GameCareerGuide Feature: What I Learned As An Indie

Radon Labs associate producer Tobias Heussner recounts the evolution of his career, from student to indie to pro in this seven-plus year narrative, explaining the pitfalls and advantages he uncovered over his years of career evolution. "My story starts many years ago in a small town in Germany with two other students. We had all been interested in game development and most of us had already developed smaller designs and demos. Together, we decided to take our hobby to the next level and founded the indie development group Tricium Factory," begins Heussner. "As an indie developer, I had more chances to try out different fields, which helped me to find my personal expertise. It is still helpful today, when I have to talk with artists or programmers. I'd never been a professional artist or programmer, but I learned to review code, to outline my ideas, and most importantly I learned how to communicate with these different professionals," says Heussner, of the advantages. However, he says, there are downsides, too: "The biggest problem you most likely will encounter is the problem not to have enough manpower and/or experience to write a complete toolset and game engine right away and maybe you also encounter the problem not to have a skilled team member for a certain task in your team." You can read the full feature, which is published today on Gamasutra's education-focused sister site, GameCareerGuide.