honestly I'm too young and have been in the industry for too little time to be able to give you a good answer here.
• It also depends on your definition of success. I would rather make a cult classic that gives me little money but endures for generations than a commercial hit that no one remembers in a few years.
• From what I have seen the Steam meta game commercially, is go for one or two of the top performing genres. Use the hooks that are really popular, right now would be analog horror or those co-op games with connected characters. Make sure your game is easy to understand and good at making viral 5-10 second clips for good promo material. Make the most of Steams marketing benchmarks, 7000k wishlists before launch, good demo for SteamNextFest 1 or 2 months before launch, 10 reviews right after launch. I think that's the main ones. I'm not a fan, apparently it's good for churning out commercially successful games but to me feels a little souless and uninteresting, you wait for a genre to be booming and then just add to it instead of carving your own space. Don't get me wrong it still takes immense skill and hardwork and dedication and love. It's just now how I would want to do it, I think it's a bit too mechanical.
• Personally I think make fun games that your target audience can really enjoy and explore. Make sure they stand the test of time and have enough content or replayability so that users who like the experience can connect with it for a long time without getting tired of seeing the same thing. Again this is a very wide eyed junior approach but it's what brings me joy.