u/Longjumping-Run7838

I run a small community where we host a showcase every day. Indie devs hop on, show their game, and get some honest feedback and encouragement from people who actually care about this stuff. I'm not a dev myself, I just love being around it.

The other day one of the devs who showed up completely caught me off guard. His name's Owen building a farming sandbox with action and exploration called Treasures of Maipo.

Turns out he used to be an architect, he was using game engines just to make renders for clients, got obsessed with them, and eventually decided to go build his own game. Without anyone to teach him, he taught himself everything from tutorials and quietly worked on it for five years.

Then he showed us the demo. Farming sandbox with some action and exploration to it. And it felt genuinely amazing. The world looks beautiful and has a lot of breadth to it. You help your grandpa repay a debt and rebuild the place.

It stuck with me, because there are clearly so many people out there doing exactly this, heads down for years on something they believe in, mostly in silence.

So I wanted to ask the devs here, how long have you been building your game? And if you've shipped or you're close, what does that timeline actually look like behind the scenes? Five years like Owen? More? Are you stressed? What inspired you? I would love to know literally everything!

Would genuinely love to hear you guys and if you need any feedback for your game, I am just a DM away.

Last week I finished a game and then I was just stuck. Spent so much time searching on Steam, asking friends, scrolling YouTube just trying to figure out what to play next. Got like three or four recommendations and still couldn't pick any of them.

It's not that there's nothing to play. There's actually too much. And nothing feels right.

Does this happen to you guys? How do you get out of it?.

Last week I finished a game and then I was just stuck. Spent so much time searching on Steam, asking friends, scrolling YouTube just trying to figure out what to play next. Got like three or four recommendations and still couldn't pick any of them.

It's not that there's nothing to play. There's actually too much. And nothing feels right.

Does this happen to you guys? How do you get out of it?.