That's an entire decade!
Normally I use these company birthdays to look forward and talk about the future, but you only turn 10 once. Here's a small snapshot of something I was working on every year of VizionEck LLC's history.
2013
This game actually started before VizionEck LLC was incorporated. Project Outline was an incredibly small concept that wasn't much more than "this outline design looks cool." I had made a few micro games in blender, but this was my first project in Unity.
2014
Everyone knows this one! I announced VizionEck and got a huge amount of visibility. I cringe so much looking back at my marketing, but I do like this video. It's 100% cgi since I didn't have time to get Unity recording working. Had to release the video before I left for Europe.
Spoiler for bonus pic:
2015
The forum is still awesome but 2015 was crazy. So many of us just hanging out and chatting. I really do appreciate every single one of you that has posted here.
2016
One common trend with VizionEck is that I rebooted it a lot. In an alternate timeline I'd be on VizionEck sequel #5, but I was always afraid of putting out a disliked game.
This reboot was pretty fun. All the puzzles were built around viewing special symbols/power words from the alien language. For example one word while visible would stop the player from moving away from it. The player would eventually learn to use this mid air like a grappling hook.
2017
I really love how VizionEck Cube Royale's visuals turned out. This lightning effect was hard! Every strand was real in 3D space and you could even watch them propagate. The scorch marks on surfaces however were placed immediately so in screenshots like this it didn't always look perfect.
The HUD was a real challenge too since I had no experience with that type of design. The angled 3D look worked great with the rest of the game's visuals and was perfect for VR. The HUD would bounce and react to player movement/hits which was also a nice touch.
Now if only the gameplay was as good...
2018
I released a game! It was fun working on and launching it in secret. I know everyone here is super tired of me saying "soon" so I wanted to avoid that.
I have a long history with twisty puzzles and I had ideas for a long time, but from start to launch this was an incredibly quick project. Releasing on PC with the Adventure update took longer than developing and releasing the initial game on PS4.
2019
After TPS I needed a new game. Cube Royale was canned and VizionEck Adventure was in limbo. I initially planned to convert the forum rpg into a fleshed out and finished 2D game, but I have zero drawing skills and 3D ended up being easier.
The massive scale in Forged Odyssey was really difficult to tackle in Unity. The game actually renders twice in order to pull it off. In this video you can see a glitch where the two renders don't line up at the 16 second mark. The local scene camera starts rendering a flat plane while the background camera renders accurately.
2020
Development started on Hapax. This early screenshot shows what the first prototype looked like.
When it benefits me I'll describe it as a reboot of VizionEck Adventure, but it's more accurate to think of it as a new game. I loved the alien language in VizionEck and my main goal was to publish it in the form of a game.
2021
The game jam was really fun. I'm super glad we did this!
2022
Fancy player render and a new logo. It's a small detail but I'm really happy with the wrinkles on her shirt. The same asset is used in game and the buttons and fabric just feel so real. The shape of her space suit underneath affects it.
2023
It's green!
I use this shader to test geometry. Backfaces are rendered in red so I can immediately spot holes. This area has a lot of additional problems too like all the random thin walls floating in air.
I expected a major hurdle but it was actually pretty easy to clean this up automatically. I just treated every room like a balloon and applied pressure to pop out the dents and then deleted surfaces with zero area.
Well there we go. A whole 10 years of VizionEck LLC and 11 snapshots. Thank you to everyone that supported and participated along the way.
