game studio spotlight

Add-Ons and Shower Thoughts: The Evolution of Elanis

Question #1: Tell us a bit about yourself and your studio/company/work.

I'm Axel a.k.a Elanis, 27, from Calais (France) and I am the solo developer behind Dysnomia.My gamedev journey started as a teenager. I started by writing mods on the good old Garry's Mod, and why did I do that? Because I loved science fiction, and especially the Stargate series, I wanted to have more content to play with.

We ended up working (with some friends) on the Evolution Addon Pack (which had a few dozen thousand downloads if I remember correctly), the successor of a long list of Stargate mods on Garry's Mod, each building on what the previous added. In parallel to that, I did multiple smaller mods, utilities which had tons of downloads too.

"My most inspiring place is the shower. It’s where I’ve had my best ideas — and solved my worst bugs."

All those mods were made because of one reason: I needed them as a player to have more fun. I think that's what has driven me for all my projects through the years.

Eventually, I stopped playing the game because I started reaching the limitations of the game (those limitations are one reason why Facepunch is currently building S&Box), and started building my own games.

I experimented on Unreal, on Unity, but the technology that caught my eye, surprisingly, was the web technologies (and I still do my games like that a decade later!).

So, I wrote my first game called Galactae: Space Age Dawn, an OGame-like browser game, one where you had to manage your empire/nation in a galactic environment, in a multiplayer setup. I worked on it for 4 years (2016-2020).

I learned lots from this project, didn't earn money, but I didn't care. Also, that's what made me have my work-study course (not sure of this word in English, had to use a dictionary, basically: I was working as a web developer for 2 weeks, then was at the uni for another week, alternatively).

Fast-forward to 2020, a few minor web or gamedev-related projects later, a few years at work as a web developer behind me, COVID happens. And just before it happens, I decide to participate in a chill game jam to create a game that later became Extortion, my first Steam game.

"Since my first game, Galactae, I had one objective: writing good (quality of) code and adding automatically run tests on the game."

Dysnomia is a company I created in 2018 to sell my projects. Originally, it didn't make much money (Google Adsense only, and it wasn't from gamedev).

For now, it's making money both from my gamedev projects and some (webdev) freelance work I'm doing 4 days per week (the rest of the week is dedicated to gamedev, while I don't make enough money).

So, of course, for the moment, I'm working solo on the games, and to be fair, it doesn't bother me because I like working in this setup.

Question #2: So, why are you in games, anyway? Why not plumbing, since that industry doesn't implode every 8 years?

There's no single reason behind me being a gamedev: I want to create, no, I must say: I love to create, and that's why I create games. But I also want to create experiences I would enjoy as a player (it's not the "dream game" trope, but it's still pretty close; those are games I'd enjoy as a player). e

Also, because I have an expensive hobby called eating, I must earn some money, so why not by doing projects I enjoy working on? In 2020, I decided to participate in a chill game jam on a Discord server I was a member of (my first gamejam actually).

That's when I started working on what would become my first Steam game, "Extortion". Since people liked it, I kept working on it during COVID and had that crazy idea: "What if I tried publishing my game on Steam?"

So I worked on an 8-chapters 2-hour story, my gamejam entry has been improved, and it became the game demo. And woop! October 30th, 2020, my game was released.

The goal was to sell 30-40 copies, so I'd compensate my $100 Steam fee ... and I sold 100 copies in the first week, 1500 to date, 5 years later. So I guess it's a success?

Another bunch of experimentation and one game jam later, I was releasing my second game, Alchemistry, in March 2022, with the goal of compensating the time spent on the game at a rate of 10€ net (after steam part, taxes, returns, ...) per hour, and I reached this figure 1.5 years after the release.

At that point, I still worked (and still do right now) next to this gamedev activity, but the goal for my next games is to make a living from this. Now that I learned how to publish on Steam, how to market (even if that's still complex to me), how to write a demo, a playtest, a tutorial (I hate this part), my next goal is to make 50k € with my next game in the weeks or months after release.

Not a big objective compared to lots of Steam games, but still 5 times what I earned, lifetime with my already existing games altogether.

At first, I thought it would be Manufactur'inc, my game for this purpose, but let's say it had some huge performance issues, and I realized working solo on a multiplayer game with a mandatory server wasn't the best idea.

Question #3: Tell us about a past game you've worked on that shaped the way you approach games now

Since my first game, Galactae, I had one objective: writing good (quality of) code and adding automatically run tests on the game. At first, you'd think it takes lots of time for nothing. But you can't imagine how much time it saved me to have both my Steam games "main gameplay" tested every time before deploying!

It's a legacy from my web developer job, without a doubt, but I don't regret spending time on it. It removes lots of bugs and stress from every update ... (and I love updating my games, even 5 years after the release! So it's still used right now!).

Another good answer I could give to this question is about design. I suck at design. But it was a lot worse in the past, and the games taught me to build better UI for the players.

And you know what's the best to build a good UI or Gameplay for the player? Stop looking at the game like the developer you are, looking for shortcuts to make development easier and play the game. That's silly, but it works very well.

Question #4: Please talk through the most exciting thing you're working on now. Why'd you choose that instead of, say, a plumbing simulator?

I took some time off earlier this year, and started working on Logistik, a game that fit both the "I want to play it" box and "I can make it" box.

I want to play it, because I love trains (but who doesn't ?). And I can make it, because it's what I like to call a "UI based game", as opposed to well, bullet hell/fps/...; plus it doesn't cost thousands (and my mental health) to maintain if it ever sells well :)

Behind Alchemistry, Manufactur'inc and Logistik, I wrote my (web-based) 2D Rendering library. It's not a huge thing, but it's very satisfying to work on it and see it evolving along with the needs of the games.

I'm a nerd and a tech-savvy guy, so of course one of the most exciting thing, is to program!

Question #5: Favorite non-game inspiration that you think people should experience (book, movie, song, visit to the Maldives in early July)? Set the scene about why this is important to you.

This is going to be a silly reply, I know, but the most inspiring place for me: it's the shower.

For years, that's the place where I found my best ideas (and where I thought about the fixes for the worst bugs). I don't know if that comes from being relaxed, letting my mind wander around, but it works pretty great with me.

Question #6: Can you share with us an interesting story from your game dev career?

When participating in my first Next Fest with my second game, I wanted to give myself all the chances I could to have some visibility. So, I tried livestreaming on Steam, with Valve featuring. I have been used to stream my development on Twitch once in a while, to 1-5 French-speaking viewers... but there, when I launched the stream, I had to talk in front of 1.6k people, in English.

That was definitely something else.

That's one of the craziest hours in my life, it brought me hundreds of wishlists, made my anxiety go through the roof for the first minutes, but eventually, I think that's one of the best anecdotes of my entire life as a gamedev!

Question #7: In the finite amount of time you have on this planet, after which you shuffle off into the great unknown and are never heard from again, what's one thing you want to do in games?

I've been a modder for years and my life has been positively impacted by some of those games, whether it be relationships or skills.

So my goal, and that's a long shot, would be to create a game that inspires people and one that lets them use their creativity through UGC. Inspiring people, that's what I already try to do with my games, by sharing my passions and some of my ethics through the prism of gameplay or narration.

UGC, well, Steam let us use the workshop for free, so why not use this for one of my games? In all games, I've always been amazed by how creative people can be when creating with the tools some games give (Minecraft is the most common idea, but see the machines in Besiege, the planes in KSP, and tons of other examples!).

If I've been able to do those two things, I think I could say my gamedev life would have been pretty successful!

END OF LINE▒