Our story: why we are making a pixel RPG as a family
We're a family: Tini and me (Marko), our three kids Lauri, Marcel, and Mika, and our three cats Mila, Leo, and Lily.
And we've decided to create our very own video game within just one year. At least, that's our goal...
Today, we're going to tell you how it all started.
Gamers since childhood
We have been playing games for as long as we can remember, pretty much everything. As a kid, I (Marko) was already planning my own games and filling entire notebooks with stories and levels. My biggest dream was always to make a game of my own one day. Tini has been making up stories since she was a little girl, and later she experimented with RPG Maker and built small games.
A hard year
This year, work did not go well for either of us. We were frustrated, felt like we had lost our sense of purpose, and simply did not know where the journey should go. Until somehow everything fell into place and we decided: we are making our own game.
What we love most
We asked ourselves: what do we love spending our time on? Anyone who looks around our house knows the answer right away: games. Games, gaming gear and everything that comes with it.
But making a game is not just making a game. It is the art of coming up with a really good story and telling it so well that you want to come along on the journey. The game should feel like a second home, a place you love coming back to again and again.
Where cozy meets adventure
I (Marko) love playing Star Citizen because I love the freedom and the exploring. At the same time, I am a real cozy gamer and enjoy Stardew Valley or Coral Island. What frustrated me there: when the game was over, it was simply over. I missed that feeling of "Hey, there is another dungeon, something is still waiting for me", that really satisfying progress.
I had exactly that in Star Citizen. But for me there were too many bugs. So I asked myself: what if we made a game with a strong story where these two worlds meet?
- The cozy life: farming, feeling your progress, decorating a house or upgrading your own spaceship and making it feel like home.
- The adventure: exploring alien planets, flying from A to B, living through stories and going on a journey that leads you to yourself. Plus dungeons and exciting quests, with lots of variety and many game mechanics so it never gets boring.
Tini also plays all kinds of games, mostly cozy ones. For her, a game has to look beautiful and feel intuitive: the menus should be so good that you find your way around right away, and everything should simply be lovely.
Who we are
I (Marko) used to work as a court-appointed expert, IT forensics specialist and developer. Later I got into music and have also published a few books. A creative mind who loves building things.
Tini studied language, literature and communication science, among other things, and worked in marketing for many years, including a leading position at RTL, a big German TV network. She has always been a dreamy, creative mind who builds worlds, paints and loves design more than anything.
Together we have both things it takes: the technical know-how and the creativity. We have been working in development for many years and have already built an app with many customers.
Two options
In the hardest phase of our lives when it comes to calling and money worries, we decided to let go of everything and simply do what we would love to do most if there were no worries. Because we had two options:
1. We carry on, let ourselves sink into our worries, and things probably will not get better.
2. We spend our time on what we love most, stay in a good mood, and in the worst case things simply stay as they are.
But we get to do what we love.
The T-shirt
On the day we decided to make the game, I (Marko) sold my used paraglider. While I was packing it up for the new owner, I noticed there was still something inside. I open the zipper and find a T-shirt from the previous owner. It says: "Do what you love".
For us, that was a sign from above. That very day we had decided to do what we love, and the T-shirt simply confirmed it. With that sign, we set out on a journey to bring the game in our heads into the real world.
Come along on the journey
We hope that lots and lots of people will love this game, above all the story you get to live in it. So come along with us: here in the devlog we show you every day what is happening in our game development studio.
If you want to be there when Call Me Human comes out, join the waitlist at call-me-human.com.
See you soon,