PLEASE START US OFF BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF:


Hi 👋 and thank you for the opportunity. My name is Rem, and for the last two years I've been a solo game developer on the Lifelong project.

Except for the music and sound design, which I delegate, I do everything else, which sometimes makes it difficult to organize and produce the project.


TELL US ABOUT LIFELONG.

Well, Lifelong is a first-person, black-and-white, puzzle-solving adventure game. The game deals with the bureaucratic empire and the meaninglessness of certain jobs.

Since I studied at university, "work" has been one of my recurring themes, and the idea for Lifelong really began to emerge during Covid, when everyone was working from home, reinforcing the feeling that work was losing its meaning. This certainly influenced my approach in LifeLong, where I wanted to explore these themes.


HOW HAS THE DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY BEEN

I began the project in the continuity of another project I was working on before called Hitflesh. 


WHICH GAME ENGINE DID YOU CHOOSE AND WHY?


At that time I was working on the Unreal Engine 4, I decided to continue working with it.

I've developed certain skills on this software and it seemed more sensible to continue on it rather than learn on a new engine, even if Godot does tempt me 🙂

WHAT'S BEEN YOUR BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT HURDLE SO FAR?

Um, I think it's the NPC AI, it's really an area I hadn't worked on before and I had a hard time getting started because I thought it would make the game complex to develop on its own. For the moment, it seems to be working without too many problems, and I hope it will continue to do so 😅


ADVICE FOR FELLOW DEVS?

Playtest your game as often as possible, make as many iterations as possible! If it's your first game and you're a solo dev, the road may be long and difficult (especially morally), but don't forget that you'll keep progressing throughout this development period.


ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?

- Yes, don't hesitate to communicate about your project, even if it's very early in the development process. You'll find that the indie game and solo dev community is incredibly supportive, with good advice and essential moral support that I can only recommend.

- Rem

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2414990/Lifelong/

❤️