How I got into making my own games
From 3D Artist to Game Developer
The year was 2011, and I was working at Travian Games, a German browser game company, as a 3D Artist. Our project at the time was shelved due to viability concerns of a new CEO and the Adobe (Macromedia) Flash Player being depreciated at the time. About 60 employees suddenly had nothing to do, and we were all in shock. It's hard to explain how it feels to be enthusiastically working on a project for a few years and feeling safe in your position just to suddenly have that rug pulled out from under your feet one day, even though it wasn't the first time this happened to me.
We were told to look for other projects to work on within the company or educate ourselves to fit into other roles. One colleague was evaluating the Unity game engine for future projects, and I helped create the few assets needed for that, but there was not much need for 3D art in the near future in that company. So I took the opportunity to learn coding with Flash ActionScript.
Eventually the original founder of Travian Games hired me for his new startup company as the one-man art division. By the time I had already built a little prototype of what would later become ENYO Arcade. After roughly 4 months I was told that this startup will be shut down, and I could use the last 2 months to find a new job while helping a friend of the founder to finish their project. I did my best and delivered what I could.
Steam Greenlight
At the same time I picked up that prototype and submitted it to Steam Greenlight, a short-lived public voting system to release games on Steam. I was overwhelmed by the puplicity and positive (and freaky negative) feedback. Even though today I know better (LINK NEEDED: BLOG POST ABOUT STEAM), at that time I saw a realistic chance to get my game distributed by the most amazing distribution platform of the time. That is when I started to get serious about making games.
What started out as a little side project to learn programming later became my first proper indie game release in 2016: ENYO Arcade
Do I regret it?
It took me roughly 4 years to finish my first game, and it was far from commercially viable. My personal life had a bag of punches to constantly knock me off track. I had financially ruined myself, lost family members, could not afford to live in a flat, and felt burnt out. I was still learning and made a lot of mistakes on the way that I hope to cover in other posts some day.
It's hard to call it regret since learning from mistakes ultimately helped me grow as a human being. So even if it has been a rough ride, I don't think I'd be the same person now if I hadn't had all those experiences.
And now?
At the time of writing this, I still dabble with making games. I'm trying to convert my Steam releases to be played in modern web browsers like originally intended. I lack the commercial mindset, but my drive to share my impressions through different forms of art remains stable. To me, video games are still the ultimate form of expression made interactive.
Thanks for reading!
If you want to know more, just drop me a mail!