--- title: Solo Dev on Making a Hand-Painted Hard Sci-Fi Adventure... description: A solo developer and cell-biology scientist by day shares his experience building Mayak, a hand-painted hard sci-fi adventure game blending visual novel and... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/solo-dev-on-making-a-hand-painted-hard-sci-fi-adventure-in-godot-ltt5ar3hc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Solo Dev on Making a Hand-Painted Hard Sci-Fi Adventure in Godot | daily.dev og:description: A solo developer and cell-biology scientist by day shares his experience building Mayak, a hand-painted hard sci-fi adventure game blending visual novel and... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/solo-dev-on-making-a-hand-painted-hard-sci-fi-adventure-in-godot-ltt5ar3hc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/LTT5AR3HC.png og:image:alt: Solo Dev on Making a Hand-Painted Hard Sci-Fi Adventure in Godot 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. # Solo Dev on Making a Hand-Painted Hard Sci-Fi Adventure in Godot **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 9 min read · 11 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary A solo developer and cell-biology scientist by day shares his experience building Mayak, a hand-painted hard sci-fi adventure game blending visual novel and adventure mechanics, made entirely in Godot. He discusses his chaotic self-taught journey into gamedev, his decision to use real 2D art with layered parallax, lighting, and shaders instead of 3D or AI-generated art, his reasoning for a single linear ending, and his self-driven marketing efforts across festivals, Reddit, and the Chinese platform HeyBox, which helped grow the game's wishlist to around 17.5k after a year. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@wxtx** · 0 upvotes > Ive always respected solo devs making huge trhings :) Good luck :) **@markozakrajsekgeozs** · 0 upvotes > Not my style, as a game, but all the respect! ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [A Closer Look At Painterly Visuals In This Hard Sci-Fi Godot Game](https://daily.dev/posts/a-closer-look-at-painterly-visuals-in-this-hard-sci-fi-godot-game-gifaislar) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building a game in 30 days with Godot](https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-game-in-30-days-with-godot-r3tdt474s) · Game Developer · 67 upvotes · 5 comments - [Voidmaw Games on Development Journey Behind Roguelite Katanaut](https://daily.dev/posts/voidmaw-games-on-development-journey-behind-roguelite-katanaut-gbzzmasyt) · 80 LEVEL · 11 upvotes · 1 comments - [This Godot Indie Game is Like Dark Messiah With Low-Poly Graphics](https://daily.dev/posts/this-godot-indie-game-is-like-dark-messiah-with-low-poly-graphics-mcsynitvg) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#godot](https://daily.dev/tags/godot) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/solo-dev-on-making-a-hand-painted-hard-sci-fi-adventure-in-godot-ltt5ar3hc) ```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":"Solo Dev on Making a Hand-Painted Hard Sci-Fi Adventure in Godot","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/solo-dev-on-making-a-hand-painted-hard-sci-fi-adventure-in-godot-ltt5ar3hc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/solo-dev-on-making-a-hand-painted-hard-sci-fi-adventure-in-godot-ltt5ar3hc"},"datePublished":"2026-09-01T09:37:16.641Z","dateModified":"2026-09-01T09:37:37.603Z","description":"A solo developer and cell-biology scientist by day shares his experience building Mayak, a hand-painted hard sci-fi adventure game blending visual novel and...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e036a64bfee4ad5714c8819623448b7a?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e036a64bfee4ad5714c8819623448b7a?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"80 LEVEL","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"80 LEVEL","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/78eebcd76c154e6bbfd565fed7dc4093","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},"commentCount":2,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/solo-dev-on-making-a-hand-painted-hard-sci-fi-adventure-in-godot-ltt5ar3hc","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":11},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}],"keywords":"game-development,godot","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80 LEVEL","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Solo Dev on Making a Hand-Painted Hard Sci-Fi Adventure in Godot"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/solo-dev-on-making-a-hand-painted-hard-sci-fi-adventure-in-godot-ltt5ar3hc","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Ive always respected solo devs making huge trhings :) Good luck :)","datePublished":"2026-09-04T21:08:18.248Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/LTT5AR3HC#c-TuU0nGA8I","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"WojtekXTX","url":"https://daily.dev/wxtx","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--slav3kNg--/f_auto/v1788199427/avatars/avatar_y6NTB6llakYmLSelD0bZh?_a=BAMAMicg0"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Not my style, as a game, but all the respect!","datePublished":"2026-09-10T08:03:00.674Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/LTT5AR3HC#c-CcgR74PV7","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Marko Zakrajsek","url":"https://daily.dev/markozakrajsekgeozs","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--slY3-STy--/f_auto/v1783585373/avatars/avatar_SbncGJHaRHf7KoebEkT1L?_a=BAMAMicg0"}}]} ```