We need that yesterday... No pressure

Well, yes, we do have enough funds to enhance our game in any way we see fit. You may think that now we can relax and enjoy a whole year of careless development. Thinking about "whole year" somehow boosts the feeling of confidence that everything is going to be alright. I would say - it's quite far from the actual feeling.

In practice we have multitude of questions spinning in our heads and conversations every day:

• What are most important parts of Equilibrium we absolutelly need to enhance first?
• Do we have everything we need for TechCrung event in Ryga (early February) or next HackFwd Build (early March)?
• How can we maximize our chances at Startup Monthly Vilnius event (middle of April)? It would be exceptionally useful for us to win, go to Silicon Valley and learn from the best in the world!!!
• Which companies we should partner with to be in best position later?
• Etc...

There are so many things we need to do and we have so little time left. We trully care about future of our company. I can see passion in eyes of every teammate, everyday. We absolutelly want to succeed! It is a mix of pleasure and stress working on something extraordinary.

Signed partnership with HackFwd

Finally - it's official: we have signed contract with HackFwd. Our investment is secured to improve Equilibrium up to standards we were dreaming about all the time. We are very happy that our investor is specifically HackFwd. I could not stress enough importance of their mentors. Their wisdom easily doubles (if not triples) our chances of success.

Every three months HackFwd organizes events called Builds. It's effectively four days of very intense learning from world-class mentors and experience sharing among similar entrepreneurs like us. We have participated in two Builds already and both times we got so much information that we had to rethink our business strategies from the ground up. It's not that we were doing everything wrong. It's just very persuasive information how to get one step further towards perfection.

We have literally 78 distict tasks as a company to think about and act accordingly. Only about 20% of them are actual features of the game. Having an awesome game is very important for players, but to have a successful business - there are many more things to think about than just the game.

That's why we work so hard

We have released Equilibrium v2.0 very recently. We got a spike of downloads of some positive feedback. Yet most exciting event happened today at our office.

Two girls visited us in the evening. We asked one of them to test-play our game. She explained that she does not like playing games and especially strategy games, but she still agreed to try (mostly our of politeness). Obviously she was a bit struggling to learn how to play, but several minutes later - she started to get the idea of the game.

Oh boy, it was mind-blowing experience to watch her getting absorbed into the game and getting more fun one level after another. After about 30 minutes she stopped responding to our comments and got full attention into the action. She was swearing on each death of her warrior and she was jumping out of joy on each 'Glorious victory' appearing on the screen.

It is fun to work on a game. It fun to playtest it. Yet perhaps most pleasure I personally get from watching someone else playing our game and Really enjoying it. You literally see how your efforts bring joy to other peoples lives. I love this feeling.

If you are going though Hell...

...keep going! (Winston Churchill)

Now it's Saturday's afternoon in Lithuania. Just a couple of hours ago I woke up after short-ish 6 hours of sleep instead of usual 8. Keeping a strict diary makes me perfectly aware about sleep deficit. My body is seriously confused regarding when to relax and when to work. Today, the moment I stepped out of my bed I felt just about as tired as I need to be to go have a full night sleep.

It is hard right now, but as same time - I'm happier than ever. I love the work I do. We are so close to releasing Equilibrium 2.0 which will include significant rework of our game. I can't wait to read feedback from the players and professional developers. I'm so much look forward to share the joy of released game with my exceptional co-workers. It is Saturday and I'm going to work. Tomorrow is Sunday and I'm going to work too. I don't have to, but I Really want to.

Games crafting is not for everyone. You have to sell part of your soul and dedicate yourself seriously if you want to achieve quality which is a norm today. On the other hand - it's very rewarding. Seeing everyday happy faces of co-workers, getting feedback from players, sharing mutual respect with business partners, having lunches with enthusiastic people from other companies. I do believe we are changing the world to be a better place. I'm very sure I'm in the place where I'm most effective and happiest as well.

I really hope we will manage to channel some of our positive energy to you via Equilibrium and many future games to come. Cheers!

Complete focus on Equilibrium

Most game studios work on at least two projects in parallel. Although it's more complicated to manage multiple projects, overall efficiency and quality is higher. Despite how much I'd love to work on more than one project, for now it seems best option is to focus on Equilibrium.

So during next several months we will improve Equilibrium in many different ways. Most if not all parts of Equilibrium will be improved. After we will finish, it will be a game few times exceeding the quality of the current version. We are making plans regarding specific features at the moment. The game is live and each improvement will reach players one by one. I'm looking forward to hear feedback from players and actual effect on download and/or sales.

In parallel to development issues, we are looking for excellent partners, who could help localize and publish the game in various regions of the world. We already have few promising options, but we must make sure we have explore all possibilities to have maximum impact to all the players.