The one year game develpoment duel
  • Apr

    6

    2015
    $1500 on Music 0 comments budget

    I’ve entered into a contract with Brendon Williams to compose the game’s music. He’ll be doing everything from intro music, battle music, world map music, and any other types of music that come up. Brendon recently started with the music for the intro movie and it’s sounding awesome.

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  • Apr

    6

    2015
    $7323 on Animations 0 comments budget

    I’ve received a bunch of animations over the last few months and you can see a lot of them over at Dualbo’s Vimeo Site and in my status updates. I’ve received 12 of the 18 characters that will be in the game, so we’re two-thirds there. I think this payment has officially put my game over budget, but that’s how these things go sometimes. The good news is that the animations are awesome and worth every penny.

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  • Apr

    6

    2015
    $2500 on Illustrations 0 comments budget

    This expense wasn’t a lump sum payment, but 4 payments made over the course of a couple months. I’m extended the original contract with the illustrator because the game has more artwork than I originally anticipated. The following illustrations were done for this update:

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  • Jan

    13

    2015
    $7600 on Illustrations 0 comments budget

    This expense wasn’t a lump sum payment, but about 10 payments made over the course of a few months. I’m at the end of my original contract with an illustrator, and so far he’s delivered:

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  • Nov

    17

    2014
    $1829 on Animations 0 comments budget

    Two more characters were completed, which brings me to a total of 4 characters. This expense was about $450 more than I had originally budgeted for due to the unexpected time associated with animating weapons. Basically, characters with weapons will cost a little bit more to animate, and I’m fine with that.

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  • Oct

    20

    2014
    $588 on Corona SDK Pro Subscription 0 comments budget

    I was using Corona’s free product for awhile, but I decided to upgrade to the pro subscription once I continuously encounter bugs with live builds on the free trial. My game is still a ways off from completion, and I wish I could have used the free trial problem free for a little bit longer, but I knew I’d have to fork up the money eventually.

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  • Sep

    9

    2014
    $3733 on Illustrations and Animations 0 comments budget

    I’ve been working with the an illustrator and animator for a few weeks now they’ve produced the world map, multiple battlefield maps, concept characters, character turnarounds, and 2 animated characters (semi produced). I’m pretty close to staying on budget so far, but I can see how both artists could end up costing a bit more than I originally thought.

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  • Aug

    27

    2014
    $96 on Trial Animations 0 comments budget

    I had a couple of animators create test animations off of one of my character concepts just to see if their style fit what I have in mind for the game. Both animators were able to mock up a 3D animation in about 3 hours. Neither of the trial animators was the right fit for me this time around, but I’ll hold onto their contact information for the future.

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  • Aug

    27

    2014
    $800 on Illustrations 0 comments art budget

    I found an illustrator for my game, and he started out by creating some character concepts and a couple of battlefield scenes.

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  • Aug

    27

    2014
    $200 on Behance 0 comments art budget

    I’ve been looking for an animator and the three methods of recruitment that I used were making a blog post, reaching out to people I admired on Carbonmade, and paying for a job listing on Behance. I received 52 applications within 5 days and ended up finding the right man for the job through Behance. If he works out, then this was $200 well spent.

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  • Aug

    18

    2014
    $325 on Illustrator Trial Run 0 comments art budget

    I made a list of illustrators who I planned on contacting for trial illustrations, but I lucked out by having Scott Pellico go first. Scott illustrated a piece of my world map as a trial to see if his style was a fit for the world I’d like to create. He nailed it and I’m lucky to have found a quality illustrator on the first go.

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  • Apr

    18

    2014
    Texture Packer and Physics Editor for $50 0 comments budget

    I thought I could avoid throwing down any cash for sprite sheet development, but I finally broke down and purchased Texture Packer. They just make sprite sheet creation too easy, and the tool spits out exactly what the Corona SDK needs to render and scale sprites.

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  • Mar

    26

    2014
    3 Game design books for $80.80 5 comments budget learning

    I thought I’d kick this contest off by purchasing a little bed time reading material. I want to start prototyping games as soon as possible, so hopefully a few books on game theory and design will help me to avoid some of the mistakes beginners make.

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$-624 Left

What is the budget?

Each brother has $25,000 to spend. Anything over that will count against the final profits when determining a winner. To the left, you can find a log of all of Chris's expenses.

What's this contest about?

Armed with little to no game development experience, the Brothers Campbell are attempting to make video games for a living. We believe the best way for us to learn is to do what comes naturally to brothers — Compete! The challenge is to see who can make the most successful video game on a budget of $25,000 and in one year’s time. The duel begins on April 7th, 2014 and we'll be documenting the journey.


How will you determine the winner?

It’s simple. The most profitable game wins. We’ll have 6 months to market the game after the one year development deadline on April 7th, 2015.

Learn more about the competition

The Enemy

Ryan is younger than me and like many younger brothers, he carries a chip on his shoulder due to lost our childhood competitions. Ryan may be a better programmer coming into this, but I think my wisdom and veteran tactics will once again win the day.

Sir Ryan's Budget