How much of the engine did you have to research and come up with yourself? Any chance of also sharing some explanation of algorithms?The engine source is going out publicly (on Github) so people can do what they want with it. Understandably its not that interesting yet because it all has been focused on the development of the engine, which is an equal part of the goal (I am not interested in just shipping a game but a unique engine that fits a particular niche which Unreal and Unity don't satisfy). Its going to take quite a while before it gets to that interesting stage, so I don't expect anyone but programmers to be excited about it yet.
Are you using GPU compute features extensively? What API are you using, if yes?
What does the future hold?
5/10/2016
No point in dancing around the issue, I am out of money and trying to figure out what the next step is. Whatever happens, I am continuing to work on VQ, as that does not cost me anything but time. But I might need to allocate much of that time to a paying job, unless I can figure something else out.
The one thing that I have decided, for certain, is that I am returning everyone's money: Kickstarter backers, investors, patrons, and preorders (and anything else). Everyone will keep their rewards regardless. I made this decision before I even launched my Kickstarter campaign, although I've only talked about it with a few people. I am taking this step regardless of success or failure.
If I have to work another job, I will probably begin this return process as soon as possible (and it will take time to accumulate everything). Otherwise I will begin returning money when profitable. I am still planning to release something in the short term, as well as the source code.
I can understand if anybody is disappointed or angry, but I assure you no one has a heavier heart than I do. I invested over $100k of my own money, debt, and equity into this, in addition to about $500k of work (accounting for overtime and opportunity cost). I spent about a decade working in this area without any sort of return (other than it being "fun"), and over the past 3 years I put in well over 10,000 hours. I dragged my family through all of this as well. Nonetheless, if there is anything more I can do, please let me know.
This is not the end, but it is still a depressing position to be in. Still, I can't help but be grateful to have been given an opportunity to work full time on something like this.
As I have mentioned in the past, writing a game engine is a feasible (if unwise) thing to do, if you pick your battles carefully. I simply had too many battles, and too many directions I tried to tackle at once. My todo list never once shrank faster than it grew. Only at the tail end of this did I decide (for better or worse) to burn my entire set of goals and focus on one "simple" goal (although I must stress that nothing is simple).
If I sound like I have a bleak outlook, I don't. I still believe in this and I have something that I am proud of. This is the first time in my life I have worked on something of this magnitude, spanning 50k to 100k lines of code, and not wanted to scrap the entire thing. I've tackled a lot of new ground so I suppose the road is destined to be bumpy, but I continue to learn from my mistakes.
If anyone has any ideas of what I should do next, I am all ears. At the very least, I feel obligated to be transparent about my current situation. There is no outcome that I fear, I mostly just want to do what is best for everyone, even if that simply means getting a job and paying everyone back. I will probably investigate past offers I have gotten for funding, but I don't know if that will necessarily bear fruit.
One last thing I would like to make clear is that nobody owes me sympathy, and I am not even asking for it. My situation is a result of my own choices, and the only thing that I can make better is the future. All things considered, I think this journey has been great so far, and I am curious to see what the future holds.
Funniest part of the entire post. It's like if I said "I rode a bicycle every day for the last 10 years. However, if it had been a home bike that could generate electricity, I would've made $500k off of it." Yeah, duh, lol. If you had worked instead of doing your hobby, you would've made money. Lol, sue yourself for opportunity costs.
Roguelikes suck.
Thank You
5/11/2016
First, I just wanted to say "thanks" to everyone for the outpouring of enthusiasm and support. I tried to reply to many people but apologies if I missed you - there were literally hundreds of messages across Twitter, Facebook, email, Kickstarter, this website, etc. I was legitimately, deeply moved by many of the replies.
By popular request, I am not shoving your money back in your hands, it will be optional. I will put together a survey for this (likely when I get a means to start paying people back, be that employment or whatever). I also still need to figure out the logistics of what order people should be paid back in.
Also by popular request, I am putting up a Patreon page, which is located here. I put very little effort into it, but as noted I think my effort is better spent actually working on the game. Previously I did have a patronage page on this website, and even though I never once advertised or mentioned it, people found it on their own and I had over $100/month coming in from this, which really helped. It is also accessible via the "Patrons" link at the top of this site. Old patrons (who donated via Paypal) - please cancel your patronage (or I will do it for you when I get the chance). If you still wish to be a patron (and I really won't judge you either way), you can use the Patreon page. The old list of patrons will remain in place, for the historical record.
If you are not already aware of the state of things, I may have to get a job soon so I am hesitant to recommend providing further funds as my pace will be slow. If I get enough money (I mean, via whatever job I take), I might hire someone who costs less than I do to work on it (or at least to help me with certain tasks) - I am also supposed to have someone interning for me this summer but I don't know what that will yield (they volunteered to though). Anyhow, I am still evaluating all options at this point and trying to figure out the best plan of attack. There have been some good suggestions so far, feel free to add any more.
Also by popular request, I am putting up a Patreon page, which is located here. I put very little effort into it, but as noted I think my effort is better spent actually working on the game. Previously I did have a patronage page on this website, and even though I never once advertised or mentioned it, people found it on their own and I had over $100/month coming in from this, which really helped. It is also accessible via the "Patrons" link at the top of this site. Old patrons (who donated via Paypal) - please cancel your patronage (or I will do it for you when I get the chance). If you still wish to be a patron (and I really won't judge you either way), you can use the Patreon page. The old list of patrons will remain in place, for the historical record.
First Release!!!
It is the moment you have all been waiting for!...ish. I am sticking one toe in the water and putting out a very, very unpolished release of the very first version of the engine (the isometric engine, which differs from what I previously said I would release first, due to demand). Other versions are to follow. It was a fair amount of work to prep just this release, as unpolished as it is. And there are many things wrong, which I am mostly aware of (see the README.md). As noted, the point was not to make a perfect release, the point was to get the code in your hands as fast as possible (and I am sorry it has taken this long for me to get it out!). I am hoping that between my help and contributors, it can be turned into something at least a little more polished. So without further ado:
http://www.github.com/gavanw/voxelquestiso
or you can get the executable at:
http://gavanw.itch.io/vqiso
(Note, I am not charging money, but it obviously costs itch.io to host it, so throw some money at them if you care to).
On a side note, I am still figuring out how I want to earn money (from work, not VQ!). In the short term, I will probably be contracting a bit more, and I have created a new contracting website here (if you have any leads, let me know! - also, it is a rough draft and the splash page is messed up on mobile phones, so view it in a browser for now). Also, if you would like to vouch for me, you can do so here.
