A Framework That Actually Works
Our methodology combines startup ecosystem thinking with game development expertise. It's designed specifically for indie developers who need structure without losing creative freedom.
Back to HomeCore Principles That Guide Our Work
Our approach developed from years of working with indie developers and observing what separates successful projects from abandoned ones. These principles inform everything we do.
Structure Enables Creativity
Many developers fear that structure will constrain their creative vision. Our experience shows the opposite. Clear milestones and defined goals free your mind to focus on creative problem-solving rather than worrying about whether you're making real progress.
The framework provides rails that keep projects moving forward while leaving ample space for exploration and innovation within each milestone. You decide what to build; we help ensure you actually build it.
External Accountability Matters
Solo developers often struggle with accountability. Without colleagues or managers, it's easy to let projects drift or lose momentum during difficult phases. Regular milestone reviews create healthy external pressure that helps maintain consistency.
This isn't about judgment or pressure, it's about having someone who cares about your progress and expects updates. That simple expectation often makes the difference between pushing through obstacles and giving up.
Experience Accelerates Learning
You can learn game development through trial and error, but that path takes years and leads many developers to abandon promising projects. Working with someone who has already navigated these challenges compresses the learning timeline significantly.
Mentorship isn't about telling you exactly what to do, it's about helping you recognize patterns, avoid common pitfalls, and make informed decisions based on understanding rather than guesswork.
Community Amplifies Success
The European game development ecosystem offers resources, funding, and connections that individual developers struggle to access alone. Being part of this community opens doors and creates opportunities that emerge through relationships rather than formal applications.
We believe in sharing access to these networks. When developers succeed and contribute back to the community, the entire ecosystem strengthens. This collaborative approach reflects Berlin's startup culture.
The Thornberry Method
Our framework breaks game development into manageable phases with clear objectives and built-in flexibility. Each phase builds on the previous one while adapting to your project's unique needs.
Phase 1: Foundation & Clarity
What Happens
We start by understanding your vision, current progress, and specific challenges. Together we identify core mechanics, define your target audience, and establish what success looks like for this project. This clarity forms the foundation for everything that follows.
You'll create documentation that captures your vision in concrete terms. This isn't bureaucracy; it's thinking through critical decisions before they become expensive problems later in development.
Key Outcomes
- Clear project scope and realistic timeline
- Documented vision that guides decisions
- First milestone with specific deliverables
- Established communication rhythm
Phase 2: Core Development & Iteration
What Happens
This is the main building phase where your game takes shape. You work through milestones systematically, solving problems as they arise with regular guidance. We review progress, identify obstacles early, and adjust plans when reality diverges from expectations.
Development rarely goes exactly as planned. Our framework expects this and provides tools for adapting without losing overall direction. You learn to distinguish between problems requiring course correction versus normal development challenges.
Key Outcomes
- Steady progress on core mechanics
- Problem-solving skills development
- Playable prototype with core loop
- Growing confidence in capabilities
Phase 3: Polish & Refinement
What Happens
With core mechanics working, attention shifts to feel, balance, and presentation. Playtesting reveals what's working and what needs adjustment. This phase transforms functional games into polished experiences that players enjoy.
Polish isn't about perfection; it's about making deliberate choices regarding where to invest effort for maximum impact. We help you identify the elements that most affect player experience and focus refinement there.
Key Outcomes
- Refined player experience through testing
- Balanced difficulty and pacing
- Cohesive audio-visual presentation
- Bug fixes and performance optimization
Phase 4: Launch Preparation & Marketing
What Happens
Marketing becomes concrete as launch approaches. You develop store pages, create promotional materials, and plan your launch strategy. If pitching to publishers, we help prepare compelling presentations that highlight your game's commercial potential.
Many developers underestimate the work required for effective launches. This phase ensures you're prepared rather than scrambling. We help you understand platform requirements, timing considerations, and realistic expectations for different launch strategies.
Key Outcomes
- Compelling store page and materials
- Launch strategy with clear timeline
- Press kit and outreach plan
- Pitch deck if seeking publishing
Evidence-Based Practices
Our methodology incorporates principles from project management research, creative process studies, and startup ecosystem practices. These aren't academic theories; they're practical frameworks proven in real development contexts.
Milestone-Based Development
Research on creative project completion consistently shows that breaking large projects into smaller milestones with clear deliverables significantly improves completion rates. This approach reduces cognitive load and provides regular achievement feedback that maintains motivation.
Our milestone framework adapts these principles specifically for game development, accounting for the iterative nature of creative work while maintaining forward momentum.
Structured Mentorship
Studies of skill acquisition demonstrate that deliberate practice with expert feedback accelerates learning dramatically compared to self-directed trial and error. Regular review sessions provide this feedback loop, helping developers recognize patterns and develop judgment faster.
We schedule reviews at intervals that balance providing guidance with allowing independent work, optimizing the learning curve without creating dependency.
Community Integration
Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems shows that network effects and peer learning contribute significantly to venture success. Developers benefit not just from direct mentorship but from exposure to broader communities of practice.
Our network service facilitates these connections strategically, introducing developers to relevant communities where they can both learn and contribute.
Scope Management
Project management literature emphasizes the importance of scope control in preventing project failure. Games particularly suffer from scope creep as developers continually imagine new features. Our framework includes explicit scope management practices.
We help developers distinguish between core features necessary for their vision and nice-to-haves that can wait for updates, preventing the feature bloat that derails many indie projects.
Where Other Approaches Come Up Short
Understanding why many indie developers struggle helps explain why structured support makes such a significant difference. These aren't failures of talent or dedication, they're systemic challenges that require specific solutions.
Solo Development Without Structure
Many developers work alone without external accountability or structured frameworks. While this offers complete creative freedom, it often leads to projects that drift, lose momentum, or never reach completion. The isolation makes it difficult to maintain perspective and identify when problems require course correction versus persistence.
Generic Business Advice
Standard startup advice rarely translates well to game development. Games have unique economics, distribution channels, and creative considerations that generic business frameworks don't address. Developers need guidance that understands both the business and creative aspects of game creation.
Tutorial-Based Learning
Online tutorials teach technical skills but don't address project management, scope control, or the psychological challenges of long development cycles. Developers can learn to implement features without learning how to complete projects. The gap between technical capability and project completion remains unbridged.
Isolated From Ecosystem
Developers working outside established ecosystems miss opportunities for funding, collaboration, and distribution that emerge through networks rather than public channels. Breaking into these communities without connections or understanding of cultural norms proves extremely difficult independently.
What Makes Our Approach Different
Our methodology combines elements that are individually well-known but rarely integrated effectively. The power comes from how these pieces work together to address the complete challenge of indie development.
Startup Methodology Applied to Games
We adapt proven startup frameworks for the unique needs of game development. Milestone planning, rapid iteration, and lean principles translate well to indie games when applied thoughtfully rather than rigidly.
Berlin Ecosystem Access
Our physical presence in Berlin's tech hub provides genuine connections to European game development resources. These aren't distant relationships but active participation in the local ecosystem we're introducing you to.
Practical Over Theoretical
Every element of our framework addresses specific problems we've observed in real projects. We focus on what actually helps developers complete games rather than comprehensive theories that look good on paper but prove impractical.
Mentorship Not Consulting
We teach frameworks and develop your capabilities rather than doing work for you. The goal is building your independent capacity to complete this project and future ones, not creating dependency on external support.
Flexible Yet Structured
Our framework provides structure without rigidity. Milestones adapt to your project's reality while maintaining forward momentum. We balance planning with the flexibility creative work requires, adjusting when circumstances change.
Complete Development Support
From initial concept through launch preparation, our methodology covers the entire journey. Many services focus on isolated aspects; we address the full development lifecycle because completion requires navigating every phase successfully.
How We Track Progress and Success
Our framework includes specific ways to measure progress that focus on meaningful indicators rather than vanity metrics. These measurements help both guide development and build confidence through visible achievement.
Milestone Completion
Each milestone has clear deliverables that indicate completion. This isn't about meeting arbitrary deadlines but about achieving specific functional goals. Regular milestone completion provides concrete evidence of progress and maintains momentum.
Example metrics: Core mechanics implemented and playable, specific content requirements met, technical functionality verified through testing.
Problem-Solving Capability
We track how independently you identify and solve problems over time. Early in development, most obstacles require guidance. As your skills grow, you handle more challenges independently, requiring mentorship primarily for validation rather than solutions.
Example metrics: Problems solved between sessions, quality of potential solutions proposed, accuracy of difficulty estimates.
Playtesting Feedback
Structured playtesting reveals how well your game communicates its mechanics and maintains engagement. We focus on specific feedback categories that indicate whether players understand and enjoy the experience you're creating, guiding refinement priorities.
Example metrics: Player comprehension of mechanics, engagement duration, frustration points identified, positive feedback themes.
Scope Management
Successful projects maintain reasonable scope. We track feature creep tendencies and help you distinguish between core features and enhancements. Your ability to make these distinctions independently indicates growing project management capability and realistic planning skills.
Example metrics: Feature additions vs. removals, scope change frequency, completion of planned features before adding new ones.
Building Sustainable Game Development Practices
The independent game development landscape has evolved significantly over the past decade, but fundamental challenges remain consistent. Talented developers with compelling ideas still struggle to complete projects due to factors unrelated to their creative or technical abilities. Understanding these systemic challenges allows for targeted solutions that address root causes rather than symptoms.
Structured methodologies proven effective in startup contexts translate remarkably well to game development when adapted appropriately. The key lies in recognizing where game development differs from traditional software or product development and adjusting frameworks accordingly. Games require balancing creative iteration with forward progress, managing scope creep inherent in creative work, and maintaining motivation through extended development cycles without regular external validation.
European game development ecosystems provide resources and opportunities that independent developers worldwide can access with proper guidance and connections. Berlin particularly offers a concentration of accelerators, funding programs, and collaborative communities focused on creative technology ventures. However, these resources remain effectively invisible to developers outside established networks, creating artificial barriers to access that strategic introductions can overcome.
The most sustainable approach to indie game development combines structured project management with creative freedom, external accountability with independent capability development, and immediate project support with long-term skill building. This balanced methodology addresses both the practical challenges of completing specific games and the broader goal of establishing sustainable development practices that serve developers throughout their careers.
Experience the Framework in Action
Understanding methodology helps, but experiencing how it applies to your specific project matters more. Let's discuss your development challenges and explore whether our framework fits your needs.
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