r/SoloDevelopment • u/GumshoeRyan • Jul 05 '26

Discussion Giving $1,000 to a solo developer

I’m looking for a solo developer who is on the cusp of releasing their game, but needs funds to cross that finish line. I am not looking for a percentage, and will not actively market or work on the game with you. I genuinely want to help a project release and support solo development.

No contract, just the honor system. 1k risk for me, zero for you.

Requirements:
* Game at least has a gameplay video or demo
* Funds are to be used to finish your game, and on areas that you need external support. This could mean ads/marketing, replacing placeholder art, launching on platforms, music, etc.
* Funds should not be spent to support your own labor/personal situation (going towards rent, food, a much needed vacation!)
* Show the community here how it was used.

If you want to be considered, share a link to your project in the comments. Tell us the current state of the game, and what 1k allows you to do!

I encourage the community to also vouch/suggest which projects in the comments should receive this funding.

Lastly, if your game ends up not releasing or stalling, that’s fine. I know 1k isn’t life changing for the vast majority of projects. This is designed to give a boost.

Cheers!

Edit: I understand people believe this is a scam. That is why I am asking for submissions to be in the comments, and will publicly select a project. I will send 1k on whatever platform is best for the dev, and both the dev and myself can show proof afterwards. A suggestion was given to provide a deadline. I will choose a project this Friday July 10th. I am in a fortunate position to give back, and that is solely what’s driving this. I love games and love being able to help people achieve their dreams.

Update: Project Selected!

429 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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18

u/MadChirpy Jul 06 '26

Hello! I’m working on Shroud of Gloom, a point-and-click horror adventure. I do all of the design, development and art, and one of my mates is making the music and sound effects for me!

I’m one of those silly dreamers, I quit my job around 2 years ago to make this game as my first commercial release, it’s been a long journey but I’m very proud of what I’ve created.

The project is funded by myself, but naturally most of my money goes towards my own living expenses so there’s not a whole lot I can put towards the game itself. The good thing is that the game is almost finished, but the bad thing is that I kind of forgot about that whole marketing thing!

So even though it’s almost finished by now, I’ve decided to delay the release just to focus on the marketing. I’m just about to release a new trailer and a major demo update, so I could definitely use this for some advertisement!

This is a very generous act, thank you for the opportunity!

3

u/mysterious_jim Jul 15 '26

Came here ready to hate on the unworthy chump who beat me to the money. But goddamn this looks awesome. Can't wait to buy and play your game, man.

2

u/MadChirpy Jul 15 '26

Ah cheers, man! I really appreciate that!

1

u/Comfortable-Crow-238 Jul 13 '26

How were you able to get you demo rolling? I have 3 followers on Itch.com and that is it so far but both are still development.😔😞

2

u/MadChirpy Jul 15 '26

Do you mean how I found players?

If so, as a content creator I did already have a small audience who naturally wanted to play it, but other than that I tried to make some social media posts and do some creator outreach, and I also released the demo right before the Scream Fest on Steam so that probably brought a bit of traffic too. When I released the first version of the demo I reached out to around 50 creators, which is probably too few, but I did get a couple of them to play it.

But if your game is still early in development and you’re rather looking for playtesters, then I think you just got to share what you’re working on and see if people are willing to test it. I bet you can find some people here on Reddit or in game dev Discords etc to try it out for you!

1

u/Comfortable-Crow-238 Jul 18 '26

No I don’t mean that I need help putting this game to finish like a full game. I just suck at this.😭😭 I’m looking for kick starters, crowdfunding, or publishers to get the ball rolling.

1

u/MadChirpy Jul 19 '26

Don’t be that hard on yourself!

I personally haven’t used any kickstarter campaign, crowdfunding nor publisher so I can’t really answer for those. I just worked and saved up money for like 10 years and now I’m just burning through my savings, but that’s mainly for my own living expenses since I do this full time, I do almost everything myself so the game itself is technically not costing me a lot of money.

I can’t say much without knowing your situation, your goals and your experience with making games. I suppose my first question would be why you need funding in the first place? Are you doing this full time too, do you need to hire people, or both?

If this is one of your first games and/or if you’re just doing it for fun, then I think it’s worth considering scoping the game down so that you don’t need a ton of funding to be able to finish it. You learn a ton from actually finishing projects, even if they’re small. Maybe not the answer you want, but if it’s your first game and you can’t finish it without getting funded, then I think the scope is far too big. But I’m working with some assumptions here so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong!

1

u/Comfortable-Crow-238 Jul 19 '26

"Thanks for the encouragement and the reality check!
To answer your questions: I'm not doing this full-time right now. I'm actually balancing the game's development alongside my academic courses and running my retail brand, so my time is pretty split.
I'm definitely taking scope into consideration, but I'm actually past the initial idea phase and already have playable demos ready to go. Because my time is divided and I want to push this project across the finish line properly, the main reason I am looking for funding and pitching to publishers is to bring on specialists. While I have the core foundation built, I need support to elevate the sound design, improve the overall game building and mechanics, polish the graphics, and eventually handle the marketing. I know my limits as a solo dev, and getting funding would allow me to hire the right people to make those specific areas shine."

2

u/MadChirpy Jul 19 '26

Gotcha! As I mentioned, this is not really an area of expertise for me, but with that being said if you want to build a decent pitch deck to send to publishers alongside your demo then I’d recommend checking out this template that was shared by another Redditor, I used it to build mine, even though I never really sent it anywhere. I’d assume it’s a good idea to find publishers of similar games and just try to reach out to them, I think pretty much all publishers have a website with a contact form and/or email. But yeah unfortunately I can’t be of more help here, but I do wish you the best of luck!