PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:
My Name is Mateo and I am a 21 year old solo gamedev from Germany. I started to learn game development in 2020 when I was 17. I had absolutely 0 programming knowledge before, so I spent countless nights after long school days to learn C# and Unity. I spent 1 year developing dozens of prototypes and participating in many Game-Jams... In 2021, I started to work on my first commercial project. An Action-Platformer with Sharks called "Makis Adventure". The idea came because I love Pixelart Games and Sharks, so I combined both :) I spent 2 years developing this game solo every single day (even on vacation lol) and released it on Steam on January 18th 2023.
TELL US ABOUT ULTIMATE INDIE RACING.
Right now Im working on "Ultimate Indie Racing": An Arcade Racing Game with Indiegame Characters. I plan to develope the biggest Indiegame Crossover here with Games such as "Another Crabs Treasure", "Shotgun Farmers" and "Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus" already confirmed for the line up. You can find a full list of all confirmed games on my Steampage. Every Character should have a unique Car inspired by the Game and I plan to have an Ability System, where you can collect Ability Drops and use attacks from the participating Characters. The Shotgun Farmer for example, has the ability to fire a shotgun and shoot at nearby enemies. The game already has local and Online Multiplayer working, even though its only 1 month in active development.
HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN
The Idea came really random... My brother challenged me to make a Racing Game in 24 hours after we played some Mario Kart. I took the Challenge and posted some first Gameplay on Twitter. It was suuper rough gameplay from after 5 hours of development. The Tweet really did weel with over 500 Likes and the people seemed hungry for more :) Then a Developer Friend of mine (Developer of Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus) asked me if I could bring his Char "Bo" into the game as a playable Character. Thats when it clicked in my head and the idea of an Indie Racing Game was born...
WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?
I work with Unity, since I spent the last 4 years working with Unity. There is just no need for me to switch engine right now and I love to work with Unity!
The Development Journey has been fantastic! Its so much fun to make an Arcade Racer and its going very smooth right now. I have not struggled with any problems yet and its actually awesome to make a game that people like ^^ Every tweet is doing great and there are so many devs and publishers reaching out, which really motivates me too! I'm super excited for the future and will give my best to make a fun game!
WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?
Definetly Online Mulitplayer. The Base Networking was done in under a day but Im still struggling with lags and problems to synch car rotation and position with other players. I have not made any Multiplayer Games before so there is a lot of stuff to learn!
ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?
Yess! Never give up and go with the grind! Developing a videogames is one of the toughest things, you can do since it requires skills in a lot of areas such as art, storytelling, programming... Use social media to promote and share your game with others and to build up connections with other devs! That really helped me a lot with motivation! Also, I wish you all the best for your journey! You can do it!
ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?
It was a pleasure to answers your questions! Thank you for letting me share my story and project here!
-Mateo
❤️
