A Detailed Guide to Indie Game Development

Want to create an Indie game? Here's a detailed guide to Indie game development explaining the process, time duration, and cost to build a custom Indie game.

The Indie Game market is attaining a new peak year by year, with countless captive games emerging every year. These games are not only entertaining but they also boast impressive critical acclaim and dedicated player communities.

If you have a dream of creating your own indie game to conquer the indie game world but don’t know where to start, this indie game development guide will equip you with the knowledge and steps needed to embark on your indie game development journey. 

What is an Indie Game?

Indie games are also known as independent video games. The term indie game is similar to independent music and movies. Indie games are often created by a small development team or even an individual developer without any financial or technical support from large publishers. Indie games are completely in contrast to AAA games because AAA games require huge teams, development hours, and finances to build fully functional AAA games.

The beauty of indie games is created by independent game development studios, which allows them to bring their unique ideas and innovations into an appealing game. This is why most indie games are often very innovative and experimental. The indie game developers can afford to take that risk, which isn't taken by the AAA games because of the budget involved in creating the AAA games.

Indie games are mostly sold through digital distribution channels because of the lack of publisher support. The indie video game market continues to thrive. According to SteamDB, the number of indie games released over the past years is constantly increasing, which showcases the growing potential of indie games. Stream is the biggest marketplace for indie games.

Interesting Stats About Indie Game

The indie game market is constantly evolving, which shows its growing influence and impact on the gaming industry. Here are some fascinating statistics that highlight the power of indie development.

According to Statista, in 2023, small independent (indie) game studios were the most active type of game publishers on Steam. During the measured period, indie publishers accounted for about 99 percent of releases on gaming platforms, which translates to about 13,790 titles. 

VG Insights claims that in 2023, indie games accounted for 31% of all Steam revenue.

This year, five of Steam's top ten highest-grossing games were indie projects, says VG Insights.

According to the Steam Database, there's a constant rise in indie game releases. Looking at Steam alone, in 2024 so far, over 4,448 indie games have been released.

These statistics will give you a clear picture of how indie games are becoming a powerful force in the gaming industry. If you are looking to launch your indie game and capitalize on the booming market, this is more than a perfect time for you. Now let's take a look at the steps to build your indie game.

How to Create an Indie Game?

Maticz, a leading Video game development company, follows the streamlined development process to launch the game without any hindrance. This section will take you through the step-by-step procedures to create your indie game, from the concept research to the game launch. Let us take a deep dive in.

Start with an Idea

Indie game development starts with the captive gaming concept. In this step, you need to unleash your creativity and lay the foundation for your game. Select the niche of your gaming like casual games, puzzle games, etc. This will help you capture the essence of your game's core concept and serve as your guide light throughout the development process.

Game Design Document (GDD)

In this step, you need to document your game design, this will act as your game blueprint. This documentation should contain the initial concept, the complete roadmap for development, the detailed core mechanism (how players interact with the game), the story concept, the overall environment you want to create (gaming visuals), the game characters, and the levels players will explore. These are all the essential contents that GDD should contain.

Create a Prototype

Before diving into full-stack development, creating a playable prototype will give you a proper understanding of your indie game. This will allow you to test your game's core mechanism and get valuable feedback. This will help you ensure that your game is engaging and fun enough before investing your significant time, money, and resources into full game development.

Time for 2D/3D Model and Game Assets

This is the step that brings your gaming world to life with stunning visuals. Depending on your target audience, create a charming 2D art style or a captive 3D environment. And creating unique game assets is crucial because this is where your game should be set apart. The assets can be in any form like characters, tools, weapons, etc. Important to remember, that high-quality assets will significantly increase the gaming experience, so create unique assets.

Pick Your Gaming Engine and Framework

The next step is choosing the right tech stack for your game, like the game engine you want to build your game, like the Unity engine or the Unreal engine. This is the powerhouse of your game and provides the foundation to build your game. Choose the framework, and programming languages that you want to build your indie games.

Programming

This is where all the magic happens and your game takes on the proper shape. Programming brings your gaming mechanism into a fully functional game. The coding for your game will vary depending on the game's complexity and the tech stack you choose for your game. With dedicated coding practice, you will bring heart and soul to your game.

Sound Design and Music Integration

Sound design and music are inevitable in indie games, this will elevate the gaming atmosphere and gameplay experience. There are many ways that you can bring sound effects to your game, like utilizing royalty-free libraries and hiring dedicated sound designers and composers to bring your musical vision to life.

Testing the Game

Conducting a rigorous testing process is an essential step in ensuring your game's success. This will help you identify the bugs, solve those issues, and polish the overall experience. Because the bugs will spoil the gaming experience and make people lose interest in your game. 

Game Deployment

After completing all the steps, you have reached a major milestone. Now it is time to launch your game to a global audience. Launching your game is just the new beginning, continuing to gather user feedback and make a regular update will keep the player engaged.

Why Develop Indie Games?

The indie game market is not just a hotbed of creativity and innovation, this gaming market also provides compelling opportunities for investors. The indie game market is growing exponentially. Investing in promising indie games allows you to capture an expanding market with huge potential for significant returns. Also, indie games are known for their diverse genres and unique concepts, which attract a wide range of players.

Strong innovation and a captive game are the hallmarks of the indie game. While developing your game, make sure that you attract a wide range of audiences with unique game concepts and stunning gameplay for commercial success.

Additionally, indie games have low development costs compared to large-scale productions, which is potentially a low investment risk for you. A passionate and dedicated game development team like Maticz will help you create engaging and successful games. Our team of experienced developers has a deep understanding of indie game development. From the game concept to launch, our expert developers will provide complete support for your project.

How Much Does It Cost to Build an Indie Game?

The cost of building your indie game will cost you around $50,000 to $250,000. The cost may vary depending on various factors such as team expertise, game complexity, art and design, and the tech stack you choose to build your indie game. All of these factors will come into play while developing the indie game.

Also, we can scale indie game development into three types, small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale indie games. Small-scale development mostly involves one or two developers and typically costs you around $50,000 to $70,000. The medium-scale development involves 5 to 10 developers and costs around $70,000 to $120,000. The large-scale development involves a few developers with polished graphics, a captive environment, complex mechanisms, and a potentially longer development cycle that will cost you around $120,000 to $250,000.

Why Choose Maticz as Your Indie Game Development Company?

Maticz is the best Indie game development company, offering custom game development services to build indie games at an affordable cost. We have an in-house team of dedicated game developers with a wide range of industrial experience, and help you build your game in the tech stack that you prefer. Whether you are looking forward to building a game in the Unity engine or the Unreal engine, our expert game developers will turn your game vision into a fully functional indie game.

Our experts understand the faced by indie studios and we are passionate about helping your vision come to life. From game concept development to launch, Maticz offers the whole package of game development services to streamline and navigate you throughout the indie game development journey and equip you for success.