Here you can find some small articles/thoughts about indie mobile game development.
They do not cover the successful stories, but rather the real things that happens when one or a group of people decided to make the first game and publish it, and make some money on it.
The goal of articles - is to help to avoid big mistakes, that can lead to a big frustration or emotional burning, and in some cases it can lead to real disease. That is why this process need to be healthy and professional.
development pain
Before you will start code or draw your first game you need to understand who is your audience. This advice you can hear or read all over internet all the time. But this stage of development is really IMPORTANT. You need to re-transform your brains to a game-designer and start thinking like they saw a mobile game industry. You need to became a merchandiser, this is something new from coding or creating something. You need to understand how to sell the product. That's why you need to analyze other games, why they are selling so good. I suggest to spend two days to read articles from internet add fill your brain with new information. Then rest one day and sketch your game like a game designer on that day. Then repeat, until you think you understand some core selling mobile games mechanics. This is would be hard, and it's ok, because this is would be a new area for you. Just learn like you`ve learn other stuff in your life, be patient, because if you will do wrong things in a hurry - you can loose a lot of money, and this can decrease the probability for your second chance/game.
money pain
This will make you suffer a lot. You need money for assets/art/sounds, for plugins, for registration in store market, for some investigation tools to analyze market, maybe for approving your account on market store, maybe for consultation in areas that you are not mastering and so on, but in the end - money for PROMOTION. Yeah, without promotion you are invisible. Tons of money will be thrown in promotion of your game. Analyze this aspect of game development BEFORE you start making a game. The problem you will face here is "burning money". You have to spend money on different promotion systems to see if they work for you and choose one, so you can spend more money on that promotion platform. But do not spend ALL your money here, do not do ALL-IN. Spend smart, a little bit, small portions, restrain your ambitions.
diet pain
Stop your appetites in every aspect while you in game development process. Write down some of your thoughts what your want to add to game, mostly I'm talking about game mechanics/story. Because adding new character or abilities is increasing the code/dev process and testing process. Do not spend more money in area that don't bring you enough results. It is so easy to start make thing bigger, burn your energy with your pasion, spin more time on game/product, that in the end the bad results can overwhelm your frustration and it will "burn you". That`s why you need to be on diet all the time. This your first game, do not waste all time/energy/money on it. You are "scratching" the surface of mobile game dev. Just take a small bite of it and the time aspect here is crucial.
time pain
I will be quick here. Make your game in two month, maximum three. I mean game that is ready to be published in store. All graphics, sounds, mechanics, bug tests and so on. Forget about six month, a year of development. 2-3 month - this is your dead-line. If the core of game will be accepted by a lot of users in positive meaning, you can always add something new to the game. This is one the pillars of mobile game dev profession. Quickly make some game, show(promote) it to the people, analyse results. If results are good, spend more money and time in game, analyse results. And so on. That is why you have to spend, especially on first game, less time/money as you can. And this is really hard to do. You are squeezed in time and money, but you soul is overwhelming with passion and dreams, but the reality is different.
