2 yaers ago I was working after hours on my solo hobby game project. Right now we are a 15 people indie dev team and our trailer was posted on IGN.

How did you find money to hire 14 people before releasing the game?

1. Started working on the game alone
2. Posted it on social media and saw some potential
3. Spend all savings to hire some freelancers for the game
4. Game got better, the more traffic on social media come
5. I found a group on Discord where people are talking about the marketing of the games
6. I posted my game with some numbers from social media's
7. Few publishers contacted me
8. I signed a deal with one of the publisher
9. Publisher is funding the development
10. Right now we have a kickstarter live to boost our budget

What made you decide it was time to get freelancers onboard, rather than just continuing as a solo hobby? Congratulations on the initial success btw!

One of my posts went viral on social media, that was the time I realised that if I invest more this can become a real thing. Thank you!

Yall still hiring?

Not now, we are fully booked sorry.

I can spell years.

Hired! xd

Okay you can pay me 256 dollars a week.

We have a deal :d

Hi! How did you get the idea for the game?

Hi! After watching Interstellar I realised that there is no single player fps story adventure game on the market that would tell a story like that (of course a different one, it was just an inspirtaion).

Damn. I'm wishlisting ASAP

Thank you! :)

Yeah the Interstellar vibe is strong with this trailer. :)

Yeah it's one of the main inspirations along with Firewatch (Story telling) and Half life 2 (gameplay and variety of vehicles)

What direction are you taking the soundtrack & sound design? I'd love to see similarities there to interstellar too (as this had perfect soundtrack thanks to hans zimmer).

We have a Sound Designer and Composer on board, as you said we are taking inspiration from Interstellar.

Do you work on this full time now?

Yes, I work full time on it. As well as 3 people.

4 people are working full time, 11 part time.

Looking great! What engine are you working with?

Thanks! Unreal Engine 4

What were you working full time before starting out? What is your role right now?

Love the interstellar inspiration you mentioned!

I was working as an UX Designer in the IT industry. My role now is a producer/game director. I'm managing the entire team and also working with publisher on the marketing.

Thanks, Interstellar is an amazing movie!

Very inspiring! I'm a ux designer myself, so it's very nice to see that you followed your dream and created (hopefully) your own dreamjob by doing what you did.

Will follow your progress, all the best to you and your team :)

Nice! :D Thank you so much and good luck as an UX designer.

The things(guns,moonbuggy etc)that are depicting in this Game are reality based or just fictional?(I mean have you done some research just like nolan did to make accurate blackhole in interstellar or this game depicting not that much accurate cosmic world but just a pure fiction only?)

Yeah of course we are doing a lot of research like that. For example wheter there should be space in sound and how much. Does the guns actually works in space etc. etc. :)

What are the most important things you’ve learned on the business side of it? And how was your transition from your old job to managing multiple people and owning a company?

Things I have learned.
1. Give freedom to people - they will work more efficient. But it probably depend on people and the industry.
2. Listen to people feedback
3. Test game with the players as soon as possible even if it's still WIP

1. Always try to do better, even if it's already ok. We have on old trailer which was ok, but this one on IGN is way better. Publisher didn't ask us to do it, we wanted to make a new one and it's going pretty well.
   

2. There will be a LOT of paper work.

3. Find a good lawyer (for contracts etc.) and accountant it would be great if they have an experience in the industry.

The transition was pretty hard, but overall a good experience. I was already working on a an IT startup with few friends where I am managing the team, so it wasn't that unbelivable hard.

Congrats! This looks amazing!

Super generic question, but I'm really curious what the timeline and progression looked like from going solo to having not only a full blown team but a functional and finished game within the span of just only two years. Could you share a bit of the history? And maybe some of the hiccups, mistakes and big lessons along the way?

I was working on it alone 3 months, then I hired some freelancers for help, and after next 3 months I found a publisher who is also a investor. With money from publisher I was able to hire people.

About making it all in that short amount of time, nowadays the unreal engine that we are using is super friendly, there are a lot of 3d assets which you can buy, a lot of ready solutions so the game dev is faster than ever BUT the game is still WIP and need a lot of work.

Thanks for the response! How does the publisher and investor aspect work in terms of ownership of the end product or your company itself?

I would imagine publishers would give you some amount of funding for development, but did you also choose to/have to give up some company ownership in order to bring them on as an investor?

If you could share some details on how the publisher deal went, that would super neat! Not money numbers wise of course, but is it essentially the same as pitching a bunch of publishers and finding the right group to work with?

Im in the SaaS tech space so having investors is my bread and butter, but I'd love to branch into the game space so your progress is super encouraging to me.

Thank you. I can't answer the first question because it's under NDA in the contract. I can only say that the deal is pretty good in terms of that :)

I also can't say that, but almost always the deal is 50/50 for the dev team and for the publisher from earnings from the game. It split might differ in AAA games, but I'm not 100% sure, it can be 50/50 too. About owning the company it depends, but the best deal is to keep 100% shares of your company.

So signing a deal with a publisher was actually a great experience, I have 3 calls and I liked the guys from Freedom Games the most. They have "freedom" in their name and it's a real thing. They really do not interupt you with the game development, they don't throw any ideas and change your vision. You are responsible for the game, they are responsible for the marketing.

I'm not sure hows in your profession, but nowadays having some traffic on social media can validate your idea. If you have a good response from social media investor can see that it's worth to invest.

Makes sense, and I appreciate you answering wherever possible. After seeing how some investors like to constantly stick their fingers into things in my industry, I'm glad to hear you've found a great group to work with.

You've got my wishlist! And you've given me one more reason to pursue my childhood dreams of game development after I've finished my current stint.

I'll be keeping an eye on Moon Mystery!

Thank you and good luck!

When did you know that this was something that could actually be feasible to dedicate a ton of time and resources into?

Like did you meticulously plan everything out before pulling the trigger, did you jump right in, or was it somewhere in between?

Good luck on your game!

First I was posting on youtube and the views were really low, but after my first post on social media, I don't remember right now where. Maybe reddit or tiktok - the post went viral, I got nice amount of wishlists on steam (the KPI that publishers are looking at) and I said to myself "wait - this actually can be a real deal".

Important note is that I didn't start the project to earn money, I started it just as a hobby and continue it even after my first videos on youtube went really bad. I didn't plan anything. I was making this game for me and to show my friends. The response from people made it a real thing.

Will you get sued by the film makers of interstellar for using that blackhole image in this thumbnail?

I don’t think interstellar owns black holes

Exactly :D They don't own the image of black hole.

I don't think Lacoste owns alligators either

They don't but they own the logo design. The video from the trailer shows black hole which is a natural thing in the space. It's like would show a Saturn planet and somebody own the image.