Indie Survival Secrets: Lessons from Game Dev Veterans

Hi, community!

In our studio's nearly 20 years in the industry, we've seen it all: from trying to tame our own "Frankenstein" C++ engine to migrating to Unity, and from a local office in Luhansk to building an efficient, 100% remote team.

Recently, I had the amazing opportunity to speak at Games Gathering Lviv 2025 with my talk, "Indie Survival Secrets: Lessons from Veterans." We discussed how to avoid burnout, plan development cycles, and why making games isn't just about pure creativity—it's also about the hard skill of managing costs.

If you missed the live presentation or just want to refresh your memory on the key takeaways, I've gathered the core insights from my talk below.

Key Insights for Indie Developers

• A Clear Vision and MVP: Ask yourself right at the idea stage: what is the core of your project? At Specialbit, we focus on story-driven Point-and-Click adventures, so narrative and art are our foundation. Calculate your resources, define your budget, and focus on a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) so you don't run out of steam halfway through.
• A Finished Game is Better Than a Perfect One: This rule has saved multiple projects. Don't spend months over-polishing a single location. Structure your development process so that, if unforeseen circumstances arise, you still have a mechanically complete game that can be played from start to finish.
• Tech Debt is Your Worst Enemy: Don't skimp on time for refactoring and maintaining a technical journal. Write down the solutions to complex bugs! This simple habit will save your sanity when you stumble into the exact same problem six months later.
• Founder Diversification: Much of our studio's success comes from the fact that each founder covers a specific area (technical, creative/narrative, and marketing). Look for team members and co-founders who complement your skills rather than duplicate them.
• Money Needs Counting: Indie devs often dread calculating their actual expenses. However, understanding the real cost of your working hours, software licenses (like Unity or Figma), and taxes is the only way to know if your game is actually financially viable.

We are actively applying all these approaches right now as we develop Angelo and Deemon 2. Creating the sequel brings its own set of challenges, but our past experience helps us avoid stepping on the same rakes.

🎥 For more details, funny dev fails, and a Q&A session, check out the full video of my talk from Games Gathering Lviv 2025.