Diary Page #2: Team of Dozen

Dear Scholars,

In the last entry I gave you a rough timeline of the first several years of Selenwald development. I showed you an early proof of concept dated back to 2013 and described the gradual build-up that started when I made first prototypes in 2016. The long journey of mostly solo development that has suffered a plethora of interruptions driven by the constant need to do side work in order to be able to pay the bills has finally led to an important milestone in 2020.

Today I would like to tell you the rest of the story that has brought the game to where it is now.

The unnamable

In April 2020 I decided to officially establish a studio as I knew some opportunities to accelerate the development were impossible without a registered business. Thus Unnamable Arts was born. Not much time has passed and I used some of my humble savings to hire first freelancers to help me create some things I'm not particularly good at myself. A first human character and a first boss were designed, drawn and finally made in 3D. A first key art (which is no longer in use) was also created.

First external funding

One of the goals behind founding a business was to unlock the possibility to apply for government funds. There is an attractive government fund program in Poland called Development of Creative Sectors ("Rozwój Sektorów Kreatywnych") that is designated to - among others - help small gamedev studios finish or further develop their prototypes. I managed to have my application accepted and several months later in May 2021, an absolutely wild period began. Although the funding wasn't enormous and it seems very insignificant compared to a typical budget of a video game it was enough for me to get many freelancers involved over the course of several months and vastly accelerate the process of getting the game closer to the playable and polished state. A total of 12 people were hired during that period until the end of 2021. Most would only be tasked with less than a month worth of work but some were involved for longer. The list contains:

• 2 environment artists

• game designer

• character artist

• animator

• music composer

• audio designer

• UX designer

• writer

• VFX artist

• 2 illustrators / concept artists

A wide range of content was designed and created last year. The game's story foundations and artistic direction got set in stone. Combat and other mechanics slowly started to work well together. First two original music tracks were composed. A terrifying monster enemy known as the Blind Hunter was created from scratch to roam the halls of Selenwald looking for prey, marking its presence with a shrill, blood-chilling breathing noise. The new key art that now proudly decorates the Selenwald's Steam page and social media was also done with the help of the funding. And that's just a tip of the mountain.

However, government funds also have their caveats and this one was no exception. I was required to provide my own financial contribution and I was not able to use any of the government money to pay my own bills so I was forced to keep doing paid work the entire time. This means that even though a lot of things got done by others, the implementation side has been gradually falling behind as I tried to find scraps of time to do programming work while also managing a group of people (which by itself is almost a full time job) and working on the side