Hi! 👋

You made it back here – welcome to my second devlog on this website. In Devlog #1 I told you how I quit my safe job, moved with my family, and officially started my journey as a full-time indie game developer on January 1st, 2026. Today, it’s less about the past and much more about what actually happened since then: my first serious mobile game project, the tools behind it, and how it feels to live this new indie-dev life day by day.

The First Weeks as a Full-Time Indie

The biggest change compared to my old life? There’s no 9-to-5 structure anymore, no boss, no automotive emails piling up – just me, my PC, my tools, and this big goal of paying my bills with games.

Financially, things are pretty intense right now. I currently live completely off my savings and what comes in from Twitch – subs, donations, all the little bits of support from the community. There is no side job and no freelance work quietly stabilizing things in the background. That’s honestly scary sometimes, but it’s also exactly the kind of pressure that reminds me every morning why I chose this path in the first place.

What makes all of this feel possible is you. Every follow, every message in chat, every bit of support doesn’t just feel like money on an account – it feels like you saying: “Hey, keep going, we believe in this journey.” Without that kind of support, staying focused and not freaking out over expenses would be much harder. ♥️

Pet Fusion City – My First Big Project

After Devlog #1, one big question was still open: What will be my first real game as a full-time indie?

For a long time, I had a roguelike similar idea in my head – something closer to what I personally love to play. But the deeper I went into planning and the reality of “I need to make a living from this,” the clearer it became: I need a project that’s not only creatively exciting, but also business-wise at least somewhat realistic.

That’s how Pet Fusion City was born.

The core idea: a cozy but addictive match-three mobile game where you’re not just clicking colorful tiles. You hatch pets, give them homes, and later fuse them into stronger companions that help you progress further. The goal is that you can play it in short breaks – on the couch, in the train, between tasks – and still feel like your little creatures are growing, evolving, and making steady progress with you.

Why match-three and why mobile? Because it’s one of the few spaces where we clearly see:

• There is a huge audience.
• The monetization patterns are proven.
• The chances of making something at least somewhat sustainable are higher than with a super niche PC experiment.

Instead of reinventing everything from scratch, I’m making a deliberately pragmatic decision here: Take a familiar base (match-three) and add my own twist on top (pet breeding, housing, fusion) to create something that feels both cozy and “just one more round…”.

Business Reality: Money, Assets & Priorities

When you live off savings and Twitch income only, every expense suddenly feels very real. I quickly realized I need to give every euro a clear “job”: What actually pushes the project forward – and what’s just a shiny distraction?

Right now, my biggest spending buckets look like this:

Streaming & video quality
Since a big part of my funding comes from Twitch and video content, having streams and videos that look and sound decent isn’t “luxury” – it’s part of the job.
Better camera, microphone, lighting – those are investments into visibility and, indirectly, into the game itself.

Assets & art
I’m not a naturally gifted artist. So instead of spending months on “decent” art, I consciously buy assets and complement them with AI-generated graphics where it makes sense. This saves time, reduces frustration, and lets me focus on design, code, and game feel.

Hardware & setup
When you’re developing, recording, rendering, and sometimes streaming on the same machine, stability is everything. I’m aiming for a setup with enough power to work efficiently – without going all-in on unnecessary high-end toys.

Every sub, every donation, every bit of support directly helps me pay for these things. It’s not some abstract “support the creator” message – it literally funds the assets, tools, and time that go into making Pet Fusion City a reality.

My Daily Toolbox – The Tech Stack

In my recent YouTube video I shared the tools I’m using for both game development and content creation. It might sound like pure nerd talk at first, but this toolbox is basically the foundation that allows me, as a solo dev, to stay productive without burning out.

Game Engine – Unity
I’ve tried several engines over time, but Unity currently feels like the best fit. The editor is intuitive, and coming from Java/C# made the transition feel natural. On top of that, I found some helpful Unity YouTube channels that make it easier to dive deeper into specific topics without feeling lost.

Coding – VS Code (with a small catch)
For coding, I use VS Code. It’s free, integrates nicely with Unity, and IntelliSense makes writing code a lot more pleasant. The only thing I’m still not fully happy with is the overall vibe of the editor – functionally great, but aesthetically not “perfectly me” yet. So if you know a cozy, motivating or just insanely good-looking VS Code theme: feel free to send it my way. 🙃

Graphics – Affinity instead of subscriptions
For graphics, I mostly need to tweak bought assets, polish AI-generated images a bit, remove backgrounds, adjust colors and fix small issues. For that, I’m using Affinity. It feels familiar, has exactly the tools I need, and most importantly: it’s free, not another subscription. For someone who isn’t a full-time artist but needs solid tools to get assets game-ready, it’s a great middle ground.

Recording & Editing – OBS + DaVinci Resolve
Since I’m already using OBS for streaming, it was a no-brainer to use it for recording as well. I know the scenes, the hotkeys, the settings – and I can reuse a similar setup for both Twitch and YouTube.

For editing I switched to DaVinci Resolve. The free version is incredibly powerful and covers everything I currently need for devlogs, tool videos, or future trailers. Together, OBS + Resolve give me a strong but budget-friendly content pipeline.

Organization – Notion as my second brain
All the loose notes, scattered documents and half-baked planning tools from the past are now consolidated into Notion: design docs, ideas, to-do lists, calendars, logs – everything lives in one connected workspace. As a solo dev, it’s incredibly calming to know that I don’t have to juggle everything in my head anymore.

Cloud & Storage – pCloud
Storage and backups are the kind of problems you only really think about once something goes wrong. To avoid that, I’m using pCloud.

Why I like it:
• I pay once, not every month.
• It works like a virtual drive, so I can keep local SSD space free.
• It offers encrypted cloud folders for my project data.

I also share an affiliate link for pCloud – if someone signs up through that, it supports my journey a little bit without costing them extra.

Get your pCloud here

What I Actually Worked on for the Project

If I had to summarize the last weeks in one sentence, I’d say: I’ve been laying foundations.

• I committed to Pet Fusion City as my first serious project and sharpened the game’s vision: cozy match-three, short sessions, long-term progression through pets, housing and fusion mechanics.
• I locked in my tool stack – engine, IDE, graphics, recording, organization and storage – to avoid constantly switching tools and losing momentum.
• I defined a resource strategy: buy and adapt assets, use AI where it makes sense, and invest my limited time into design, development and content.

That might not sound as flashy as “I finished 20 levels,” but without these decisions, any feature I build would rest on shaky ground. Now, it finally feels like I have a proper runway from which this project can actually take off.

What’s Coming Next

In one of the next devlogs, I want to dive deeper into the actual gameplay of Pet Fusion City: How does the match-three feel? How do the pets work exactly? What does a “typical day” in the game look like when you open it on your phone?

On top of that, I’d love to show more of the real day-to-day as a full-time indie – not just the highlights, but also the days where nothing works, builds crash, or I question if this will really work out. I think that kind of honesty is what makes this journey relatable, and maybe a bit inspiring for others who are thinking about similar steps.

Thank You for Being Part of This Journey ♥️

If you’ve read this far: thank you. Seriously. Every click on this devlog, every minute in my streams, every comment under a video – all of that tells me I’m not walking this path alone.

If you want to support this journey, you can:
• hang out in my Twitch coworking streams,
• subscribe to my YouTube channel and share the videos,
• or send this devlog to someone who’s into indie dev stories.

The more people join this journey, the higher the chance that Pet Fusion City won’t just stay a project on my hard drive, but turns into a game you actually open on your phone “just for a quick round”… and then stay longer than planned. 😁

See you in the next devlog,
– Mathias

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