PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:

Hi, I’m bromanguy. I’m 27 (basically ancient in internet years) and from Ukraine. I have a master’s degree in law, which I never used but spent too many years pursuing. These days I work as a UI/UX designer and, somehow, ended up making a game.

My parents didn't realize I’m a creative type when I was a kid, so I spent about a third of my life doing things I didn’t enjoy - classic character backstory. Then one day I decided “screw it,” quit everything, and started doing what actually makes me happy. And somehow I'm still getting by.

Outside of game dev, I have too many hobbies: I draw, play guitar badly (but passionately), write, and recently got into cycling. SOULGRAVE is probably my magnum opus. Hopefully, more than three people will enjoy it as much as I do.

TELL US ABOUT SOUL GRAVE.

SOULGRAVE is a character-driven action roguelike where you create wild builds, explore ever-changing dungeons, and battle brutal bosses with puzzle-like, telegraphed mechanics. It’s also got choices about saving or destroying the world, because moral ambiguity is fun.

I’ve tried (and failed) to make games when I was a kid. Even during college and uni, I kept telling myself I’d make one someday... and then didn’t. But the more games, movies, and anime I consumed, the more stuff piled up in my head: characters, story arcs, gameplay ideas. Eventually, the game just kind of existed in my brain whether I wanted it to or not.

What finally pushed me to start was mycrippling Final Fantasy XIV addiction. At some point, I thought, “What if I took the raid-style boss mechanics and dungeon pacing from FFXIV and slammed it into a side-scroller roguelike?” So I quit FFXIV. To make SOULGRAVE. Which might’ve been a sidegrade in terms of life choices, gamedev is just about as fun and engaging as wiping to the same boss for weeks in an MMO. I hope I can bring all the fun of it and none of the headache to players.

HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN

It’s been a ride. I’ve worked on the game literally every single day for the past year and a half. No days off. Not because I’m disciplined, but because I have no concept of work-life balance and at this point I partially run on pure stubbornness and sunk cost fallacy.

Development’s been full of classic game dev moments. Some weeks feel like you’re fighting the engine and losing. Other times, you randomly build an entire system in one day and it actually works. Genuinely, I think my skills greatly improved over the dev period and I'm way more confident in what I'm doing now than when I first started. The game grew in scope and there are tons of cool little systems I can’t wait for people to explore. The game is shaping up to be awesome.

WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?

I picked Unity because it had the most tutorials, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Godot looked cool, but at the time Unity had more stuff in the asset store to speed things up ( save my ass ). I can't say I regret it, but when Unity decides to crash or freeze for 35 minutes, eats all my progress, and then spits on me to top it off, I do briefly think some bad thoughts.

WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?

Unity’s UI system feels like piloting an Eva. Like... who designed this? Why are anchoring and layout groups harder than Dark Souls? And I'm a UI designer by craft, so it should be intuitive. It’s cursed.

But in all seriousness, one of the biggest hurdles has been learning to let go of perfectionism. Sometimes you have to scrap features or accept that something is “good enough” if you ever want to actually finish. And I tend to polish some small things over and over.

And probably the actual biggest hurdle is trying to balance everything. Full-time job, seventy-five hobbies, social life, and then somehow still making a whole-ass game. I keep waiting for some mysterious figure to show up, hand me a fat stack of cash and say: “here bro, just breathe out and finish your damned game.” So I can at least quit my job. That would be epic.

ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?

STOP! Don’t do it. It’ll drain your time, energy, money, and will to live. It’s WAY more difficult than it seems at the start. Also, you’re creating competition for me and my game, so like... chill.

But seriously, just show up. It’s easy to run on hype when you’re just starting out, but that excitement fades fast. Then you see the mountain you actually have to climb, and suddenly it’s so tempting to boot up league of legends. Game dev isn’t about quick epic bursts of energy. It’s about dragging yourself to the keyboard day after day and collecting your sad little participation ticket. It’s about hitting walls constantly, feeling like you’re stupid and still not quitting. A lot of it is genuinely tedious and kind of soul-crushing.

Most days it feels like you’re going nowhere. You’ll show up 100 times and the game still won’t be done. But eventually it will be, if you don’t give up. And once you actually achieve something and break through some seemingly impenetrable development wall, it can feel equally as rewarding.

Also, talk to other devs. Encourage each other. Suffer together. It makes the whole thing a little more bearable... maybe even fun.

damn why does it sound so depressing? Is it just me? (maybe rewrite this part)

ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?

Despite all the self-deprecating jokes, I still love gamedev, I love SOULGRAVE, I love the community and I will see this through no matter what! Also,

GO WISHLIST MY GAME SOULGRAVE ON STEA M SO I CAN STOP WORKING FULL TIKME, PLEASE I AM SO TIRED I JUST WNAT TO MAKE A FUN GAME I DON'T EVEN NEED A LOT OF MONEY I JUST WANT TO BE FREE PLS WISHLS NOW IF YOU READ THIS FAR AND DIDN'T WISHLIST - SHAME ON YOU GOGO HERE'S A LINK:

SOULGRAVE on Steam

And thanks a ton for the opportunity to do this interview, much love, appreciate whoever is reading it, and also a massive amount of love to GameDevJourney.

bromanguy (CEO of guys)