This is going to be my last post this year, but before I wish you all the best for the holidays, let me have a look back on 2017! Take it as a yearly report or a retrospect for any of you interested in my journey.
It's not a secret that I ever wanted to start my own undertaking. It originates back before I got into the game industry and it still defines my life today. I'm still coward to do the leap, leave my job (that I love and am proud of) and dive into indie development 100%, but at least I started a venture with Rushing Pixel.
Exactly on 19th November 2016, I've registered the domain and - after plenty unfinished attempts - I planned to go real with my first game. 2017 was about "Puzzle Adventure". I got up at 5:30 every working day to have one hour of progress before starting my daytime job. I continued in the nights. The plan was clear, the game should be ready for the start of 2018. I was possessed like hell! I moved my game idea from SDL2 to Unity, learned C#, marketing, PR, started spreading the word and collecting followers on multiple social networks, created tons of game content, did lots of posts and research, etc. Sadly it needed 10 months to make me realize that my game is missing the fun factor. Or at least it is destroyed accidentally at the very first moment of gameplay just because of the core game idea (slide puzzle). I mentioned it in an older post how astonishing it was to see people play an extremely dumb prototype of my next idea, #TurnItOn with much much more pleasure than "Puzzle Adventure" could ever reach. The decision was hard to do, but I won't regret: I have rejected 10 months of work.
The most important and most instructive event for me in 2017 was surely PixelCon where I could meet real gamers and let them test #TurnItOn. I am really thankful for the organizers, especially for Kaptás András making it possible. I feel lucky for having my friends help me there (Gábor Guzslován, Mihály Szemeti, Gábor Horváth, Balázs Horváth, László 'Citrus' Nagy) and for all the support I got from my wife, Dóra Urbán. I couldn't do it alone, it means a lot to me and it even convinced me that the one-man-army initiative just won't work strictly alone. Now I know, I need help but it is not a problem at all. Nevertheless, the event confirmed my theory and now I'm sure that this game idea works. I had a hard deadline to get ready for the show but I have enjoyed every moment of the crunch.
And here I stand now: I'm still possessed, I still get up early and do my best every day. The plan is to have a product ready for Q1 2018 (2 settings with unique cutscenes, 30-40 levels) released on Google Play. Content update, more localization, and ports for Steam and iOS will follow. ...and what do I need to drop in 2018? I think the most important would be to minimize distraction as it steals a lot of time I can't replace. I'm going to try to do so. It is a perfect goal for the upcoming year, I assume.
Because it is a #screenshotsaturday post either, here you have a short progress report for this week: The game got one more level, I have designed the level selector screen, started planning a new "company" web site and did some research collecting possible channels on game release shout-out.
That's all, folks! If you have read all this, you are a true follower of the project. Have my word as a badge! :) Thank you for your whole year support and let me wish you happy holidays! To be continued in 2018...
