Many people go through a career change, but one millennial man has stunned internet users after taking on a new role as a video-game developer—despite having no prior knowledge of coding or development.
While Lewis, 38, had a stable job and a comfortable life, it always felt like something was missing. He has long been an avid gamer, and he told Newsweek that part of him always “wanted to create a game deep down.”
He didn’t have any knowledge of how to build a game or to develop it for an audience, but that wasn’t going to stop Lewis, from the U.K. He spent 18 months designing his game, Bricks Breaker RPG, learning new things as he went along.
“I was initially put off by the thought of how hard it must be to make a game without professional education in game development. But this soon went away once I started watching beginner tutorials and realizing we have all the tools we need in front of us if we dedicate the time to it,” Lewis said.
“Before the first release on Android, I worked on the game for 18 months, anywhere between two and 12 hours a day. It was an extremely long journey, but, at the same time, every minute of it was fun and it didn’t feel like work,” he continued.
Bricks Breaker RPG was released in July, and, within a few days, Lewis gained over 1,000 new players every day. He was blown away by the support and loved seeing so many people enjoying his creation.
The goal of Bricks Breaker RPG is to find “an epic loot,” upgrade the playing character to inflict even more power and damage, all the while casting magic spells, defeating bosses, and even going fishing.
“For those unfamiliar with what a Brick Breaker is, it’s a classic arcade genre where you shoot balls at blocks to destroy them. The blocks move down each round; if the blocks reach the bottom before you destroy them all, you lose. It’s an addictive game, which I always found myself coming back to,” Lewis said.
Developing the game was far from easy, but Lewis knew the challenges were just part of the journey. In many ways, he felt “quite naive” about how much work it would take, but he found ways to overcome the obstacles and learned what it takes to be a successful game developer.
The hardest part wasn’t even the building of the game, but rather, the business side. When it came to the game’s release, there were so many elements that Lewis hadn’t even considered that suddenly needed arranging before it could be made public.
He said: “It’s no longer a hobby at this point, and it needs to be done properly, or else Google or Apple won’t accept the game release. You have to factor in user privacy, terms and conditions, sign lots of agreements and be welcome to scrutiny as your game gets tested for the first time.”
Bricks Breaker RPG saw a huge influx of users in its first few weeks, and it generated over $11,000 in revenue within a month. It was certainly an emotional time for Lewis, who felt so much relief that his game was finally out there for all to play.
At the time of writing, the game has over 10,000 downloads on Google Play, and is rated 4.9 stars on the App Store.
Lewis couldn’t resist sharing his achievement on Reddit (posting as user u/Psychological-Road19) to show what “a massive success” that game has been. The post has gained over 1,500 upvotes and more than 200 supportive comments so far. After seeing how much interest people had for his feat, Lewis shared a video on his YouTube account, Whim Bear Studios, to outline how much his game has made so far.
Lewis said that it has now amassed between $25,000 and $30,000 in revenue, although he has yet to see that income personally. He joked that the financial side is “a bit slow,” but he is not doing it for the money anyway.
What has truly amazed Lewis throughout this is seeing how many people trust his game enough to spend their time (and money) on it. That has been a real vote of confidence for the first-time developer.
Lewis told Newsweek: “The game is now my passion project, and I have tons of stuff to add. I’m extremely grateful and I have a duty now to never let these people down. I won’t stop making the game better for them as they’ve given me so much.
“The biggest tip is to make a game you would enjoy. So, pick your favorite genre, add a twist that you wish that genre had, add it for you, and don’t tailor it to what you think others would like.
“I say this because, if you enjoy that genre so much, then you are the exact target market. Put yourself in the players’ shoes, because, if the player respects what you’ve done, they will want to support you,” Lewis continued.
Do you have any viral videos or pictures that you want to share? We want to see the best ones! Send them in to life@newsweek.com and they could appear on our site.