I’m Ian, and I’ve been Alec’s brother for as long as I can remember. I’m currently finishing up my computer science degree at the University of Manitoba and I’ve been working with Bit-Blot/Infinite Ammo for the past 4 months. I’ve always been passionate about video games, and to be able to work on them as a job is a pretty amazing experience. In the past, I’ve worked on flash animation, a webcomic, a number of websites, as well as a lot of coding, both for school and for various companies I’ve worked for.

But… enough about me. Since I figure this post should have some content worth reading, I guess I can talk about the differences between the work experience at Infinite Ammo versus some of the mainstream industry jobs I’ve worked at in the past. Hopefully it will paint some kind of picture of what to expect if you are thinking of going indie, or are trying to get into the field of game development.

A job with a large corporation is great if you want solid, steady work for solid, steady pay. You are guaranteed a salary, you are guaranteed that you will be given a set amount of work to do, and although outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular, you are usually guaranteed that you will be able to keep your job as long as you want it. The work will be straightforward and you will know what to expect from day to day. You will generally also only have a limited amount of responsibility and control over the work you do. You may be given options of which project you will work on, but typically this is a decision made by faceless people high up in the company.

Indie game development is very different, in contrast. Since you will most likely be starting your own company, or partnering up with some friends to work on games, you will have very little established in the way of organization and capital. Odds are you won’t get paid much (or at all) until you manage to convince someone to give you money, or you come up with a product. The workload will depend on what projects you have been offered, or have come across, and may be very high or very low depending on what you are involved with. Although this may sound like a lot more difficult job than being one of dozens of programmers working on a piece of enterprise software, working with a small team independently has many, many advantages.

The first is creative control. At most jobs (especially programming jobs), your job is to solve a particular problem using code, or to create a system which has been designed. However, when you are working with a small team, not only do you have a large amount of influence over what will end up being in the game, but your contributions, ideas and content will be at the forefront of the game. This allows you to (in part) personalize the game around your own ideas, stories and characters.

The second is the ability to manage yourself and work as a team of peers. Although in small teams you will often have one person who makes the final decisions and acts as a leader in discussions, everyone working on the project will get to have a say in how the project will be designed and completed. This means that the people who are directly working on your project (ie not managing) will be the ones coming up with the ideas, design and feel. This direct connection is a great way to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the art and the music and the content is consistent with the proposed design.

There are of course many other advantages, which I will not go into in detail, due to a combination of laziness and trying to avoid creating a wall of text. This post is based only on my personal experiences and obviously not everyone will share my opinions. I merely believe that it is important to consider working with a smaller independent team. It is a very fun experience and allows for a LOT more creative freedom than your average industry job. You can also be very successful, and all this requires is a decent team with decent experience, and the drive to work hard enough to finish your product. To be clear, I’m in no way the master of indie game development, this is just based on what I’ve seen in the industry.

So here’s the plan. I’m going to post here, regularly, maybe about once a week or so, through the medium of COMICS so I can show you guys cool stuff with pictures, so you don’t have to read so much.

Because, honestly? Reading’s lame. We all know that.