Hi everyone,
Some of you might have noticed that I've hardly been active on the forums for a few months now, and I thought I should explain why.
The short answer is game development is now my job.
The longer answer is I graduated from my Games Development degree last summer, and I decided to found an indie studio with two friends from that course. Our company is Skyward Digital, and we're focusing on VR development, since we had a chance to use the Oculus Rift extensively at university. Our first title, RPG Merchant, has been in development since late September and is now fast approaching its release on Steam (VR only) and the Oculus store, so I'm now busier than ever helping to finish and polish the game before submitting it.
This job has its own rewards and challenges, and I really enjoy doing it (when Unity is cooperating
), but the unfortunate side effect is my hobbies have all taken a back seat. Unsurprisingly, it's extremely difficult to have game development as a career and a hobby at the same time. I expected as much when I started this, but it's still frustrating.
So, what does this mean for New Horizons Remastered? To be honest, I've made no progress since September, and the reality is, I don't know when I'll be able to resume development, if at all. It's still a project that means a lot to me, so I absolutely want to continue it, but I can't make any solid promises right now. I wouldn't consider it "abandoned", but it's certainly on hold until further notice.
It's little consolation, but I am still working on my Bellona model occasionally. Programming is my primary role at Skyward, so it's nice to get back to 3D modelling as a side project. When I've made that model as "complete" as I can, I will definitely put it into Unity, so that may coincide with an update to NHR while I'm more motivated. If not, I may still try to put the ship into PotC. After 5 years (!) of on-and-off development, that ship deserves to be used somewhere!
So why am I still here on PA if I'm barely active? The reason is I owe a huge amount to this community.
When I joined back in 2010 (doesn't time fly??!) I had absolutely no experience in game development whatsoever. I started modifying textures in GIMP, making very minor code changes, and then started editing ship models in Maya. That led to me become self-taught at 3D modelling, which in turn eventually inspired me to study Games Development at degree level. Now I make games for a living, and all this is because I was welcomed to this community and learnt my trade by contributing to the New Horizons mod. That's incredible!
I am hugely thankful to this community, so I'm determined to give at least one more thing back to you, whether that's the Bellona, a future update to NHR, or both. Again, I can't say when that will happen, but never say never.
If you want to find out more about Skyward Digital and the game we're making, you can follow @SkywardDigital on Twitter or visit our Facebook page. We should have the Steam store page up soon and the release is currently scheduled for mid-February, so keep an eye out for updates. If you don't have a VR headset, but you know someone who does, please do let them know about us!
Some of you might have noticed that I've hardly been active on the forums for a few months now, and I thought I should explain why.
The short answer is game development is now my job.
The longer answer is I graduated from my Games Development degree last summer, and I decided to found an indie studio with two friends from that course. Our company is Skyward Digital, and we're focusing on VR development, since we had a chance to use the Oculus Rift extensively at university. Our first title, RPG Merchant, has been in development since late September and is now fast approaching its release on Steam (VR only) and the Oculus store, so I'm now busier than ever helping to finish and polish the game before submitting it.
This job has its own rewards and challenges, and I really enjoy doing it (when Unity is cooperating
), but the unfortunate side effect is my hobbies have all taken a back seat. Unsurprisingly, it's extremely difficult to have game development as a career and a hobby at the same time. I expected as much when I started this, but it's still frustrating.So, what does this mean for New Horizons Remastered? To be honest, I've made no progress since September, and the reality is, I don't know when I'll be able to resume development, if at all. It's still a project that means a lot to me, so I absolutely want to continue it, but I can't make any solid promises right now. I wouldn't consider it "abandoned", but it's certainly on hold until further notice.
It's little consolation, but I am still working on my Bellona model occasionally. Programming is my primary role at Skyward, so it's nice to get back to 3D modelling as a side project. When I've made that model as "complete" as I can, I will definitely put it into Unity, so that may coincide with an update to NHR while I'm more motivated. If not, I may still try to put the ship into PotC. After 5 years (!) of on-and-off development, that ship deserves to be used somewhere!
So why am I still here on PA if I'm barely active? The reason is I owe a huge amount to this community.
When I joined back in 2010 (doesn't time fly??!) I had absolutely no experience in game development whatsoever. I started modifying textures in GIMP, making very minor code changes, and then started editing ship models in Maya. That led to me become self-taught at 3D modelling, which in turn eventually inspired me to study Games Development at degree level. Now I make games for a living, and all this is because I was welcomed to this community and learnt my trade by contributing to the New Horizons mod. That's incredible!
I am hugely thankful to this community, so I'm determined to give at least one more thing back to you, whether that's the Bellona, a future update to NHR, or both. Again, I can't say when that will happen, but never say never.
If you want to find out more about Skyward Digital and the game we're making, you can follow @SkywardDigital on Twitter or visit our Facebook page. We should have the Steam store page up soon and the release is currently scheduled for mid-February, so keep an eye out for updates. If you don't have a VR headset, but you know someone who does, please do let them know about us!
