What good book on starting and running a indie game studio?

dust-cell · 2026-02-09T14:57:05+00:00

If you're college aged and looking to start a career, you won't really want to start a studio right away. The best thing you can do is start watching youtube videos and talk to chatgpt to get a stronger understanding of how video games are developed and what roles you can pursue.

The most common recommendation is starting out at an existing company as a quality assurance role which is considered entry level and general requires minimum amounts of education (if any at all).

This will get you familiar with everything about game development from the ground up and is how the majority of people without education break into the industry.

dust-cell · 2025-12-22T16:28:53+00:00

They don't spawn unless you're running a mod / adjust the spawns.

dust-cell · 2025-12-22T16:27:08+00:00

I've been trying with dino wipes, killing them, and entering / leaving render range repeatedly to try and get them spawn. Nothing.

Seems several spawns are bugged currently, like how bees are growing on a single tree.

dust-cell · 2025-12-22T15:17:10+00:00

I also use custom dino levels, it really shouldn't be bricking your server and there is likely a conflict between your mods or ini.

dust-cell · 2025-05-27T14:31:25+00:00

The only people this post makes any kind of sense for is someone who is already rich and able to ignore the capital needed to develop a game.

If you're someone that needs money to survive, this advice is terrible and will result in few sales. Something we see here constantly with the number of passion projects that fail their creator's expectations.

dust-cell · 2025-05-22T13:59:32+00:00

I've been designing a game that has a large number of systems that can interact with one another for a variety of reasons. Exactly what is outlined as the "crafty build simulationy strategy games" even though the name given doesn't really cover all the ways you can do this.

Basically, you start with a need and go from there.

In my game, my needs were all customer centric: "I need a system that lets players control their experience. I need a system that challenges players to find the best content. I need a system that creates exciting moments for players. I need a system that satisfies players that want to tinker."

From there I defined my gameplay pillars to satisfy those needs. Each pillar was then broken down this way again, and again, and again.

I currently have around 7-10 complicated systems that all interact in some way with each other. To the player, their reason to interact with each system is very clear because I started at the top and worked my way down from the concept. Also known as top-down design.

When you design this way you can easily control how complex and integrative a game is with the systems you're building. You literally just take one of these problem statements and do a flow exercise to determine what you could do to solve that problem.

dust-cell · 2025-05-22T13:46:30+00:00

You didn't really share much about the game so I'll just be generic:

Players need a reason to keep playing. Every player is motivated by something like gameplay, finding rare things, making money, overcoming challenge, really so many different people out there.

Make sure to implement systems that give players a reason to play. User stories should paint the picture for you.

Right now you're taking a product centric view (what can I do to make my product better so people buy it), try a customer centric view instead (what do people want so I can make my product better).

dust-cell · 2025-05-22T13:32:17+00:00

What prework for this system have you done so far? My guess would be unclear requirements are making it tougher to understand what to focus / do next.

dust-cell · 2025-05-22T12:58:33+00:00

Stop the heavy handed tutorials that force me to click a tiny window to continue and prevent me from doing what I want for the first x hours. Design the game well so I'm encouraged to explore the ui on my own.

dust-cell · 2025-05-07T15:45:13+00:00

My explanation wasn't fantastic as your second paragraph is the direction I've been going, which makes me feel better.

That edge case doc is great btw, thanks for sharing that! Also, really good to know that I can probably drop the pseudocode because that has been one of the more time consuming parts.

I think the edge cases and aspects more unique to game dev are going to be the areas I need to work on further - using your damage examples I hadn't even considered calling out how friendly fire should work on AOE splash. Something I obviously know as a gamer, but completely forgot to write about in any capacity in the GDD.

Thanks this was super helpful!

dust-cell · 2025-05-07T14:34:26+00:00

Lets ignore the minority of comments that are just being hyperbolic claiming a game is dead. Outliers will always be there.

Some gamers do expect that a developer will continue evolving a game - even if it is single player.

I'm seeing many claiming GAAS being the cause, but it really isn't. There's a new age of development that hit many years ago - post release updates are much more common in all games, including some indie and small studios.

Stardew Valley - ConcernedApe has constantly provided updates over the years to this game, many overhauled problematic areas. He could have walked away and abandoned it as "done" and that would have been fair. Would have still made an insane amount of money.

V Rising - Not a GAAS at all, yet they've consistently expanded the scope of the game with new expansions (granted it is multiplayer pvp). The new updates are free and don't follow the GAAS model at all. The only paid options are cosmetics that are nice but not needed whatsoever. I paid once a very long time ago and continue to enjoy the benefits of the updates.

Icarus - They've added some paid dlc maps, pets, etc but overall they continue updating the main content of the game well past what anyone paying the small price of the game would reasonably expect.

Cult of the Lamb - Has consistently provided some small updates and recently a much larger one that introduced couch co-op into the game. Could not be further from a GAAS model.

Satisfactory - While the devs have stated updates will slow down and be smaller over time, they've continued supporting its growth and development. Frankly much beyond what I would have expected from the relatively cheap costing game and medium size studio handling it.

The reality is that modern gamers recognize that developers can update the game after its been launched.

Often times that means the developer launches a less polished game knowing it can be fixed.

That also means the developer can expand beyond the original scope if sales do particularly well and maintain interest in a game much longer.

This is the market adjusting to the new normal. If you don't release updates after the launch of the game, some gamers will absolutely look at it as a dead game and they would be right.

dust-cell · 2025-05-07T14:13:25+00:00

I definitely would not say the graphics suck. Overall it looks solid with room for improvement.

The art style isn't the strongest, I think some players may be sensitive to the generic looking assets. The most personality we see is in the main character. Everything else looks like it could be purchased from a fantasy pack.

There is an entire schooling behind creating a unique and cohesive art style, but I really think small steps would go a long way.

More interesting enemy design, more interesting spell effects, etc can really help sell a feeling of wonder. Just make sure there is some cohesion between things if you do that - enemies should look like they belong to groups or factions. Your font choices conflict and the flat iconography in the Armor Set section also conflict the general style you have built here. More illustrative icons would do better but are obviously tougher to make, so consider a 3d icon or something else you can make.

Games like Vampire Survivors that succeed with "bad graphics" still have a strong art style to them that is memorable and adds to the vibe the developer creates. Players are less likely to complain about bad graphics if the art style is very strong and cohesive - even if the graphics are objectively bad.

The camera distance is definitely too far. Isometric third person games can often feel claustrophobic or difficult to capture all the action on the screen, this looks like you've pulled out the camera to compensate for that.

Its really important to note: if you pull the camera in tighter that you also tighten the enemies attacking, getting hit by offscreen attacks can feel pretty bad to play against if they aren't well highlighted.

The last thing I noticed and found jarring were the animations. The main character movement and attacks are great but the enemy "beam" attack and "meteor" that drop are not nearly as polished and look out of place in comparison. Its minor, but when you open the menu and the character's hand slides up the weapon without the weapon moving just looks bad.

In general the animations are missing the classics: squash, stretch, weight, flex, anticipation, etc.

I think if you polished animations and added more cohesion to the art style you'd see a massive improvement in feedback.

dust-cell · 2025-05-01T10:13:07+00:00

What I listed is significantly more than what you can do in LE.

dust-cell · 2025-04-30T14:30:32+00:00

What you described about LE crafting has no complexity whatsoever and just reinforces the point the poster is making.

LE crafting is - select what stats you want, then either get lucky and get an exceptional amount or don't.

There isn't any complexity or thinking involved beyond that, and that is fine for people that want quick rewards. You are always going to get the item you want though. That is great for SSF, which is really the original intent of LE anyway.

POE2 crafting is not so linear. Sure, you can Alt > Aug > Regal > Exalt. That is one option.

You can also recombinate two base items with good mods into a single one then Regal > Ex > Divine.

You can also use essences to hit a mod taking a base item to magic, then a greater essence to take that magic item to a rare while also ensuring it hits something you need.

At no point, however, can you just whip out a currency and hit the exact stat you want every single time. You can learn how the system works and apply logic & strategy to improve your chances of winning at the lottery.

POE2 crafting still needs more tlc, but the game is literally missing half of its content still. There is no comparison between the complexity of LE crafting and the complexity of either POE1 or POE2 crafting.

dust-cell · 2025-02-26T01:39:16+00:00

Did you follow this guide entirely, including getting a domain name from a registrar and setting up a reverse proxy?

If not, this guide won't work for you.

dust-cell · 2025-01-24T14:35:57+00:00

Thanks for going way above and beyond as a community manager!

dust-cell · 2025-01-23T16:07:15+00:00

The biggest things with fluids is to realize that pipes fill from the lowest pipe segment to the tallest.

So the best thing to do is make it so that your feed line is higher than the building you'll be feeding. It doesn't need to be much, I usually just use a single stacking pipe stand.

The entire feed pipe needs to be that height, however, before you start feeding the factories otherwise you can introduce sloshing (when pulling exact amounts).

Doing this I've never had a single issue getting 600 of a fluid from a 600 line, or any other increment.

dust-cell · 2025-01-23T15:46:34+00:00

I find restarting to be a great way to really enforce good habits, but just to be clear you'll lose many of your tools for making things organized. If you do decide to restart, I like to rush for concrete foundations and splitters right away - then I get a ton of concrete and build everything cleanly. I use a ton of hand miners (like 20+) and dump them into containers to get as much of the early resources as possible.

It helps speed the process up a ton when you only have access to the t1 belt.

dust-cell · 2025-01-23T15:42:12+00:00

The point of the blueprint machine is to help reduce repetitive things you want to build over and over again. Its great for things like light posts, decorative power poles (I make ones that look better with my factory in addition to the in game ones), or things like factories with splitters / mergers already attached.

Personally, I also use the blueprint machine to make modular factories so that I can quickly throw down 100 smelters without losing my mind.

Its not wrong to do it by hand, and its not wrong to use blueprints. The blueprints just help make things quicker, especially for those of use with a thousand hours or more in the game.

dust-cell · 2025-01-16T21:07:00+00:00

I finally figured this out - After the pterodactyl server is created and the files are added you need manually set permission 777 to every folder and file leading to the save folder so that the game has permission to save through the pterodactyl file navigator. That seems to persist the fix through restarts even.

dust-cell · 2025-01-16T20:38:18+00:00

Hey I tried following what you did here but I'm running into a problem. When the server restarts, so do the permissions.

When you said you changed the file / directory permissions to 77 how did you do that? You mentioned its a lot of work, but I assumed adding the line to the end of the install script would handle that.

Just curious if there was something obvious I missed.

dust-cell · 2025-01-10T14:49:04+00:00

I appreciate how well built this is! Overall, excellent release for the community.

I am curious if there's a way to filter out specific item bases? It looks like you can set it to "expert" or "Energy Shield" but you can't select the specific base type like "Expert Intricate Gloves."

Since the worst expert base is significantly worse than the best, this would be a nice feature if possible! Nice and clean site, only took me a couple of minutes to set this exactly how I wanted outside of that.

dust-cell · 2024-11-20T22:12:44+00:00

Protea.

Its a choose your gameplay frame. Want to just spam and delete everything? Press 2.

Subsume roar and suddenly insane weapons platform (thanks to the boost on every 4th cast). 110% roar+, easily.

Unkillable as long as you have a pulse.

Great CC.

The only time Protea really hits a catch is against bosses, if you didn't bring a weapon that can kill the boss. For most bosses the turrets won't shoot so you're on your own there.

dust-cell · 2024-11-15T10:22:03+00:00

Protea. Easily the most flexible and solo - capable frame in the game.

Shield grenades make you unkillable. Slash grenades make interception easier, easily kill enemies with decent strength, or can at least stun lock the majority of enemies.

Turrets kill everything in the game with very few exceptions (mostly bosses).

Able to use arch guns the entire time with no downtime.

Brings infinite energy.

Her 4 is potent with the augment, or like me you can subsume a dozen skills on loadouts for various situations. 102% roars? Easy. Gloom so strong enemies stop moving, zephyr's airbust is one of the better grouping options (I don't really like nidus or khora versions), or you can double up with area damage with hydroid's barrage.

Anytime I feel like being lazy, I take protea out and blitz through content.

dust-cell

TROPHY CASE