{"id":7128,"date":"2026-11-03T13:47:41","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/?p=7128"},"modified":"2026-11-03T13:47:41","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:47:41","slug":"the-costs-of-a-sort-of-hobby-game-ridiculous-space-battles-dev-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/2026\/11\/03\/the-costs-of-a-sort-of-hobby-game-ridiculous-space-battles-dev-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"The costs of a (sort-of) hobby game (Ridiculous Space Battles dev budget)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you have read my blog a lot you will be aware that I am totally schizophrenic about whether or not Ridiculous Space Battles<\/a> is a big professional game project, or a hobby to keep me busy as I ease into semi-retirement. I still have no answer for this. When I speak to other devs, it certainly seems like I spend at least as much time developing it as a full-time dev, but then I am also trying not to take it too seriously, and definitely trying to avoid any stress related to it…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t also have an interest in what it cost to make. Its VERY cheap, to be sure, but I just love numbers. You could give me spreadsheets showing the revenue from a local cafe and I would be in heaven, I just love some numbers. So under 2 weeks until Early Access release (16th November) here are the numbers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Development Budget<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This is a very unusual game, because I didn’t want to hire or deal with or even speak to anybody during its development. Building a solar farm was WAY too much people-management, and I vowed to avoid actually hiring people again, so I decided to do almost everything myself, and experiment with AI for stuff I couldn’t draw myself. I can play around in photoshop and Blender quite happily, so the majority of the art (the spaceships) was done using stock-assets bought from CGTrader, plus a lot of kitbashing, and editing, and messing around. Its not as good as a pro artist, but it kept me busy :D. Anyway the total spent at CGTrader so far is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CGTrader \u00a3441.93<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is peanuts for the spaceship art for a game about spaceships :D. Thats the majority of art in the game, as each ship has some layers, some turrets, a damaged version, and a hulk version and debris elements, all from the same kitbashing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then needed art for the modules (used in the ship designer mostly) and for the races showing the alien crew. I decided to use AI for that, using scenario, which is a cool game-centric AI art generator. It lets you upload a ton of your own art and use it for creating a new model, which is cool. I also used it for some of the nebula backdrops and planets (the others were mostly me in photoshop) and for the game logo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scenario AI Art: \u00a3296.51<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, pretty much peanuts. I could have spent more time here, and more money maybe. but we are not even in early access yet…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other use of AI was for some voice clips. I decided not to use a lot of it, and kept changing my mind, so I spend way more than I needed to for a few lines, but the total was still only \u00a3176.76<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elevenlabs AI voice: \u00a3176.76<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people wouldn’t really be able to use AI voices, but my voice is supposed to be a neutral computer voice just reporting data anyway, so I figure its pretty much perfect. All in, this makes the dev budget for the game \u00a3915.20. Nothing. Obviously I WORKED on it for about three years, so my personal coding dev time is huge, but its kind of a hobby, so I am disregarding that. I don’t log my hours anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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