Two years as full-time solo game dev

28. September 2026

Last year I wrote about my first year as full-time solo game dev. Now another year passed and I'm still working on my game 99Managers. Spoiler: not much changed, but there was progress and I learned a lot. I still do time tracking, use a single todo.md note file, don't own a car and have not given up :-)

Listen to users

A very important lesson I learned this year is how important it to listen to users. Getting an opinion on the game from another perspective can help a lot. Especially as solo dev, where I take all the decision and rarely can ask others for advice.

Users will also be very thankful for listening to them! Apparently most user feedback is not listened to, especially for bigger games. I also have to admit that I don't have so many players yet that I can't up with their feedback. I guess once that point is reached, I might need to change something.

I would say the most and valuable feedback I got came from e-mails. It is also the first feedback channel I created and therefore I got more feedback there. If you plan to open a feedback channel, e-mail is the only one I would see as required. Everybody can write an e-mail and it exists since many years and will exist in the future.

Discord is my second biggest feedback channel with more than 200 members. But I have to say that I generally do not like instant chat platforms much. Users ask the same questions many times and that is because of how this chat platforms work. In a forum for example, a user can first search if that question has already been made. But nearly nobody does that on Discord.

For this reason I also created a FAQ, where I try to add frequently asked questions. For more technical stuff, I also created a roadmap, where I collect most open tasks. I'm considering setting up Discourse in the future, to have a real dedicated forum. But for now I have enough feedback to work on.

The Steam Community Hub got me also lots of feedback. This works exactly like a forum and I really like it. Most gamers also see it as good sign if developers reply to feedback there.

Then there is the most unexpected way users get in touch with me: YouTube comments. Initially I had comments disabled on my videos, because I did not want to do moderation. But then I activated them and no moderation was needed.

Finally there is the Google Play Store review features, where I got over 150 written reviews by now. I don't like it much, because I can reply only once and there is no way to communicate properly. Often I add my contact link to my reply, so users can reach out if they want. It's also the only place where I got offended, not really bad but that happened only there.

Other platforms I use are Mastodon, Element, itch.io, Lemmy and Reddit. But not much happened there yet, compared to the others.

My year in numbers

This year I want to share some stats that make me really proud. Like the numbers of downloads/installs for 99Managers Futsal Edition

Note: afaik F-Droid does not have any downloads stats, therefore it is not listed.

I'm especially proud of the 40k installs on Google Play. While I'm not earning anything there, because it is free there, I get a lot of visibility. So I'm kind of using the Google Play Store as free organic marketing. As comparison, my other 5 games on Google Play got less that 5k installs combined in 5 years. 99Managers got 5k installs in 20 days, and now 40k installs in 6 months. Everything without real marketing or payed advertisement, purely organic store traffic.

I still don't know if I will ever release a payed game on the Play Store. I think the mobile market is highly optimized for free games, with ads and in-app purchases. Therefore selling games goes against that model. Maybe I would have sold many copies on Google Play Store, but I highly doubt it. When was the last time you bought a game there?

The 250 copies sold on Steam are also a huge success for me as this is my first commercial game. Especially since exact the same game is available for free on other platforms. So users buy the game because the really want to support my work! Or simply don't know yet what open source means ;-)

Other noteworthy news

Now I like playing my game (more)

Last year I wrote that I don't like playing my own games. But over the last year I slowly started to enjoy it! I still do not play it much and most times just to test new features and find bugs. But at least now sometimes I find myself thinking: just one more match!

I think the reason for this is obvious: my game got better over time. I still don't think that I will ever be able to fully enjoy my games. Seeing all the things that still need work and can be improved makes that very difficult...

Ignore the noise (even more)

I also wrote about the social media noise, that can affect every solo developer. Constantly comparing my own success to others can become de-motivating. And it also takes a lot of time to scroll trough the algorithms suggestions. Note: except Mastodon, there the home is purely chronological.

Therefore I left all subreddits and have now a clear and empty Reddit home page. I no longer just try ignore the social media noise, but actively chose to not look at it at all. I can only say that I feel now much happier and satisfied with my work.

I still post my progress on my social media channels as "marketing", but I do not get lost there.

Workplace ergonomics

I guess this is the part that I changed the most this year. I got me a new office chair, a height adjustable desk and started using split keyboards. Except the keyboards, I got everything used on local second hand markets. That saved me a lot of money, because a good office chair and table can cost a lot.

Now I try to work in standing position every 2 hours, for 2 hours. The desk is a very simple and mechanically adjustable IKEA SKARSTA. The main reason I bought this is because it is quite cheap for 250€ (mine was 120€ used). Additionally a mechanical adjustable system should be more durable, and easier/cheaper to fix. I had bad experience with hydraulic standing desks, and read bad things about electric ones online.

My Sedus office chair was even more expensive with around 550€ new (mine was 200€ used). But it was totally worth it, because it really comfortable and has everything I need. I got this from an office, that was selling their stuff before moving to a new location.

The split keyboard surely is the highlight of my ergonomic setup, and has it's own blog post. The main difference is that I can touch type now, without looking at the keyboard.

It is very important to stay healthy, and therefore the workplace ergonomics matters a lot. Combined with daily walks and some exercise I should be able to stay healthy for a while. I have to add that improving the ergonomics is not so simple as it might seem. Just buying a desk and chair is not enough, they need also to be adjusted and modified over time. The first weeks I got neck pain from my new setup, then I tried different heights until one worked. Then there is also no solution that works for everybody, because we are all different.

Staying motivated - part two

A good way to stay motivated is to document the progress. Last year I wrote about how I do very simple time tracking, to know what I've done today. But sometimes that is not enough, especially when I'm stuck since weeks on the same problem. In that case looking at my time table de-motivates me even more, because I see all the time spent.

In such moments it helps me a lot to change subject, and work on something else. That can free up my mind and when I come back, I probably see the problem from another angle.

But if that isn't an option, I can get some motivational boost by looking at the progress of a year. Seeing how many things changed and improved over time reminds me that every problem can be solved. Now I try to create more gameplay videos and screenshots, to see better what changed over time. As a positive side effect, this material can be used for marketing on video and social platforms :-)

Of course taking breaks is also a big help and should not be underestimated. My brain, and most probably yours too, needs breaks to recover and regenerate. This helps to keep the energy level high during work tasks and prevents exhaustion.

Asserts, tests and quality checks

This year I also want to mention how important tests and quality checklists are. This allows me to add new features, without having to worry too much that something breaks. I still create bugs and my game still crashes from time to time. But the amount of problems would be much higher without my current setup.

My testing strategy can be summed up in three points

  1. Put asserts everywhere I can
  2. Write automated software tests
  3. Tick all boxes in my checklist before every release

I use asserts to make sure a variable has a valid value. Even in places where it first seems impossible, that another value can happen. But it already happened to many times that exactly that saved me from a bug. My code currently has 580 asserts on about 30k lines of code.

For more complex things I need to test, I wrote a dedicated test suite. This allows me to run all tests at once. Many parts of the game have also dedicated test setups, like the match engine. Is works with state machines and they can get stuck very easily. For that reason I have a batch job that runs random simulated games in a loop. If an problem gets detected, the current state of the match engine is printed to the console. If that information isn't enough to find the bug, I can visualize the match to see what happens. This is possible, because the whole match engine is deterministic. Therefore every match can be exactly replayed, given the same seed and initial input.

Asserts and tests still don't cover all possible problems. Especially in a game, many things can only be tested by playing the game. To know what I need to test, I created a checklist, that covers everything I need to do. Not only tests but also release related tasks, such as running the build scripts. This way I also don't forget simple tasks, such as updating the contributors list. I highly recommend everyone to create such list and tick every box for every release. You can see see my current checklist on Codeberg.

I could not think how my life as solo developer would be today, without this setup. Probably I would use most of the time to hunt bugs and reply to frustrated users.

Financial situation

Probably next year's blog post will be titled "Three years as solo game dev", without the full-time. I was able to work on my games for over 2 years on my savings, without any other financial support. I tried to apply for a NLnet grant, but did not get accepted. If you know any grants for open source games or Italian/EU games, please let me know! The game is already selling on Steam since one year now in Early Access, but 250 copies isn't enough. With all the expenses, like tax and accountant fees, I actually loose money.

I already expected this when I started this journey and also did predict it last year. I was 99% sure that I won't be able to live from my game. Technically it still can happen, when the game exits from Early Access and starts to sell more. But my expectations are very low and I don't think this will happen. My main goal always was to create a commercial game from zero to full release. Now I'm running towards the finish line and I'm very happy with the result and everything I learned.

I sill won't give up, and will work on more games and continue to update my existing ones. Probably just not full-time, because I still have bills to pay. Therefore I will start to do some part-time freelance work from January 2027. As stated last year, this is now plan B :-) Once I officially start to accept freelance work, I will probably add a hire-me page here. Until then, If you need an experienced Godot freelance developer, feel free to contact me already.

Every feedback is welcome

Feel free to write me an email at info@simondalvai.org and comment on Mastodon.

Exit through the gift shop

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