Dear Scholars,
In the last entry I gave you a rough timeline of the first several years of Selenwald development. I showed you an early proof of concept dated back to 2013 and described the gradual build-up that started when I made first prototypes in 2016. The long journey of mostly solo development that has suffered a plethora of interruptions driven by the constant need to do side work in order to be able to pay the bills has finally led to an important milestone in 2020.
Today I would like to tell you the rest of the story that has brought the game to where it is now.
The unnamable
In April 2020 I decided to officially establish a studio as I knew some opportunities to accelerate the development were impossible without a registered business. Thus Unnamable Arts was born. Not much time has passed and I used some of my humble savings to hire first freelancers to help me create some things I'm not particularly good at myself. A first human character and a first boss were designed, drawn and finally made in 3D. A first key art (which is no longer in use) was also created.
First external funding
One of the goals behind founding a business was to unlock the possibility to apply for government funds. There is an attractive government fund program in Poland called Development of Creative Sectors ("Rozwój Sektorów Kreatywnych") that is designated to - among others - help small gamedev studios finish or further develop their prototypes. I managed to have my application accepted and several months later in May 2021, an absolutely wild period began. Although the funding wasn't enormous and it seems very insignificant compared to a typical budget of a video game it was enough for me to get many freelancers involved over the course of several months and vastly accelerate the process of getting the game closer to the playable and polished state. A total of 12 people were hired during that period until the end of 2021. Most would only be tasked with less than a month worth of work but some were involved for longer. The list contains:
- 2 environment artists
- game designer
- character artist
- animator
- music composer
- audio designer
- UX designer
- writer
- VFX artist
- 2 illustrators / concept artists
A wide range of content was designed and created last year. The game's story foundations and artistic direction got set in stone. Combat and other mechanics slowly started to work well together. First two original music tracks were composed. A terrifying monster enemy known as the Blind Hunter was created from scratch to roam the halls of Selenwald looking for prey, marking its presence with a shrill, blood-chilling breathing noise. The new key art that now proudly decorates the Selenwald's Steam page and social media was also done with the help of the funding. And that's just a tip of the mountain.
However, government funds also have their caveats and this one was no exception. I was required to provide my own financial contribution and I was not able to use any of the government money to pay my own bills so I was forced to keep doing paid work the entire time. This means that even though a lot of things got done by others, the implementation side has been gradually falling behind as I tried to find scraps of time to do programming work while also managing a group of people (which by itself is almost a full time job) and working on the side for money to sustain myself.
The goal was to get to a playable, representative demo that could help achieving several goals:
- creating a trailer
- start going to expos and show the game to you
- present the demo to publishers and investors in hope to raise funds needed for finishing the game
While all the required components were in place, the demo still wasn't playable by the end of 2021 and that was bad news because I was barely holding on financially at that point and desperately needed to do paid work to get back on feet and not fall into serious debts. The pressure was even stronger because one of the previously involved freelancers - Aleksander, a 3D artist - was now a full time employee and I was paying him a monthly salary that obviously was much higher than what I paid myself. It was my plan all along to have a 3D artist become the first permanent team member but unfortunate circumstances have forced us take up paid work sooner than planned for it to work.
2022
Alas, despite feeling like it was in its climax, Selenwald's development suddenly slowed down tremendously during the first 3.5 months of 2022 because our survival has become a priority as my balance started to enter negative numbers. It was incredibly frustrating because we were on the verge of having the playable build that so many people have worked hard on last year.
However, nothing lasts forever and the crisis was successfully averted. I resumed working on Selenwald in April, while Aleksander was still finishing up the last contract we had been doing for a client. An incredible progress has been made since. The playable demo now exists and it's getting really fun! The aforementioned goals are also all now becoming a reality but more on that in future announcements.
Aleksander has departed a month ago for the time being. However, he declared he would still love to stay involved in Selenwald and will happily accept smaller commissions in the future. That being said, I'm developing the game solo again but things are going very well and I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks.
Also, one of the fans over at our little Discord community has turned out to be a 3D artist who volunteered to contribute to the project and make some art for Selenwald. What a pleasant surprise!
This concludes the brief summary of what the journey behind Selenwald looked like throughout years. In the future entries I will focus on details regarding the ongoing development process, highlighting newly introduced systems, mechanics and art.
Thank you for reading,
Wiktor