How I published my games as a solo developer

In early 2026 I published my first game. Soon after, I had several on Google Play. It wasn't magic or nonstop grinding: it was a way of working designed from day one to reuse as much as possible from one game to the next. Here's the process, including the failures.

The first game: a sudoku

The first game, a sudoku, was the foundation for everything. Thousands of boards, progression with experience and coins, duels with friends, an adventure mode, and offline play without losing progress. Sounds like a lot for a first game, but every decision was made so that work would carry over to the next ones.

Reusing instead of starting over

The secret was separating what repeats from what changes. Accounts, friends, offline play, ads, in-game purchases, and visual design are the same across all of them. The only thing that changes is the game itself. In practice, when I start a new game, most of it is already done: I focus on making the new game fun.

One account for every game

A player signs up once and can play any of my games with the same account, and their friends carry over to all of them. But progress, coins, and achievements stay separate per game, so what happens in one never breaks another.

Store rejections

Not everything was smooth. A store rejected one game for looking too similar to another of mine, and I had to redesign its whole look with a visual style of its own. Another rejection came from a detail I had carried over from an earlier game. I learned to check everything closely before each submission. Each rejection taught me something and improved my process.

Each game faster than the last

After the sudoku came variants with different rules and block games with new mechanics. Since the foundation was already there, each one took far less time than the first: the effort went into what made each game different, not into rebuilding accounts, friends, or stores.

Lessons learned

Investing in a solid foundation upfront pays for itself. Every hour I put into making the first game reusable saved me many hours on the next ones. Store rejections aren't the end of the world: they're free feedback that improves your product. And most importantly: a single developer can compete with teams if the work is well organized. If you are thinking about building your own app, I wrote a guide on how much a mobile app costs.