Free Game Legiones Galacticas

Question

The Reality of Modern Indie Development (And Why I Keep Making Games Purely for Passion)

When I started developing video games, I quickly realized a harsh truth: selling an indie game today is incredibly difficult. The market is saturated, and in my personal opinion, if you really want commercial success, the only realistic path is through a publisher.

I’ve developed several games (which I’ll talk about later, like my upcoming post on RoboFigther!), but I’ve never sold a single one. And honestly, it’s the best decision I’ve ever made. Developing purely as a hobby and out of passion has given me a freedom that commercial development often destroys.

From this philosophy, my latest project was born: Legiones Galácticas: Hijos de la Furia, a vertical-scrolling arcade shoot 'em up developed entirely in HTML5.

https://coderlegion.com/30663/legiones-galacticas

After months of writing code, tweaking mechanics, and balancing difficulty, here are the 4 biggest lessons I’ve learned from making games just for the love of the craft:

1. Creative freedom is priceless
By not having to worry about monetization, in-app purchases, or user retention metrics, I was able to focus on the only thing that mattered: making a fun game. I wanted frantic action, waves of UFOs, asteroids, and lasers, and that’s exactly what I built. No compromises.

2. The magic of "Zero Friction" (Why I chose HTML5)
Nowadays, asking a player to download and install an unknown indie game is asking too much. I chose to develop Legiones Galácticas in HTML5 to remove that barrier. I wanted anyone to be able to click a link and, in two seconds, be piloting a spaceship from their browser, with no downloads or endless loading times.

3. The challenge of balancing difficulty
Making an arcade game is easy; making a fair arcade game is very hard. Learning how to program difficulty progression, shield spawns, and weapon upgrades (from burst fire to continuous lasers) taught me a lot about level design and user experience.

4. Accept that marketing is a different world
Since I’m not looking for sales, my "marketing" simply consists of sharing what I do with developer communities like this one. There is no pressure, no stress over ROI. Just the pure satisfaction of seeing others enjoy something you built from scratch.

Creating video games is a massive technical challenge, but enormously rewarding. Legiones Galácticas is my little love letter to classic arcade cabinets. It is a completely free game, and you can play it directly from your browser here:
👉 https://sites.google.com/view/nekagames-es/videojuegos/legiones-galácticas

I’d love to hear what the rest of the community thinks: Do you develop with the hope of selling and making a living out of it, or do you also do it purely out of passion and as a hobby like me? Let me know in the comments!