Rogue Engine

After releasing multiple iterations of 0.1.x thanks to all the feedback I got, I was able to release 0.2 with some awesome new features including a theme editor, LAN player to play the loaded scene on any device in your local network, and most importantly, a Marketplace to buy/sell assets.

It took a lot longer than expected, given that in order to introduce the Marketplace I had to make a lot of crucial changes within Rogue Engine. Early in January, I started releasing some test versions for my Discord community until I thought it was stable enough.

Rogue Engine is a free desktop app so, this is my first effort to make money with it. I built the payment system with Stripe Connect which was a dream to set up.

The big problem with marketplaces is that they need users so now I need to find people to sell their stuff there. Time to learn some Marketing skills.

I woke up one day to the news that one of my users had reached out to gamesfromscratch.com and they made a video featuring Rogue Engine.

I couldn't be happier despite the amount of hate in the youtube comments section. Most of them were hating on Javascript anyway!

On the other hand, I got LOADS of traffic from this and my Discord server grew from about 20 people to about 100.

I finally launched after working really hard for about two months not only on getting the product ready but also writing documentation, building a website, deciding on distribution, etc.

It was tough work and I learned a lot about cutting down to the essentials. I also learned that there's a massive amount of things around a product this big, that need to be taken care of.

Being a solo founder makes things a lot harder but I'm moving fast and I'm pushing forward regardless of how tired. The fact that I love what I'm doing makes it a lot easier.

After a little more than a year of working on this idea on the side, with many setbacks and even leaving everything and changing countries for a second time, I left my job and started working on Rogue Engine full-time.

It was a tough decision but my wife was super supportive and we both agreed that it was time I gave it a real shot.

This meant cutting down on costs and living frugally, so I guess my third-worlder experience being an Uruguayan would end up coming handy after all.