Solo developers struggle with game engine complexity
19 posts across 5 communities in the last 30 days; 32% from r/gamedev.
“Building a custom engine for a one-hour indie horror game sounds like a terrible scope decision. And honestly, at first it probably was. But the architecture ended up solving a problem I kept running into: I didn’t want every scare, door, conversation, puzzle, and scripted event…”
“That's one huge downside of solo development. There's just nobody around to teach you such obvious things. You just have to stumble upon them by accident lol I discovered this one while trying to figure out how to have 2 bloom effects at once (it's impossible to do in Unity).”
“Hey everyone! I’m still a bit in shock, but I recently sat down with Unity to break down my workflow and tech stack for porting Foxy Dumplings across platforms as a solo dev/tech pipeline lead. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen, but Unity reached out to…”
Independent developers are building entire game engines, renderers, and audio systems from scratch, often in languages like Kotlin. This highlights the challenges of solo development and the need for specialized skills.
SOURCES (24)
“I'm the solo dev. In HATCHED you hatch as a tiny creature, fight and eat to grow, and every boss you beat lets you evolve. You pick from three choices and watch your body change. Everything is built in Unity, and the creatures and their…”
“Hey everyone! I’m still a bit in shock, but I recently sat down with Unity to break down my workflow and tech stack for porting Foxy Dumplings across platforms as a solo dev/tech pipeline lead. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen, but Unity reached out to interview me about how I single-handedly manage porting Foxy Dumplings to multiple consoles and platforms. I've paste the direct link to the article. Happy to answer any questions about the porting process or our pipeline i”
“I'm a solo dev making a game about cryptids called We Don't Exist! It's a 2.5D story-driven adventure game made in Unreal Engine 5. I have an artist/animator background and am doing everything myself! If you like the look there's a longer cut of the trailer on YouTube and the game's Steam page . Thanks for checking it out!! Hope there's some cryptid fans in here! submitted by /u/Versiris [link] [comments]”
“The Last Thirst, devlog #1. A lot has changed since the last build: new art, new enemies, new levels. Solo dev, Unity 6. submitted by /u/LoosePreparation4823 [link] [comments]”
“I want to build a game and already started programming and I‘d like you to tell me if you find these requirements realistic (I have more ideas but that should be the basics): Platforms: Mobie Computer Console Microwave Genre: Open World + RPG Engine: UE Graphical assets: Blender Style: 3D Anime Multiplayer: Muliplayer story completion Tournaments: PvP arenas (included in the tournaments): 1v1 2v2 5v5 10v10 No internet singleplayer option Character's amount: 10 Chapters for every character: 1”
“Hi Gamedevs, I've been working on a Unity project for the last 4-ish months, and I think I finally really understand the two most common pieces of gamedev advice that I've seen: Separate game logic from visuals Build a prototype, then start the real game from scratch I just spent the last couple of weeks refactoring my game (#2!) using a model-view-component architecture (#1!), and I thought it would be useful to share some concrete details for this abstract advice. I also have some diag”
“I’ve been building Veldeth for about a year, including its custom engine. I put together this short video to show where the game is now. It’s still a work in progress, and I’d love to hear what stands out to other devs. submitted by /u/Outside_Raise5722 [link] [comments]”
“Side project I've been shipping for a while: Velocity Unleashed, a 3D arcade racer for iOS. The contrarian bet: no game engine at all. Pure Swift 5.9, SceneKit + Metal rendering, SwiftUI overlays, and a custom 240Hz deterministic physics engine. It runs 120fps on ProMotion iPhones with zero third-party runtime. A few things I learned: - Deterministic 240Hz fixed-step physics was the only way to make P2P multiplayer feel right — 32-byte binary telemetry + dead reckoning over MultipeerConnecti”
“doing all that solo in blender is no joke, the modelling alone eats up so much time. 15-20 min episodes is wild commitment, how you keeping track of all the voice tweaks for each character? i mix up two and my brain fries your shorts strategy is smart, pulling clips from long episodes is basically free promotion if the hook is good. checked the teaser and the world looks interesting, got that classic fantasy vibe but with its own thing going on [re: Self-Introduction Saturday! Tell us all about”
“Last year I discovered how to shade seeded skins into 2d assets with Godot without a player having to hold GBs of 8K textures on his graphics card. After working out some math with NumPy variables, I also discovered that I could generate dozen textures with code without relaying on Generative Image to do it, including famous ones like Case Hardened. Generative AI disclaimer: The game themes are not generated by AI. The game uses AI placeholders for Adhesives, Boss Sprite, Case Masks. Slowly lear”
“Building a custom engine for a one-hour indie horror game sounds like a terrible scope decision. And honestly, at first it probably was. But the architecture ended up solving a problem I kept running into: I didn’t want every scare, door, conversation, puzzle, and scripted event hardcoded into the level. So I separated the game into three pieces: Stage: the 3D environment Script: a declarative story.json Engine: a runtime that interprets the story The engine now understands 77 different types of”
“I'm the developer of Slither World. It uses the familiar snake-game loop of eating, growing, boosting, and cutting off other players, but the arena is the surface of a small 3D planet. The main design twist is judging routes as the ground curves away from you. Infinite keeps the grow-and-survive loop, while Free-for-all and Trios Battle Royale add a shrinking storm and throwable items. It runs in desktop and phone browsers, with no download or account needed to start. Playable link: https://”
“Hi all, I am developing a game for fun using my own custom game engine (C++ and OpenGL). I have been working on this game (and the engine) for 4 years now. I'm a French software engineer working for an American company, so this project is not a full-time job. I can only work on it during my free time after work or on weekends. I am not doing this for money, I just want people to play my game and enjoy it when it's ready. I think I still have about one year of development left to get a fu”
“I made my own engine in Java using LWJGL3 for the base library. Took me a few months to get everything up and running properly and then I took a 3 year gap from doing anything game dev related because my job was sucking everything out of me. I came back a month ago and have exploded with progress. I was able to add instanced rendering and make my performance really good with some culling as well. I'm currently working on the AI. It's a 2.5D roguelike with combat similar to Balder's G”
“I have game done from gameplay and story perspective. However, old graphics was terrible and criticised (here on Reddit most), so I was working on new editor which allowed me to better address visual part. In the video are first levels with new visual update. For reference, how game looked before, check my old posts through my bio or Steam page (where I still have old screenshots). I was planning 2026 release but will not make it. But I want at least demo this year. Check Steam page for the game”
“I am a solo developer with a 20 year background in art, music and game design, I'm releasing my first game as a solo in early access next year. I design my systems documentation and use agents to build the game for me in a custom inhouse engine we have been developing over the last year. OST is a mixture of my own music production and some ai extensions and refinements using suno V6, it does well when you have hand made stems to refer to. submitted by /u/InitialCreature [link] &#”
“I’m a solo dev building a physics-driven action roguelike where players pilot customizable battle-top mechs. A lot of the challenge is making collisions, momentum, steering, verticality, and weird emergent interactions feel satisfying. That is the part I love working on. But lately, I’ve had several days in a row consumed by coordinating artists and contractors, reviewing character designs, organizing playtests, analyzing feedback, writing briefs, planning marketing, and handling the business si”
“Solo dev. Viperix: Snake Arena went live on Google Play last week. No engine - I wrote the OpenGL ES renderer and the audio engine myself, in Kotlin. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.viperix.game Circular slither-style arena. You grow by eating what is left when someone crashes. 20 named bots that play their own game instead of homing straight at you. Power-ups, and gold coins that buy 132 skins across 11 themes, one of which trails toxic gas that pushes rivals away. 24 language”
“That's one huge downside of solo development. There's just nobody around to teach you such obvious things. You just have to stumble upon them by accident lol I discovered this one while trying to figure out how to have 2 bloom effects at once (it's impossible to do in Unity). submitted by /u/Luv3ndr [link] [comments]”