[Vaskivo]

It all started with a game jam I did in April 2020. I enjoyed the result. And it kept popping back in my mind.

November 24th I picked it up again, full-time. I plublished One Way Dungeon last friday. So it was about five and a half month work. While I'm a professional (backend) software developer, and have played around with game dev, I never worked on and finished a game.

Last weekend I shared it with a small group of people (just to check everything was OK on their devices and with downloading it from Google Play.) And yesterday I started sharing it on the internet.

I don't have any concrete numbers to share. Google's reports are still a couple of days late. And I predict a spike on users starting yesterday.

I'm going back to a normal job because:

- I am unemployed. I have some savings but I don't want to spend more than I already have.

- I don't predict One Way Dungeon to generate enough income to keep me working on it indefinitely. I might be wrong. But competition in mobile gaming is fierce!

- I'm kinda missing working on backend. And working with people.

[legohead]

If possible I recommend applying for work at a mobile game company. Even as a backend dev you can learn a lot. There's a ton of interesting stuff to learn about game design, marketing, analytics, ads vs iap, etc.

[wheybags]

> competition in mobile gaming is fierce!

Curious as to why you decided to release on mobile, instead of a slightly friendlier platform like PC.

[Vaskivo]

Because the game design was better suited for mobile.

IMO, putting it on PC/console would require the game to be more complex. And allow for longer play sessions (it is a bit repettitive and grindy).

[halfmatthalfcat]

So you quit your job to work on this game full time and after 5 months, you're deciding to go back to work full time.

Did you quit your job with the hopes this game would sustain you? If so, did you do any market research to validate that hypothesis.

[bavila]

I'm inclined to think this was a labor of love, not profit.

There are people out there who quit their jobs to go backpacking on arduous trails for 5 months. It's long, hard work, but they do it for the other joys that come with the experience. And they do it all with the expectation of returning back to working life--not on cashing out. I don't see how what OP did is any different, other than it being a digital journey rather than a physical one.

Congrats, OP.

[Vaskivo]

It's just like @bavila said. I took some time to fulfill one of my life goals.

Some people quit their jobs and travel the world. I stayed home and made a game.

[halfmatthalfcat]

Cool, I just ask because I have similar aspirations and never was able to pull the trigger to quit out of fear of losing income/falling behind financially.