Many gamers dream of getting into games development, and for some, that dream can become a reality. Increasing numbers of universities are offering games design and development courses, more countries are considering tax relief for developers, and platforms like Android and iOS are showing that it doesn’t take a huge team and a ridiculous budget to produce a classic, best-selling game. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few tips on where to go, so we’ve contacted a couple of indie developers and asked them: if you could give one piece of advice to indie developers starting a new game, what would it be?

“Keep the idea simple,” starts Jens Nilsson, CEO of Frictional Games. His team are responsible for the Penumbra trilogy, as well as cult hit Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which was developed by five people and released last year. “It has to be a simple idea, because it has to be that just a few people can make it, and it has to be a unique idea, because there are a lot of games. If you keep everything simple, then you will be able to improve on that simple idea to make it really good, instead of having a complicated idea and making it come out really bad because you cannot finish it.”

His sentiment is mirrored by Martin Wahlund, CEO of Fatshark. Fatshark and Frictional are both independent developers from Sweden, but despite some similarities between the two teams, they are both very distinct. One clear difference is their views on publishers: Frictional are big proponents of self-publishing, whereas Fatshark rely on a larger publisher. Frictional are also exclusively computer games developers, whereas Fatshark have worked with PlayStation Network and Xbox Live games.

“Be patient, and limit your scope. Try to find an idea that you love, but try to do it in steps,” recommends Wahlund, whose team’s latest project is a multiplayer war game based on the War of the Roses. “Limit your scope: do one part of the game, and see how it performs. It’s very easy to over-commit, and you want to do everything in one single game, but that’s not going to happen. You don’t have the budget or the time to do that sort of thing. Limit the scope and have patience, I think that’s key. And be creative, of course.”

If you’re interested in reading more of what Jens Nilsson and Martin Wahlund have to say, you can check out two of our features, in which we talk to the two about their experiences in independent games development and their upcoming projects. Our interview with Frictional Games’ Jens Nilsson can be found here, and our interview with Fatshark’s Martin Wahlund can be found here.