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Goodbye Unity

Dec 4, 2020 in , ,
Today is my last day at Unity.

It's been nearly 12 years since I joined the then-tiny startup with ~20 employees. Now there's over 3000 and it's been quite the ride to be part of this company while it has evolved, especially with the big role it has had in evolving the whole game industry too.

Lately I've been longing to do something smaller again, and so it's time for a new adventure in my work life to begin. Starting next week, I'm a full time indie developer! For a start I'll be wrapping up my VR action-adventure game Eye of the Temple that I've been working on part time for the past 4 years. There's a demo on Steam already that has very positive reviews and I expect the full game can ship in early spring 2021.

What I'll do after is not fully settled yet, but I have an idea for a (non-VR) game set in a big forest full of ruins, strange artifacts, pathways and mysteries that I might begin working on next year.

My mental state at the moment is kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand I'm very excited about future possibilities and being able to work on exactly what I want. On the other, my motivation and productivity is a bit flaky these days. I don't know the exact reasons, but possibilities could include:
  • Uncertainty about what my everyday life will be like (though economically I'll be fine!).
  • Having felt unfulfilled work-wise for a good while before I quit.
  • Having moved to a new country this summer (from Denmark to Finland), in the middle of a pandemic where it's hard to meet new people.
  • Being in the end stretch of developing a game where it's mostly boring stuff left.
  • Dark winter setting in - that normally doesn't affect me much but could be a compounding factor still.
However, I'll go easy on myself and just accept my productivity and motivation not being at its greatest right now. Perhaps I won't hit the ground running in my new indie life, but that's okay. I didn't have that much vacation this year either, so I'll see this as a chance to take it a bit easy for a little while while I adjust to my new life.

All in all, not a bad place to be, and I'm excited about the future!

5 comments:

thpetsen said...

Good luck Rune !
It takes time to switch mentally, stay focused

insominx said...

I still remember seeing you at GDC presenting your locomotion system... how time flies. Looking forward to what you cook up next!

MarckOzz said...

Good luck!! I left my full time job 2 yrs a go to become an indie game dev, sometimes is hard but it brings me mental peace that I doing what I really want.

Emil Johansen said...

Best of luck in your new endeavors! There is so much fun to be had out there :)

Anonymous said...

I don't know whether this helps, but I bet you'd be surprised that there are people you never thought of, in completely foreign parts of the world who've been reading your words ever since your experiments with POVRay. Stay well and don't worry too much, uncertainty and thinking it over is quite common and normal, if I may say so, at least for people who like to think.