The Pandemic!
Jean-Pierre and I have been best friends for a few years. We have worked on many exciting projects together, like restoring an old Matahari pinball, constructing an arcade game machine from scratch, and playing many multiplayer games at night!
Korala world
Then, 2 years ago, the pandemic happened! Playing multiplayer games was fun, but we quickly entertained creating a game. As senior software developers, we could do it. We looked at Unreal Engine and Unity and decided to go with Unreal Engine as I knew the engine from the past. In addition, the royalty mechanic of Epic was more compatible with our business strategy.
We then started and founded Braintonik GameStudios :)
The art style should be the cornerstone.
On day 1, we agreed to create a game with an art style that should stick in people's minds, with a set of rich and glowing colors that would make the player connect emotionally with the game environment. Each world we would create would need to have its unique color palette and atmosphere. We succeeded, as most people looking at the visual are attracted immediately to learn more about the game.
Meolia world
No earth-like resemblance for the game environment and creatures
A lot of violence is depicted in games with humanslike characters, blood, gore, strong language, and sometime stereotypes. Our goal was to create a game emphasizing a set of imaginative worlds and creatures that would be unusual in their design-simple visual, colorful, strange behavior, and adorable. In addition, we wanted to create a game that would be accessible to whole families and accessible.
Mazir - World design in progress
A profound desire to express our creativity
We are both musicians. Well, Jean-Pierre way more than me as he had the chance to be part of a band, but music is the soul of joy and sadness. Starting the adventure to create a game allowed us to express our creativity in new ways. Unfortunately, witty enough, we realized we did not have the time to make the music for our game! This was unfortunate, but the joy of creating on so many different aspects was already challenging.
Zeros - World design in progress
An error we would not do again!
One year after starting the game, we decided to release the game (December 2021) as early access on Steam to get feedback from the community. This was great and awesome. However, when we recently decided to find a publisher, we quickly realized that many of them would never look at an early-access game. They are publishers ready to publish early-access games, but only a few. Knowing this upfront, we would have done things differently as relatively easy to get feedback on your game even if it is not in early-access.
Krogus - World design in progress
Conclusion
If you have a dream, Do it! Not trying will make you regret not knowing if you could have succeeded. Of course, not all ideas are created equal! But if you believe in yourself, there is no better passion than being driven by your dream.
Spheriums will be released in 2023 for PC & Xbox
You can wishlist the game on Steam : Store.steampowered.com
Cheers,
Nick
