Hello, I am an indie game developer who is leaning on steemit to develop my game.
It occurs to me that I have never really done a true "introduce yourself" style post here on Steemit even in spite of being an active member for quite some time. I have enjoyed using Steemit, I believe, for over a year.
I am about 99.99% sure that I have never posted in Introduce yourself in spite of knowing the importance of doing so. I guess I just never really thought I was ready. This post isn't just an introduction to myself but its also aimed at people outside of Steemit to explain why I like Steemit so much. So you might notice a little preaching to the quire.
My hopes is that I can maybe inspire other indie game developers like myself to join Steemit.
Hello, I am TheCastle and I work on video games for a living.
I have worked on big games and small games a like. I have been doing it for easily more than 15 years especially if you count my time in various modding communities around the internet.
A link to my CV if you want to see.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-2YIXbdMSYsNEgtdkZHOTJmOE0
I have a super cute kitty cat named Bella and my wife is @zombiedoll. I love nachos, I will travel the world to see how Nachos are different in each country if I have a chance to some day! With that said I am very work oriented.
I spend most of my time either playing or making video games. I have always been really passionate about the art of game design and I have been really changing my strategies around recent technological developments. Not only am I provided with amazingly useful development tools I have also been taking part in the world of crypto currency and Steemit. Both of these things create a really amazing opportunity.
Why lean on Steemit?
Steemit provides a very simple way for me to monetize my blog about my independent game design project. All I need to do is talk about what is on my mind and show images of the project and I earn money when people upvote my content. Steemit has a lot of earning potential but in my case I don't yet have a super large following to be completely independent (Yet). However, its been pretty nice for me to be able to give me more time to continue working. It greatly slows down how quickly my finances are burned out on basic daily life costs.
Your upvotes are literally buying me the snacks and energy drinks I need to work on my game around the clock.
If I make a post that gets me a couple of dollars you can bet I am spending that on some coffee or food to help me stay focused on the job. And I have been working as hard as I can. Making a game like the one I am making right now has been something I have dreamed about for years and I now finally have a chance to do it.
I seriously would not have attempted to take on a project like this as a full time endeavor if it were not for bitcoin and steemit.
I still am completely puzzled why we don't see more indie devs on steemit right now.
This site is an amazing opportunity for those of us who are just trying to make ends meet while working on passion projects. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough. Where the hell are you people, I see you all clamoring for a chance to talk on heavily curated places like twitter and reddit. The only curation on steemit is meritocracy. And your following might prove to be more financially lucrative than your actual game, lets be honest.
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You sound like an infomercial
Usually if I try to explain this to people they will shut down and kind of assume that I am selling a product or something. That I am a paid advertiser. This seriously couldn't be further from the truth! This has been a strange position to be in as I have felt like I am often watching people drowning in the ocean who will outwardly refuse a life raft because they think its just a gimmick.
A lot of people wont even believe that I am actually a dev of my game to be honest. Its pretty amusing to be in a genuine situation and you are surrounded by people who are pre-disposed to not believe a word you say! Its both frustrating and amusing at times.
I usually avoid these kinds of conversation altogether, at least if I am vocal on Steemit people can scroll down and see "Oh he made X dollars for posting this, maybe there is something to this."
Otherwise, there seems to be little reason to mention it lest I sound like an infomercial. Alright, your loss! :D
How are things going so far?
Right now I think that things are going pretty well. I am in a situation where my personal costs are as low as possible. I have a little bit of a nest egg and a lot of time to focus on my game. I have been spending a lot more time trying to build my Steemit following while also working on the game. Currently my average posts net value gains about 2 dollars each give or take 50 cents on a good day. My goal will be for my posts to earn about 10 dollars each which I think would require a bout 1500 more followers.
Once I have that kind of throughput my earnings will be at around what you might expect from a part time job. If that were to happen then I would be in a steady position where I can continue working on games independently for the foreseeable future.
My plans seem to be coming together outside of one weird stint where its a tiny bit more complex to convert bitcoin to USD in the state of New York.
Overall I feel like things are going well. If I can manage to get more eyes on me here on Steemit I will not only be actively talking about the benefits of the site to outsiders I will have a working example of its effectiveness to show first hand.
It would be really great if I can have help in promoting what I am doing right now.
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How are things with the game itself?
The game is coming together really well and I am progressing its development quite quickly. I am currently waiting to hear back from Valve Software for the chance to become a developer who can put the early access Demo of my game up on Steam. (Not to be confused with Steemit).
At that point I will continue to blog about the games progress and promoting the steam game page.
I am taking this very seriously, I want to be consistent here on Steemit and not only promote my projects but also promote Steemit.
This will be super kickass if I can pull this off! Also check out the latest demo of my game! And help me promote!
Revulsion is an independent game project that I am solo designing right now! My plan is to get the game on steam early access soon.
You can support this project by simply following me and upvoting me on Steemit! Or you can play the free demo! Link Below.
https://steemit.com/gaming/@thecastle/download-and-play-the-first-demo-build-of-my-game-project-stray
All Revulsion related posts are located here:
https://steemit.com/created/revulsion
Would love to see more of the game when you get a chance to post! ^_^
This post received a 1.5% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @arthestically! For more information, click here!
I support you developing this game independently dude! Im glad that steemit is here for independent creatives and Im sure we will see a LOT more joining in the coming years .... Im a film maker and actor and all-round creative and I will be hoping to at least semi-support myself through this platform so that I can stick to projects I feel passionate about, and not sell my soul. If this works out for you, me and others, then we will see even more emphasis on beautiful, authentic, adventurous, imaginative and risk taking creative projects. Great for culture, great for everybody! Keep up the good work :) x Basil
Glad to know that there are Non-Gamedevs here who support Gamedevs like the poster (@thecastle).. upvoted!!
Thanks for sharing your intro post, and showing off some of your skills.
Thanks, also, for helping anyone sitting on the fence about joining this great platform, to jump into the pond.
Best regards,
Peace!
Hi Castle, I am not big on FPSs at the moment so I never looked too deep into your game, but since I am a huge fan of games in general I wish you success, so projects like yours will let more indie Devs join Steem.
Do you know Jagged Alliance 2 btw? Can you make a game like that? :)
Hey dude, this is rad. If I might make a humble suggestion...coding on a diet of energy drinks, coffee, and snacks is short term good and long term very bad. Consider spending what the community gives you on some well-cooked balanced meals, water and tea!
Sorry for coming off on my high horse but as a fellow computer nerd, nothing made a bigger impact on my work than eating, sleeping, and working out well :)
I second this.. but sometimes you can only work with Energy Drinks or Coffe (I don't like both but look at the programming community!!)
That is super amazing. Yeah more creators from all areas should be promoting and showing their content in here already. But because it is not main stream I believe People will always think twice before they give a chance to steemit. I wish You all the best with You game and in here as well :D
Looks good, But next time put the camera a bit further away from your face.
hmm was it up to close? Ill keep that in mind. sorry about that
I changed the picture so its a bit further away.
Lot better, Nice Zelda T-Shirt.
Keep us posted for sure! I love playing the indie games available on steam! Can you tell us more about the game you are developing?
Oh and welcome to steemit! Upvoted and followed!
Edit: Somehow I missed the link you posted when reading! Definitely going to check it out! Cheers!
For easier reference, the most recent version release of the demo can be found here. https://steemit.com/steemit/@thecastle/revulsion-update-and-new-game-demo-download-9-7-2017
Thanks!
Hello TheCastel! Keep up the good work dude, It's great to see people like you with the courage of pursuing their dreams and passions..I believe that Steemit is an epochal revolution and will help us to detox from facebook and other zombifying socials, pushing us to be critic and original. Especially, I hope that the direction this project will take is the one of pushing people in expressing themselves freely, for the way they truly are, trying to say something that can add value in the lives of others (Ah..Leave the junk-food and try Italian food and Mediterranean diet, simple and fresh stuff, your coding skills will improve ;-))
Nice post @thecastle . What software do you use to make games, I had always had interest in making games , but it is too much work. I always end up making a very simple game.
Unreal Engine 4 is an amazing choice even for simple games. I highly recommend looking into Blueprint scripting if you are not a programmer.
Ya I am not a programmer! blueprint scripting is the option.Thanks brother for your advise . Started following you.