Interviewing Award-Winning African Developer VCD!
Marcos Codas
Posted
Today we're interviewing and featuring VCD, the developer of the InBetween and winner of Africa Comicade's ARK Pitch Contest. Also a GDevelop Community Advocate, VCD talks about what it felt like to win the contest, the difficulties of making games in Africa, and how GDevelop helps overcome some of these issues. Enjoy!
VCD as the winner of the Africa Comicade ARK Pitch Contest.
First off, congratulations on winning Africa Comicade's ARK Pitch Contest! Can you tell us more about the event, and the pitch that won the contest?
Thank you, it still feels like a dream honestly. So, about the Africacomicade Ark Pitch Contest, it's a competition for African game devs to spotlight new game projects from all over the continent and connect them to relevant stakeholders (publishers, business devs, investors, etc) in the video games industry for support.
Participants of the pitch get a prototype grant as well as get enrolled into a pre-accelerator program to receive technical and business support.
What made you decide to use GDevelop for this pitch/your game development journey?
I had used a lot of game engines when starting out, from Unity, to GameMaker, Unreal, etc. But none of them felt "right" for me. All of that changed when I got my hands on GDevelop back in 2019. And ever since then, I'd always felt comfortable with the engine, especially thanks to its flexibility.
VCD's GDevelop project for The InBetween.
That's why I felt confident enough to use GDevelop to work on the game as well as in my pitch. After all, it's the game that mattered the most. The other reason was because the engine is really underrated, and I figured I would do my part and use the most of my skills to help the engine in some way through my games.
What are some of your problems that you face as a game developer in Africa? Does GDevelop help solve any of these problems?
There are a lot of problems associated with being a game dev in Africa (particularly Nigeria), and a huge part of that is down to the video game industry being the least appreciated industry over here. And one of the results of that are the region locks on platforms like Steam.
VCD's development environment in his home in Nigeria.
Plus the economy can be pretty rough over here, which makes it hard for a lot of people to get access to a powerful computer, and that's something GDevelop really helped me out with. I didn't need to have powerful hardware, nor a developer license in order to get started on chasing my dreams as a game developer. And with gd.games gaining more growth, I'm glad.
What is next for the game that won the ARK Pitch Contest? Will you make it into a full game?
I stated it once and I'll state it again, winning this contest still feels like a dream. To find out that someone, somewhere out there liked my game's concept.... Thanks to that, The InBetween is definitely going to be made into a full game, no matter what.
What can be done to help promote game development in Africa?
Well, this is mainly from my point of view, but I wish we got less region restrictions from the various platforms out there. Because there are many cases of aspiring game devs getting discouraged by factors like these, where for the most part, the only chance of ever getting your game released is through the help of a publisher or investor of some kind. That's one thing.
Gameplay from The InBetween!
Another thing that would be really great is if we got more press coverage from other outlets about upcoming titles from Africa. The more the news spreads that there are games with a lot of potential from here (and there are a lot!) I believe that would help boost the rise of game development in Africa.
What are you working on (if anything) aside The InBetween?
As for what I'm working on, aside from The InBetween, I'm working on a horror platformer that makes use of the core gameplay mechanics from one of my recent titles; Rotary Quest. There's not much details on the new project, but for now it's being called Project Spyn. Although most of my attention is being poured into The Inbetween, so there's no chance of any further news on that project anytime soon.
VCD is currently running a little crowdfunding campaign to get his game launched on the Epic Games Store. The crowdfunding page