# Indie developers who finished their first game: What actually got you to the finish line? 

**URL:** <https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/indie-developers-who-finished-their-first-game-what-actually-got-you-to-the-finish-line/2855388>\
**Category:** Game Production\
**Tags:** unreal-engine\
**Created:** [November 13, 2026, 4:50pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/indie-developers-who-finished-their-first-game-what-actually-got-you-to-the-finish-line/2855388 "2026-11-13T16:50:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![3Metamorphosis](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@3Metamorphosis](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/3Metamorphosis)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2026, 4:50pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/indie-developers-who-finished-their-first-game-what-actually-got-you-to-the-finish-line/2855388/1 "2026-11-13T16:50:17Z")

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I’ve been working on my first horror survival game for about a year now in Unreal Engine, and I’m currently aiming for an Early Access release on Steam around February 2028.

This will be the first game I’ve ever released if I succeed in getting it across the finish line.

I’m curious to hear from indie developers who have already done this. How long did it take you to go from the original idea or plan to something you felt was actually ready to release?

More importantly, what helped you **finish**?

Were there things you eventually had to stop adding? Did you reduce scope? How did you decide what absolutely needed to be completed for Early Access versus what could wait until later?

One thing I’ve been trying to do differently is deal with technical problems as I build rather than leaving everything until the end. I regularly test performance, package builds, investigate problems when they appear, and I’ve even been working with PSO caching when needed. My thinking is that I’d rather eliminate performance and development problems along the way than allow them to become a huge burden near release.

At the same time, after working on something this large for a year, there are definitely moments when I wonder whether I’ll actually make it to the finish line.

So for those of you who **did** :

**What mattered the most?**

What would you tell someone working on their first serious indie game to focus on, and what would you tell them _not_ to spend too much time worrying about?

I’d especially love to hear from solo developers or very small teams who made it through development and reached Early Access or a full release.