Yes, I am taking liberties with the term “interview” here. I recently sent Daniel a set of questions to help us better understand his game and his crowdfunding campaign. Being one the latest and better looking campaigns to come from Oklahoma, I took special interest in finding more about StellerBrink and the mind behind it.
As I wrote the other day, StellarBrink is a new space faring RPG grafting game. It is currently on Kickstarter in order to raise the needed $15,000 to make it happen. It could use your help. To make it easier to do so, I took the time to get to know Daniel and StellarBrink better.
According to Daniel, StellarBrink’s idea comes from a lifelong love of sci-fi and a disappointment that crafting games Minecraft and Terraria lacked space exploration capabilities.
The idea for StellarBrink has been some 17 years in the making. I’ve always loved Science Fiction and been a Trekkie for as long as I can remember. I love technology, especially space-related technology. StellarBrink is a mix of everything I love about video games with new features being added as I play more games. StellarBrink has starships, mining and crafting, role-playing, inventory, and universal conquest, all the things that draw me personally to video games. Recently I played Minecraft for about two months straight after playing Terraria for 3 months. But both of these games lacked the space exploration and starships that I love. So thus began the creation of StellarBrink.
This isn’t Daniel’s first foray into space faring game design either. Back in 2010, Daniel created the XBLIG tower defense game DeadlySpace (Only 240 MSPoints while XBLIG lasts).
I first learned to use the Unity3D Engine by replicating a Minecraft block-type engine in Unity3D. You can find it for sale here: Cube World Generator (http://www.unitymagic.com/shop/en/featured-products/unitymagic-um109.html). After being rejected by the Unity Asset Store for possible intellectual property reasons, which, after much research, has no grounds save that Unity prefers not to have anything that resembles already created intellectual properties on their store. I do think this was a smart decision on Unity’s part, but still was a huge blow to me as a developer.
But that setback hasn’t let Daniel down. He has pressed forward with development of StellarBrink and has been working non-stop for around 3 months. He has now reached a point in his life where he needs funds to continue. That is why he is now asking the gaming community to help fund the creation of StellarBrink.
I work on StellarBrink full-time and do not have any other income, my funds are almost gone and I am hoping that funding will come in to allow me to both continue to work full-time on StellarBrink and to purchase the tools I desperately need for development of this fantastic concept… I need the funding quickly to prevent me from having to get a full-time job and majorly setback the release and development of StellarBrink.
As for what happens in the possible outcome of not reaching his funding goal, well, he will probably have to get a full time job. But, he other secret plans in that case too.
I am spending two to three hours a day working on my backup plan… it is currently top-secret, but should the funding campaigns fail I will reveal this to the public.
As some final words, Daniel has this to say to those seeking to use crowdfunding to jumpstart their game idea.
Be prepared, take risks, and push for your dreams no matter the cost… And don’t let a failed campaign stop you from pushing further to reach your dreams.
And for those of us striving to make games on our on dime and our own time, Daniel provides some clear words of encouragement to get you through those long hours of development.
I am very driven person. I wake up at 5 or 6 and work till very late at night everyday. Indie game development takes a lot of sacrifice, both personal and profession. You have to be willing to give your game everything, learn what you don’t know, and never, ever give up. I am completely self-taught when it comes to game development, it took me 13 years to get to where I am today… and I took a lot of big risks to get here. If you’re an aspiring Indie Game Developer… don’t give up. Don’t listen to people when they tell you you’ll fail. And forget about sleep and play, cause those are really not part of Indie Development.
You can help Daniel out with his funding of StellarBrink on Kickstarter. As of now he has not met his goal, but with your help, he could.
