#5 - Solo Dev

When I set out to make Alienhead in the early days of 2024, I was fresh off the heels of a 2.5 year long game project, called Dundra. Dundra is a fantasy deck-builder dungeon battler designed for mobile. It was a two-person collab built in Unity (the first builds were in Flutter), and I made HUNDREDS of pieces of art for it, many animated. Sadly, as life gets in the way,  my partner on Dundra moved to a different state, and the project stagnated. I held out hope for several months- but once it became clear that our lives had diverged – I was forced to let it go. Demo build for Dundra HERE.

I know that many other artists and creative people have a similar tale. A collaborative project that starts off with so much progress and excitement, then as our lives grow and change, it seems that time conspires to jostle our circumstance. I like to imagine that there’s a cartoon bad guy who is trying to sabotage me- that way I can have an enemy – when people start to drop off the project or leave you hanging.  

It sounds dramatic, I know. But it SUCKS having to give up!  All that effort and energy and hope- gets wasted and locked away five folders deep in a Google Drive folder.

That’s why, when I started Alienhead – I made a choice to include no one else. I can do everything to make this game in its entirety, relying on nobody and nobody to let me down.

It was ambitious and kind of egoistic, if I’m being honest. I wanted to have the satisfaction of completing such a big project with no help. I told myself it was all about pushing myself to a new level – only partially true. I was making this thing, a videogame, alone. Dedicating all time and energy that I could to it. After a while, you begin to question your own motivations – why the hell do I do this to myself? After a solid year, I had a playable game that felt good, but bar from complete. "What's my end goal?", I thought. I took some time off to ponder this.

So, my wife and I took a vacation to Maine.  And I stopped thinking about the project and work and all the other shit that flaps around everyday.  I relaxed, and I sat there on the beach inhaling ocean air. On day 2 of this, something came to me. Story and cutscenes and dialogue and lore and character designs – a whole world started to emerge. I wrote down what I could in a little notebook on the beach. And, when I looked up and took a second to read what I wrote- I got excited. I caught a new idea realized that I cannot do this alone. I’m gonna need some help. I thought carefully about it. That's all for now. Next post will introduce the Team.