Zack Lovisa Software developer Start an estimate

Service

No. 004

Game Development

Playable early. Scoped to finish.

Browser and PC games, playable prototypes, and interactive builds. Four of my own are on the Work page, including 3D multiplayer in Godot.

  • Range $10,000 to $60,000
  • Typical timeline 8 to 30 weeks
  • Scope Fixed, in writing, before work starts

Playable prototype or vertical slice $10,000 to $20,000. Complete small commercial game $35,000 to $60,000 and up, driven mostly by art volume.

Good fit

Concept prototypes, browser games with a clear hook, and interactive builds with a fixed launch date.

Better options

Large multiplayer or open-world titles. Those need a studio and another zero on the budget, and I will say so before taking a deposit.

What it can do

4 examples

The parts of a game that decide whether it ships

Art and story are the visible half. These four are the half that determines whether there is anything to put art on.

  1. 1 Play a run Two minutes, no menus
  2. 2 Earn something Currency, a card, a scrap
  3. 3 Spend it A choice with a downside
  4. 4 Face something harder The reason to go again

If this circle is not fun with placeholder art, no amount of art will rescue it. It gets built first, every time.

The core loop

A game is one short cycle repeated until someone stops. Everything else, story, art, sound, menus, hangs off that cycle. Games die when the cycle is designed last.

You get a playable version of this in the first weeks, with squares for characters, so we can find out whether it holds up while it is still cheap to change.

Every panel above is a working demonstration, not a screenshot. Nothing here sends, saves, or charges anything.

The Work

Game development spans an enormous cost range. A polished browser game or a strong playable slice is a contained, achievable project. A full commercial title is a studio job measured in years. Working out which one you are asking for is the most valuable thing that happens on our first call.

What I build: browser and PC games, playable prototypes used to raise money or test a mechanic, interactive marketing pieces, and game systems inside otherwise ordinary software.

What I Have Shipped

My own projects are on the Work page rather than described in the abstract. A 3D multiplayer hide and seek in Godot using Steam lobbies so there are no server costs. A medieval base builder on an endless map where the population acts on its own. A roguelike auto battler whose combat runs and tests without a screen attached.

You can judge the reasoning behind them before you contact me, which is the point of publishing them.

Scope Discipline

Game projects die on scope, not on skill. The mechanic works, the feature list grows, and eighteen months later there is no game.

I scope hard toward something playable in the first weeks, and I will argue you out of features. On Tree Tag I threw away a working first attempt because the foundation was wrong, and rebuilt it one tested layer at a time. That call is why it is still moving. A developer who agrees to everything tends to deliver an unfinished project and a final invoice.

Cost Drivers

Art and content consume the budget. Programming is bounded and estimable. Levels, assets, audio, and balancing scale directly with how much game there is. Ten excellent minutes beat two hours of filler and cost a fraction as much.

Deliverables

Every project

  • Playable build in your hands within the first weeks Included
  • Core gameplay loop tuned before content scale-up Included
  • Web, mobile, or desktop distribution Included
  • Save systems, progression, and analytics Included
  • An asset pipeline your artists can use Included
  • Full project source, engine-agnostic where possible Included

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