How we funded our puzzle game
My name is Muhammad Fermli. I’m the art director at Kiddo Education, an indie studio we started just a year ago. I’m writing this because honestly, indie game development is exhausting. If you’re sitting there right now working on your own game, or any project really, and you feel like you're completely drowning or losing your mind, I wanted to share our story. Maybe it’ll help someone who is trying to make their ideas come to life.
A year ago, our founder, Kawtar Jalili, and I started building our title, Mathpunk Chronicles. We genuinely had no idea how to tackle something this massive in a country where the gaming industry is very very small. In the beginning, it was just the two of us. I was doing almost all the art, sketching out pitches, and creating anything visual to sell the idea. Kawtar was grinding through the management, the documents, the endless emails, and basically everything else. It was incredibly stressful and it took us so much time just to put something together.
The very first thing we did, and what I think everyone should do, was to make sure your game can be introduced in one sentence, if you can't describe your game or business in general in one sentence, you need to rethink it. For us, it was simple: a puzzle RPG for math enthusiasts. Straight to the point.
Once we had that, we focused heavily on the educational side. In Morocco, the government is always looking to fund projects that have to do with education, so we tried to make the pitch as appealing as possible. Kawtar has been an educator for half her life, she had the credibility to back it up when we presented it. If you're making a standard puzzle game, credibility might not matter as much, but if you're doing something niche or educational, find what makes your team uniquely qualified and scream it from the rooftops.
And please, if you have even a little bit of funding, invest in your game´s art and please don´t use AI, investors and gamers can sniff AI art from miles away, you could have the best next game but it will look so cheaply made if you use Ai for your art. I see so many young indie devs focus entirely on mechanics and completely neglect how the game looks. There's nothing wrong with great mechanics, but whatever you are showing people, it has to look pretty. Beautiful art will carry your vision when the rest of the game is still just a rough prototype. It costs money, but it 100% sells the idea.
we spammed emails, kawtar sent more than 20 emails a day, we tried to talk to anyone who would consider putting some money into the studio , but one thing that we did that anyone could do is that we applied for a booth at the Morocco Gaming Expo, MGE. Anyone can apply, it happens every year, there are many events all over the world, find events that are close to you, they are a great place to meet investors, skilled people and get some eyes on your game. for us, it was the perfect opportunity. Once we were in the event, we just talked to everyone about our game until we finally found people who believed in us.
That booth secured us the funding we desperately needed. Suddenly, we could hire devs, animators, musicians, and game designers, skills we just didn't have in our own arsenal. It really goes back to that old saying, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.
But, hiring was a nightmare. It is so incredibly hard to find people who will actually believe in your dream and put in the work required to pull it off. We had people straight up walk out on the team at the most crucial, high stress parts of development. It was devastating and so hard to manage. If you are trying to hire, please look at personality and excitement before you look at raw skill. See if they actually care about the project, because that passion is what keeps them there when things get tough.
Somehow, we managed to get through all of it. A year later, we returned to MGE26 with a real, testable demo, and we finally made it onto Steam.
Looking back at the sleepless nights, the crazy amount of presentations, and the literal mountain of NOs we got from people, it was all worth it. Our team is 10 people strong now, and we are all doing something we genuinely love. We’re building something that makes us happy, and at the end of the day, that's what matters.
If you’re an indie dev reading this, please keep going. Do what you love, surround yourself with passionate people, and have patience. Nothing is guaranteed in this world, but as long as you have a team that sticks together, you’ll find a way to make it work.
We’re going to keep pushing Mathpunk Chronicles forward, and we’d love to have you along for the ride. if you have any questions or you need help with literally anything we will do our best to help you out.
and please keep working on your game, it´s worth it at the end.
our discord community: https://discord.gg/vx2kGZBs