--- title: Life as a Full-Time Indie Game Developer | daily.dev description: A week-in-the-life devlog from an indie developer building a casual farming game called Homegrown using a custom engine. The week covers implementing fruit... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/life-as-a-full-time-indie-game-developer-1arvy8xqb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Life as a Full-Time Indie Game Developer | daily.dev og:description: A week-in-the-life devlog from an indie developer building a casual farming game called Homegrown using a custom engine. The week covers implementing fruit... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/life-as-a-full-time-indie-game-developer-1arvy8xqb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/1ArVY8XqB.png og:image:alt: Life as a Full-Time Indie Game Developer og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Life as a Full-Time Indie Game Developer **[ThinMatrix](https://daily.dev/sources/thinmatrix)** · 17 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A week-in-the-life devlog from an indie developer building a casual farming game called Homegrown using a custom engine. The week covers implementing fruit trees with a pruning mechanic, redesigning the house 3D model in Blender using ChatGPT for visual inspiration, and experimenting with lighting, tone mapping, and shader settings to achieve warmer in-game colors. The developer also creates particle effects, item icons, and prepares assets for a cover art designer. Personal life moments like running training, balcony gardening, and social visits are woven throughout. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#gaming](https://daily.dev/tags/gaming), [#blender](https://daily.dev/tags/blender) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/life-as-a-full-time-indie-game-developer-1arvy8xqb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Life as a Full-Time Indie Game Developer","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/life-as-a-full-time-indie-game-developer-1arvy8xqb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/life-as-a-full-time-indie-game-developer-1arvy8xqb"},"datePublished":"2026-07-19T07:59:21.363Z","dateModified":"2026-07-19T08:26:13.138Z","description":"A week-in-the-life devlog from an indie developer building a casual farming game called Homegrown using a custom engine. 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