Making Games on Your Own Terms: A Q&A with Steven Lefcourt (Gunlocked)
- Quest Team
- May 26
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 6
In this candid Q&A, solo developer FromLefcourt shares a behind-the-scenes look at his journey as a full-time indie game developer, having released three games in as many years on Steam. With a deeply personal approach to art, genre experimentation, and a mindset rooted in persistence, he opens up about funding his projects through freelance work, tackling Kickstarter for the first time, and adapting game designs based on player feedback. From marketing insights to artistic philosophy, this conversation offers a raw and inspiring glimpse into what it takes to stay creative and resilient in the indie space.
Q: You’ve released 3 games in 3 years on steam, do you make these games full-time? How do you manage/maintain that output?
A: I am a full-time game developer, and have been since I was developing Gunlocked. It was a risk then, and still is. I maintain the output because I want to, and because I have to. I have more ideas than I can ever get to in this lifetime, but I'd like to try.
Q: You mentioned you're currently managing a Kickstarter, is this how you’ve funded your games so far?
A: All my games have been self-funded thus far, from previous freelance illustration work. My friend (thatgregperkins) helped fund some of the development of Arcane Golf near the end, so we could focus exclusively on finishing things up without distraction. This will be the first Kickstarter I've used to fund the development of a game.
Q: Do you have any Kickstarter tips for those who have never used it?
A: Like most things these days, there is an industry of people promising to help you succeed on Kickstarter. And because there's a good chance a campaign won't get funded, you might even start to believe you need their help. Paying them won't help you succeed, it will just make failure feel worse. So I'd say don't measure your self-worth as an artist by the success of any campaign you attempt. I can't help you get funded, I barely know what I'm doing, but if you start from that aforementioned mindset, trying it out can't hurt you. As creatives, we have to knock on a lot of doors to find one that opens, but it requires resilience.
Q: You have maintained an art style across all 4 of your Steam releases. What is the reasoning behind this? Do you love this style, are you trying to build a brand using the style, or any other reason?
A: It's just how I translate my ideas into images. It's not a style I specifically set out to cultivate, but a myriad of life experiences and developed preferences seem to have made a version of me that makes a version of art that looks like that. To be less obtuse, I do want to make HD games without pixel art, but they'd still retain some of what makes my art my art.
Q: Your games are all quite different in terms of genre and gameplay, what is your approach to deciding what game to make?
A: I'm actually just always working on as many of my ideas as I possibly can be. I have a general roadmap for the order I'd like to finish and release them, but as with all plans, it's just a list of things I won't end up doing. I have no specific interests, I've made a little of everything: cozy art games, puzzle games, high score arcade games, and frenetic action roguelites and shumps. I've got pinball, auto-battlers, and card games at various stages of development currently (in addition to the shmup, Gunlocked 2). So uh, I guess my approach is "yes, and."
Q: Was any particular genre more popular among players?
A: Gunlocked was far and away my most popular game. It was a good combination of an under-served genre (shmups), and a newly popularized genre (survivor-likes/bullet heavens).
Q: Do you have any strong design pillars that you stand by when making games?
A: I'd be hard-pressed to come up with any rule I wouldn't be willing to break. My games change a lot just from feedback, even if it means sacrificing my original vision. My dev partner and I completely remade Arcane Golf a year+ after release, based on feedback and fresh perspective, and a mobile release of that version went on to get a number of notable mentions like Touch Arcade's "Game of the Week" and Apple's "New Games We Love." My only pillar then, I suppose, is a willingness to change.
Q: How did you get into game dev?
A: Mega Man 2. The moment I played that, I knew I wanted to make games. A million other things had to happen for me to actually end up on this path, but that had to happen first.
Q: What, in your experience, are some of the most effective methods of marketing your game?
A: Be lucky? Gunlocked found success with social media influencers, and I contacted many of them. But I don't know that it was me contacting them that actually drove its success. I think every developer and every game has its own unique path to success, and even in retrospect it would be hard to discern why a game succeeded or failed. Make great games that people see and want to play. It won't mean success, but it's a universally good foundation to build from.
Q: Do you have any tips for aspiring indie or game devs
A: You do you. A lot of people try to make money telling you how to be them. You can't be. If they had to do it all over again now, they probably couldn't either. Every success and failure exists uniquely in and of its time.
Check out Steven's games on steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/FromLefcourt
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