I'm releasing a game with my game engine

Morning guys,

You probably have been wondering why haven't I published a video nor written a blog post in a while. Well, the reason is that I've been busy working on publishing the first video game with my game engine.

Yep, that is right. I'm publishing the first commercial game developed with the Untold Engine.

The game is called Untold Soccer. It is a hyper-casual soccer mobile game where you face five opponents, and you only have 60 seconds to score and win.

So, let me share a bit with you why I decided to publish a game with the Untold Engine.

For a long time, I've been working on the engine, improving it, adding features, fixing tons of bugs. During every beta release, I would showcase a small demo. These demos would showcase what I worked on during the release and what you can do with the game engine. The demos were great, but they did not put the engine to the test.

Lately, I decided to put the Untold Engine to the test by releasing an actual game and see how it is perceived by the public.

So, for the past month or so, I focused all my energy on working on a mobile soccer game. I implemented the game Artificial Intelligence logic, the game analyzers, players steering behaviors, etc.

I was able to complete this game in a short amount of time because I already had experience developing soccer games in the past. I knew what I had to implement and how to do it. All this knowledge came from my desire to build a soccer game when the Untold Engine was in its infancy. At that time, I failed but I learned a lot about developing a soccer game.

Moreover, I decided to take a different approach in game development; instead of releasing a full-blown game with several levels and complex game mechanics, I decided to take a play from the Hyper-Casual game's playbook.

Hyper-Casual Game Studios develop games with one level, simple mechanics, and short gameplay. This strategy allows them to fail and learn fast. This strategy is what I need if I'm going to make a robust game engine. I need a way to fail and learn from my engineering mistakes as fast as I can.

Aside from implementing the game, I also had to learn about Indie Game Marketing, spent most nights watching Youtube videos from successful game developers, learned a bit about App Store Optimization, and contacted several artists on Fivver.

I have to say that this time I was kind of lucky to find talented artists on Fivver. Most of the time, you find people who have no talent at all. I found a 3D artist that creates amazing voxel 3D characters, contacted him and he was able to design my soccer player characters, along with the animations. I was very pleased with the work that I decided to hire him to do more animations and soccer kits.

I also found a talented logo designer and he made the app icon and splash screen for the game.

Currently, an ad copywriter, which I have hired before, is working on the game description that will be shown in the app store and the landing page. I'm very excited to see what he comes up with. This writer is amazing.

So, when are you releasing the game? Well, I was going to release it cold-turkey after doing some in-home testing but several game developers suggested doing a "soft-release". Meaning, to release it as a beta-build to selected users and once the game is stable, release it to the public.

I liked that idea and luckily for me, the App Store allows you to release the game as a beta-build through a service called Test-Flight. It is a way to release your game to selected users, get their feedback and allow users to submit bugs. If you are interested in being a beta-tester sign-up here. I would appreciate it.

I'm planning to do a soft release in the second week of July 2021.

So that's the plan. I'm doing this and publishing a game with the Untold Engine.

Thanks guys for reading.

P.S. Don't forget to subscribe to my Youtube Channel. I will post the a video soon.

Latest updates to the Untold Engine (v.0.015)

In this video, I share the latest updates to my game engine, the Untold Engine. Throughout this development stage, I improved the Rendering System, implemented Triple Buffering, a G-Buffer render pass, Shader Hot-Reloading, among other things.

Thank you for watching.

How long does it take to develop a game engine?

In this video, I share how long it took me to develop a game engine from scratch. Fortunately, I've documented everything about my game engine development and can provide a concrete answer to how long it will take you.

Thanks for watching

The one thing I struggle with as a game engine developer

As a game engine developer, I like to share the progress of my game engine. And I do so through the development of a game. In this video, I share with you the one struggle I face every time I want to showcase or test my game engine.

Thank you for watching

Can you make money as an indie game engine developer?

I've been thinking for a while about how to make money with my game engine. And the only strategy that makes sense is to make money using something I'm going to call Compounding Core Loop.

Let me explain the strategy with a concept that we all know very well. The Game Core Loop.

If you've ever played Doom, you can see that the core loop is:

Or if you've played Fifa, the core loop is:

You repeat these actions over and over throughout the game. The complexity of the loop changes as you move through the levels, but the loop's essence stays intact.

Well, what if you could use the same Core Loop idea to grow a business? Instead of Run, Aim, Shoot, your Strategy Core Loop can be:

• Market
• Generate
• Reinvest

You Market your product, Generate earnings, and Reinvest the profits back into your business. You keep doing this until you have achieved your first financial goal. Once the goal is reached, you start a second business and repeat the loop until you have enough capital to start a third business. And repeat the whole process.

So, instead of making money directly from your engine. You make money indirectly using a Game Core Loop as a strategy.

Now, can this work? I don't know, but it seems doable. You can start a business that requires little investment, apply the core loop concept and grow financially.

I'm going to put this strategy to the test. I've invested $1500 to start a marketplace for indie-game engine developers. I bought two titles, twenty copies total, of books that I know are popular among indie-game engine developers. And I'm going to market them through my blog and channels, generate earnings and reinvest the profits.

My goal is to make $10,000 in profits from this initial business. Once I've reached this goal, I will start a second business and repeat the process.

Now, you may be asking what your value proposition is? As opposed to Amazon, I give you the flexibility to Buy Now, Pay Later. I know how expensive engine books are, and not everyone can pay $100 on the spot. But if you can pay $25 in installments, that may work better for you.

Let's see if this game loop works as a strategy to grow a business. So, subscribe to my channel and join my Discord Server because I will share how things are going periodically. I will share what worked, what didn't work.

Thanks for reading.