there's no answer i could give that is at all useful, unfortunately! i got into game development by being an extremely autistic teenager obsessed with exactly one thing and pursuing it in college, and i got into indie game development by graduating with no debt (an extremely rare thing these days!!) and being in a position where i could survive off $600 a month for a few years while i established myself. notably, almost none of this arc was the result of my own Good Decisions (in fact, i made several bad decisions!) -- i had all the cards lined up for me already and all i had to do was knock em down. now, granted, that doesn't mean the job is easy: in fact, it's been hard as hell from day one. but my specific route wouldn't have even been possible if i hadn't come from a wealthy enough background to go to college and graduate debt-free.
so, uh, if you want to follow in my specific footsteps, i recommend either finding an eccentric rich patron or figuring out how to get all student debt cancelled
