Hello, people! How are you? How did you started 2022? 🤓
In a day like today, but from 2012, we officially started a crazy adventure called Saibot that continues to date.
Actually, the very begginning was in 2011 with the conceptualization and prototype of what ended up being our first title Doorways (read more).
But it wasn't until March of 2012 that, after I partened with my Uncle and friend Ivan Rusjan, we finally started working as a team. We built the first Saibot "office", which was actually my room along side the bed and at my Mom's department, and we used some old tables as desks that my Grandma gave us ❤️
And from then, a lot of enechdotes and experiences started hapenning. With tons of fails and drop downs, but also with some wins, we were able to keep going to date doing what we love the most: creating our own games and delivering them all over the world 🌎
So I decided to take some time to build and share with you a quick recap of some of the main milestones we have achieved together with you during the last 10 years of Saibot...
2012: The Origin
- Started the team and office with only two members (picture)
- Started the development of the first game and saga: Doorways
- First public presentation of the game at the event EVA 2012
Left: Tobias Rusjan (me), right: Martin Voychisko
2013: Prelude
- Trip to E3 thanks to a contest we won at Indies Crash E3
- Approval of our first game at Steam Greenlight after a lot of big Youtubers played it
- Official launch of Doorways: Prelude on Steam (first argentinian game to be released on Steam after being approved on Greenlight)
- Launch of VR (virtual reality) version of Doorways: Prelude with the Oculus Rift Dev Kit 1 (first argentinian game published with VR compatibility)
Most popular Youtuber Pew Die Pie playing Doorways: Prelude
2014: Underworld
- Moved to new home-office with our own space
- Team got bigger with 4 full time developers
- Development and release of the second game Doorways: The Underworld
- Hosted a special event with Youtubers Alfredito and international guest Xoda (Chile) playing Doorways: The Underworld live
- Trip to Esquel (Chubut, Argentina) together with the development team (picture)
From left to right: David Levill, Sergio Juarez (my Father), Damian Teixeira, Tobias Rusjan (yo), Maximiliano Schneider
2015: Holy Mountains
- Team got even bigger with 6 developers working full time
- Started the creation of the biggest title of the saga Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh
- Release of an early version of the game as Early Access in Steam
- Published the first live action promotional video directed by Andrés Borghi (picture)
Dev team members from Saibot together with the cast and live action video creators (see tags)
2016: Transition
- Final release of Doorways: Holy Mountains of Flesh on Steam
- Built and release of the old version of Doorways: Old Prototype created in late 2011
- Started working on new series Hellbound
- Team member David Levill decided tattoo himself the logo of "Doorways" on his skin because of the love he had to the project (picture)
Tattoo painted by Fernando Muzzio (main artist from Hellbound) over the left arm of David Levill (music director and SFX composer)
2017: New Beginning
- New team members were introduced for a much bigger project in Hellbound
- Recorded motion captures (MoCap) for animations of Hellbound (Hell Knights, Vladers)
- Built and published Hellbound's teaser trailer (picture). For the creation of this particular video, we did live action takes as references, then did motion captures (MoCap), and finally rendered everything with high quality specs; everything done here in Argentina 🇦🇷
Watch the first presentation of the teaser trailer at the expo EVE 2017
2018: Survival Mode
- Launch of Hellbound: Survival Mode as Early Access
- Created a Kickstarter campaing for Hellbound to complete the funds for the campaign
- Had a TV showcase with Santiago Do Rego and Sebastian Di Nardoon at TNT Sports about Hellbound's Kickstarter
- Allied with NGD Studios (currently named Nimble Giant Entertainment) to publish Hellbound's campaign mode
- Hellbound wons an Unreal Dev Grant for the development of the project (first argentinian game to get one)
- Hellbound: Survival Mode wons a price at expo EVA 2018 as best game created in Unreal Engine (picture)
From left to right: Paulo Souza (Epic Games evangelist), Tobías Rusjan (me), Miguel Martín (director at ADVA)
2019: Campaign Mode
- Moved with the team at a bigger and better home-office located in the town of Vicente Lopez (Buenos Aires)
- Definitive launch of Hellbound: Survival Mode (first published argentinian game to have animations withe motion capture)
- Launch of Hellbound's demo (campaign mode) together with a presentation at EVA 2019 (picture)
From left to right: Juan Caratino, Federico Tessandori, Fernando Muzzio, David Levill, Viktor Ahmed, Tobias Rusjan (yo)
2020: Hellbound
- Released the campaign mode of Hellbound (picture)
- Published the Mayhem Pack DLC with the digital artbook and soundtrack
- Updated the game with all the Kickstarter digital rewards at The Heroes' Cemetery (statues, headstones, busts and wall)
- Released a big update with new content for both games Hellbound and Hellbound: Survival Mode
- Published as Early Access the first game created by another developer: The Black Heart by Andres Borghi
2021: The Black Heart
- Built and sent all around the world the Kickstarter physical rewards of Hellbound: game big box, hardcover artbook, CD with soundtrack, stickers, posters and t-shirts
- Final release of The Black Heart by Andres Borghi (picture)
- Published the Soundtrack DLC of The Black Heart
- Released the Chaos Bundle of The Black Heart, including both game and soundtrack (all items are on sale right now, don't miss them!)
- Created and published a mini game for a jam called Out of Bounds at Itchio
Cover art created by Fernando Muzzio (Hellbound) for The Black Heart by Andres Borghi
2022 (coming next): Out of Bounds and MORE...
- Final release of Out of Bounds on Steam (picture). See the last development updates here
- And more... (news coming soon!)
And this right here is just a quick recap... We thank you all of you for being part of this adventure, for playing our games, for sharing them or just for writing and supporting us 🙌
We have more news to reveal you soon. So follow us on our social networks!
Cheers and take care!