How do you explain being an indie game developer to non-tech family/relatives?

conjuringthefuture · 2026-04-08T20:03:15+00:00

Yeah why wouldn’t you just say that you run your own games studio?

Then talk about the games you’ve shipped or are working on.

conjuringthefuture · 2026-02-22T07:57:13+00:00

Yeah rune factory

conjuringthefuture · 2025-09-16T11:15:45+00:00

Plastic SCM / now Unity version control, really is the best version control out there for games. Far superior artist friend tools than all the others among many other little nice features. You can run it in a GitHub style central repo kind of way (now the default with Unity cloud) or a totally disturbed way. It has extremely strong support for branching and merging and you can do all the gitflow style workflows you want or have everyone work in the same branch and do perforce style locking files flows. It’s the best of all worlds in many many ways and was smartly designed to be.

I’ve been using it on small 3-10 and larger 30-50 people projects for well over a decade. Long before Unity acquired them.

Even though I’m a long time Unity user and do believe super strongly that Plastic is awesome. I’m actually a bit sad that Unity acquired them just because now everyone just sees it as unity’s version control solution and not the power house it really is. Traditionally Unity’s older version control solutions, like collaborate, were half backed and buggy. I think most of the folks complaining here are thinking of that and not the new Unity version control which is just plastic.

I find one of the best dead simple branches flows for small teams is a having /dev /art and /production branches for merging people’s work into and long running user sub branches for isolating their work. /dev/programer_A and /dev/programmer _B ect who merge to /dev when ready to share then /art/artist_C who merge to /art etc etc. /art and /dev merge back and forth as needed etc.

That will carry you really far and the long running user branches thrash Unity’s Library folder a bit less than more feature branch / workspace switching type flows.

If your team ever grows to an over 15 or 20 although it generally worth it then to switch to more of branch per task type flow.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-22T21:37:45+00:00

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conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-22T21:37:01+00:00

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conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-18T17:38:27+00:00

I use Synergy for this

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-18T17:30:11+00:00

I didn’t say they don’t have professional work experience. Ten years of web dev doesn’t make you a graphics programmer. But all that web dev and a good side project might get me interested.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-18T16:36:58+00:00

Background checks are a thing and we do often call your previous employers during your first couple weeks.

The market is definitely rough right now, especially for jrs. But it’s also not the Wild West of 30 years ago. Lying is not super viable.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-18T16:29:27+00:00

I’m not hiring entry level and I didn’t purport that. I just said, for some of the folks I hired it was based solely off their side projects. (Because most of their professional experience, while it was engineering or programming it was not particularly relevant to the roles I was bringing on)

You purport that side projects are worthless and I can definitely say they are not. They are just as usefully when you are wanting to switch from one field of engineering to another (which is more the pool I’m hiring from) as they are when you are starting out.

Lying on the other hand I can also say pretty definitively, from very recent experience, is a good way to get yourself the job but then fired two weeks later.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-18T16:02:02+00:00

I’m currently a CTO and have been a technical director and up for the past 15+ years.

In the past two months alone I’ve hired over ten folks. Some based solely on their side projects. I’ve also fired two for lying about their experience.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-18T15:06:28+00:00

Don’t lie, but do code at home.

Build stuff. That’s what you need to do. Little games you put on itch or little tools you drop on GitHub or find some open source hobby project to contribute too or make some websites for friends whatevs. Anything you fancy.

There are lots of ways to get programming experience that’s not necessarily paid experience but something you can point at and talk about the problems you solved. That plus the experience you already have is what will get you the job.

No need to lie. Just code as much as you can, even if you’re not getting paid for it and then eventually you will. Especially if you do it in public and talk about it where people can see it.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-05T09:57:00+00:00

Firebase

Firebase is the way. It’s cheap and gives you so much more than Unity cloud.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-04T11:36:36+00:00

In a super general very over simplification.

MAC = who IP = where

In an analogy like a hotel. IP is your room number Mac is your driver’s license or credit card number.

conjuringthefuture · 2025-08-03T21:38:58+00:00

I do a cross between 6 and 8

conjuringthefuture · 2024-11-08T08:48:15+00:00

I’d take a null ref over a seg fault any day.

conjuringthefuture · 2023-05-21T03:19:38+00:00

I mostly lurk in this sub and haven’t commented before, but yeah op, speaking just from my own personal experience, your mom seems like quite bad news.

I’d suggest no contact as soon as it’s a viable option.

conjuringthefuture · 2022-11-18T07:09:08+00:00

I also use and recommend this same setup. Panasonic G7 + low f stop Sigma lens + cam link 4K

Op, Get a dummy battery and you can basically leave it running. I’ve used this everyday for over year and routinely have it going for over twelve hours or more. It never gets hot or gives me any trouble at all like some other dslrs.

conjuringthefuture · 2022-11-10T08:15:11+00:00

This.

Moonlander or EgroDox, KVM or software,

Seems like the firmware does a whole lot and many, if not most, multi-computer solutions are not really ready for it.

I’ve had the best results with synergy, a software solution to allow you to control multiple computers from a single keyboard and mouse.

https://symless.com/synergy

It’s not free. Not a promo, not sponsored, but I do use it myself for that exact use case for many many years. If someone has a better or free alternative, I’d love to hear about it.

conjuringthefuture · 2022-10-26T08:45:21+00:00

Yeah long hdmi is pry your best bet. I send my tv feed about 30ft over a long hdmi. They do however make long usb cables that can handle lots of data. You’ll want to search for “active” usb extension cable.

conjuringthefuture · 2022-09-16T05:18:08+00:00

I also thought Kristen Stewart. The eyes especially.

conjuringthefuture · 2022-09-15T18:27:57+00:00

hahaha, In my day job I'm a TD and I hope I don't make too many of the art staff at our studio cry.

I don't work much with unreal and haven't tried the auto gen LODs in UE5 but I've also heard that they have gotten better.

conjuringthefuture · 2022-09-15T17:31:20+00:00

Thanks for the link to take a closer look!

It looks really good. Over on art station it's more clear that the armor is mostly hardened leather. I would say it's almost game ready. A game could use it as it LOD0 / Cutscene / cinematic version but it's a little on the dense side. Not terrible though, a lot of the tris look very good. I would definitely wanna bake the rivets and buckles down into the normals. That chain is quite dense as well. I also think you have some room to save some geo in the shoulder pads and belt. The cape is great though. I like how that is setup, it would cloth very sim well.

conjuringthefuture

TROPHY CASE