[q_andrew]

Hi Evan, I enjoyed this blog post a lot. I released my first indie game this February, after working on it since graduating college. It has made 3x my normal job's salary -- I'm still torn about whether to make a sequel and go full time, or stick with my usual 9 to 5. Let me know if you have any good tips!

I think gamedev was also a very big escape for me since middle school, and your post reminded me a lot of those dark times.

I also agree that games are an art, I went from drawing -> modeling -> rendering -> programming, so it was easier for me to reach those conclusions.

Making a game to show off your cleverness is definitely not the best motivation, but I have found that it can improve the game's "experience" if you can harness that feeling. Straddling the line between personal interest, feasibility, and market value is maybe the most important thing to get right as a solo developer in my opinion. I could see developers who got lucky with their obsessions getting absolutely devastated with their lack of hits afterwards (something I'm afraid of doing myself!).

The comment about the twitter gamedev scene being driven by terminally online people is very accurate, although I still admire some of the more educational/resource oriented ones for their sheer willpower.