First of all: what’s the definition of a successful game? As anything else in life: it depends. For a big company who invested millions in a development team, marketing, research and advertising, success is probably defined primarily in terms of revenue and profit. For an indie game, money, of course, is also necessary. But maybe it’s more important for it to be critically acclaimed and loved by its audience; money may then come as a consequence of a growing, supportive fanbase.

In my case, I have no pretension of getting any money out of my game; I’m doing it for the sole purpose of learning, so in a sense I already consider Stanley’s Day At The Office a success. But I also want it to be fun and I want people to like it.

Learning from the greats

My all-time personal favorite games are Donkey Kong Country (1, 2 and 3), Super Mario World, GTA Vice City, The Sims and Need For Speed Underground 2. I’m far from a gamer, and my experience with consoles is limited to SNES and PlayStation 1 and 2. Even so, I try to take inspiration from those gems into my own experience.

All of these were big franchises developed by big companies. No single person could achieve making the new GTA on their own. But the change of paradigm caused by smartphones in the early 2010s created a new window of opportunity to game developers.

Back in those days…

In the wake of the App Store and Play Store, when smartphones were a new thing and people were eager to search and discover new apps, many developers created simple, creative games in their spare time and were surprised by a sudden explosion in downloads (and revenue).

However, this market was rapidly occupied by companies that grew to be very large. Nowadays, the top picks from the app stores are dominated by these companies, who have the budget to maintain specialized teams for art, design, sound, software development, marketing, among others.

So, how can a solo developer try to join this rat race?

I honestly don’t have an answer for that. Also, different games require different strategies. But here’s what I’ve been trying or planning to do:

Be passionate about your idea

I already spend 9-10 hours a day working in software development. I wouldn’t be able to do it also in my spare time if it wasn’t for something that I’m excited about.

Ask for a little help from your friends

When I first mentioned to my friends and co-workers that I was developing this little game, the response was great. The ones who watch The Office immediately bought the idea and asked me to let them know as soon as it was avaible so they could try it. And the ones who don’t know the show were still excited to try a game made by a friend of theirs.

They then talked about it to other friends, who then talked to other friends, and so on.

Make your players compete (even in a single player game)

There’s only so much new stuff you can add to your game without growing into too much complexity. As a solo developer, I can’t afford to design hundreds of new game levels with shiny new different items, scenarios and enemies in each one of them. So, one of the ways I found to engage users was to keep a leaderboard; people feel encouraged to play more in order to get better scores than previous players.

Each player also has their best run recorded, so even if you’re a newbie, still far away from reaching the leaderboard, you can compete against yourself, trying to beat your own previous best score.

Make your game shareable

This is a plan yet to be implemented. But I want to add a button where you can share your last score as a social media post or group message. This way, you can share your score with friends, potentially reaching new users and generating more engagement as friends start playing to compete with each other.

Use social media

Share your game in social media, tag influencers, tweet about it, post it in communities that might be interested in the game. In my case, that means sharing the game on The Office subs in Reddit, tweeting about it, tagging profiles that post images and quotes from the show, and hopefully reach some of the cast members (can you even imagine it???).

This one is a lecture on myself, as I have yet to start doing what I say. So far, I’ve been postponing “marketing” (can I even call it marketing?) with the excuse that, first, I have to add new enemies, new improvements, more stuff, and so the days go by. Shame on me!

If you have any ideas or suggestions to add on top of what I wrote above, feel free to contact me.