The way I did it was I was writing music and doing pixel art since the 90's and learning to write games on the side. One day I decided to take all the assets I'd built up over 30 years and condense them into the simplest game I could complete on the side and that's how I made Space Strafer. I think if I had to start from scratch with all the music, art, and concepts it would have been impossible, what with having kids and all.