This is Dan Holbert, designer of Paperbound. I'd like to tell you a little bit about the history of Dissident Logic after the launch of Paperbound. And also about some Paperbound news.
After Paperbound shipped for PS4 and Steam, I was happy that people really loved it. One of my favorite things is to hear about people enjoying it. Someone even sent me a video of their kids jumping up and down on a couch as they played it. What more could I ask for?
Well, rent money. And it didn't do well enough to provide that. That's what can happen when you make a game in the least-successful genre (local multiplayer).
So I did some contract work for awhile, doing some programming on David Jaffe's Drawn to Death. It's a game that has some remarkably similar elements to Paperbound (hand-drawn characters on paper, 4-player competitive play, PS4). But it was ultimately was a very different game.
Drawn to Death
While helping with that project, I got really excited about Microsoft HoloLens and landed a job working for The Man. I was programming (but not designing) business apps for HoloLens.
HoloLens Shenanigans
For that job, I moved to Seattle, which I discovered was an awesome city with a fantastic indie game development community. I fell in love with Seattle, its indie community, and the surrounding mountainous landscape.
I still loved (and continue to love) Paperbound. So I started porting it to Nintendo Switch so that more people could enjoy it, dubbing this updated version Paperbound Brawlers. But I needed help to finish it. It would take more work that I could do just in my spare time. So I hired some other devs to help me. Cool Russian guys named Fedor and Igor.
I had done all the programming for the PC and PS4 versions myself, but the thing was that A) I just couldn't dedicate 70 hours a week to it like I had in the past, and B) not only would I be porting to a new platform, but I had to change engines (XNA to Unity), not to mention the new Gravity Ball mode and the redesigned character art that Mike, one of Paperbound's wonderful artists, made. So it was quite a task.
The new Gravity Ball arena in Paperbound Brawlers
However, with Unity, it's now a lot easier to port to other platforms. I'll be talking more about that soon :D
The full-time indie life still pulled at me, so I left Microsoft, put all my things in storage, and lived in a bunch of places in Central America and Asia (mostly developing nations), which provided a lot of insight into how a lot of the world lives, as well as inspiration for the next game and maybe even one after that! (I have an ever-growing list of games I want to make.)
Life struggling to hold on in a desert
only a few miles from one of the wettest places on Earth
Lately, I’ve been dealing with my father’s health issues, but I’m trying to finish bringing Paperbound to a new platform soon! And I've started a new game that I'll be talking a lot about shortly!
I'm curious to hear your thoughts and feelings about both Paperbound and the email list. Let me know your thoughts on the following questions with the link below:
What's your favorite thing about Paperbound?What's your biggest gripe with Paperbound?Did you enjoy this email or hate it? Was it too long, too short, or just right?Is there anything you want to ask me? (add email address if you want a response)
Cheers!
-Dan