Starting an Indie Game Studio - Passion, Strategy, and the Art of Frictionless Media

In 2019, long before the pandemic reshaped the world, Untitled Game Studios (UGS) was born, not out of funding or a fancy business plan, but from pure passion and creativity. Fresh out of college and eager to make our mark in game design, my co-founder, Kaado, and I realized that we didn’t need big investors to start making games. What we needed was time, patience, and the willingness to embrace the power of frictionless media.

The Early Days Like many indie game studios, UGS began with no budget (and kind of still is, lol). We were just a few college friends frustrated with the typical “make money” mentality that surrounded us in our master’s program. We were more interested in the art of storytelling and creating games that we loved. That’s how we got the ball rolling.

Our first major project, Eksauria, was overly ambitious (as most first projects tend to be) with dragons, gnomes, Daleks, and mind-bending plot twists. But more important than the scale of the game was the realization that we needed to be more than just a team working on a project. We needed a brand, a name, and documentation.

That’s when the idea of Untitled Game Studios clicked. It wasn’t fancy, but it represented exactly what we were: a group focused on creating games, not marketing gimmicks. It was a move that allowed us to focus our time and energy on making the games we wanted, without getting bogged down by traditional studio pressures.

Frictionless Media: What It Means and Why It Matters What is frictionless media? Essentially, it’s about reducing the barriers to content creation and distribution and most of all NO ADS, no paid promotion. You don’t need to follow traditional rules to start a studio. In our case, we leveraged free tools like Godot for development and hosted live Devlog streams to keep our audience engaged and excited about our projects. The barriers to entry are lower than ever, and you can start building your own indie game studio with just a few friends and the right strategy.

The key to frictionless media is understanding that content is everywhere. Every step of the game development process, from ideation to release, can be turned into engaging media that builds your brand, keeps your audience informed, and, most importantly, builds anticipation for your games.

For example, our Devlog streams didn’t just serve as progress updates; they became opportunities to build community, receive feedback, and gain support—all while creating consistent content for our brand.

From Eksauria to Droian: Building a Game That Matters After Eksauria, we began work on Redrun, a Halloween-themed game jam-style project that eventually grew bigger than we ever anticipated. But it wasn’t until Droian — a game we initially started out of desperation — that we truly found our footing. With Droian, we learned the importance of focus and intentional design.

What started as a small, focused project has turned into something that we are incredibly proud of a game that is sharp, professional, and full of heart. We’ve been developing Droian ever since, and we’re closer than ever to releasing our first full game. Along the way, we’ve shared the process with our community, turning each step of development into engaging content through our website and Devlogs.

You Don’t Need Money. Just Time and Strategy The lesson we’ve learned in this journey is simple: You don’t need a ton of money to start an indie game studio. What you need is passion, time, and strategy. Leverage the tools that are available for free or at low cost. Use frictionless media to your advantage. Turn every step of your process into content that connects with your audience, and most importantly, stay true to why you started in the first place—to make the games you love.

To learn more about the process of starting Untitled Game Studios, check out our full video here, and don’t forget to visit our website for more updates on our games and ongoing projects.