The Origin Story

Almost all of the games I've launched were originally prototyped for a game jam: a short, intense, game development competition. Game jams always come with a tight deadline, and the added pressure has always made me extra productive. Some of the jams even had a big cash prize for the winner, raising the stakes even more.

Given that I seem to work best under pressure, how can we make a game jame that's even more intense?

How about making it a reality show?

The VR Developer Challenge was a video series sponsored by Qualcomm. Three game devs (including me) each had one month to create a new VR app. The winner would receive a prize of $20,000, and the whole process would be filmed by a professional crew and published on YouTube. How's that for pressure?

I, of course, chose to make a game. Keeping in the spirit of my previous VR games (Darknet, Tactera, and Skylight), I built a holographic strategy game focused on deep gameplay and replayability. You can see the first reveal of Astraeus (and the finale of the series) here: