Indie game development often begins with something deeply personal you really want to build. An atmosphere you want to create. A story you cannot stop thinking about. A mechanic you would love to experience as a player. Before anyone sees a screenshot or watches a devlog, there is already a reason you chose to build this particular game.
Then you start sharing it.
At first, building in public feels exciting. You show a mechanic, someone responds, and suddenly the work you have been doing alone becomes a conversation. A little encouragement can mean a great deal when you are learning, solving problems, and trying to turn an idea into something playable.
But that attention can gradually influence more than what you post. It can begin to influence what you build.
A visually impressive feature receives more interest than a system you spent weeks developing. A funny bug attracts more attention than an important milestone. One particular style of content performs well, so you make more of it. That is understandable. When something connects with people, you naturally want to understand why.
The difficulty begins when that response becomes the main reason behind your next decision.
You start choosing tasks partly because they will make a good upload that people will engage with. You spend time polishing something for a video while another feature, essential to the game, waits unfinished. You feel reluctant to share quieter progress because you already expect it to be ignored. Slowly, the audience’s preferences begin taking up space once occupied by your own intentions.
No one has explicitly asked you to change your game. Yet you find yourself changing its direction to keep people interested.
For a solo developer, this can be especially difficult. You are already responsible for learning, implementation, debugging, design, and countless decisions. Sharing development adds another responsibility: presenting that work in a way people want to watch. Eventually, it can feel as though every development session must also produce something worth posting.
Some progress simply does not work that way.
An evening spent fixing an interaction problem may produce no striking footage. Reworking a confusing interface might look like a small change despite requiring considerable thought. Building a reliable foundation can take weeks before there is anything exciting to demonstrate. Those efforts still matter to the person who will eventually play the game, even when they attract little attention online.
The emotional difficulty comes when you begin using that attention to judge yourself.
It hurts to put care into something and receive almost no response. It can hurt even more when people previously engaged with your work, then lose interest as you return to the direction that makes you happy. You may start questioning your ability, your project, or whether the effort has any value at all.
For some developers, that pressure can contribute to exhaustion, low mood, and eventually the decision to stop. An activity that once offered encouragement becomes another place where they feel they are falling short. A passion once holding you together starts breaking you apart!
That possibility deserves an honest conversation. Building in public can bring connection and useful feedback, but it can also become emotionally draining when every post feels like a verdict on your future.
I still choose to share my development. I have not received all the interaction I hoped for, and I will not pretend that never disappoints me. Of course I want people to care. Sharing something personal usually carries the hope that someone else will find meaning in it.
But I also want to recognize my own game when I look at what I am building.
I want to make decisions because they serve the experience I imagined, while remaining open to feedback that can improve it. Players can reveal confusing mechanics, unclear information, or problems I have overlooked. Listening to them is valuable. I can take those observations seriously and still decide which suggestions belong in my project.
The same applies to posting. I want to share when I have something I feel ready to show. A regular schedule may help some developers, but I do not want mine to become an obligation that makes development feel like feeding a content calendar. Sometimes the work needs time, privacy, and room to be unfinished.
If you enjoy what I share, thank you. Your interest means something to me. If it does not appeal to you, I appreciate you taking a look. There is no formula that will make one game meaningful to everyone, and trying to find it could consume the very enthusiasm that made me start.
For me, continuing means accepting that some updates will receive little attention and some people will move on. I can feel disappointed without allowing that disappointment to choose the next feature.
I started with a game I wanted to create. Sharing the journey should leave enough room for me to keep creating it.
Top comments (1)
Really glad you wrote this. I think we sometimes get so caught up in getting people’s attention that we forget why we started building in the first place. It’s okay to want people to care about your work, but you shouldn’t have to change your vision just to keep them interested. Loved how honestly you shared your experience here.