Bravery & Greed: the origins!

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Hey gang!
Glad to be here!
My name is Ivann, a French dude and 50% of Rekka Games, the two man video game studio responsible for Bravery and Greed, a roguelite dungeon brawler  which is to be released on the 15th of November (yes, it'll be available tomorrow or right now, depending on when you read this).
At a young age, I remember experimenting with Pixel Art on my old Atari ST with software like Neochrome, making my first sprites for something called “Shoot'em up Construction Kit”. But of course back then (early 90s) this was not considered a viable career choice, so this was just a hobby. I was also really into music and guitar, but this would also be a totally irrational move career wise. Overall, I was afraid that doing something I loved as a job would end up making me hate it in the long run, so I thought I should not worry my family and settle on a “real” career.
So I became a translator by trade, and I liked it. But video games were still something I found fascinating, and not before long I ended up working for a big company as a linguistic tester for a famous JRPG franchise. This was back in 2009, and I realised that, contrary to what I had been told my whole life, video games were indeed a profitable career. It took three years before I could save up money and train myself on the side so I could enroll for a college degree in Video Game Design (with a major in arts) at ENJMIN. This was in  2012, I was 30...
After getting my diploma, I was thinking I'd end up at some big studio following some cool internship, like most of my classmates. But because of last circumstances, I ended up doing it in a place that was specialized in animation, not video games. This was an interesting experience, but I couldn't help but wonder: “Do I really want to work for big companies anymore? Do I really enjoy the corporate lifestyle?
I was not the only one pondering over those questions, and I ended up chatting with Théo, a classmate I had worked with on several projects during our studies. Together we decided we wanted to create our own project: I was really into roguelites, still being amazed at Risk of Rain and Spelunky, and Théo was very passionate about fighting games, as we had worked on one together already as a college project.
Back in 2015, games like Dead Cells were not even concepts, so this was a fresh idea still. We started working on it for as much as we could. We wanted to create a game that would be like a side scroller Gauntlet, with a Smash Bros  like combat system, with retro graphics and modern lighting, using normal mapping. We also wanted to offer a cool couch coop or online coop experience, where you could jump in games and play for a bit whenever you wanted some quick and frantic heroic fantasy action with some friends or randoms.
To sum it up, we wanted to create a game that we wanted to play, but did not exist. Professionals in the field will tell you that this is not a good idea, that you should do market research and study trends, but we were passionate and went with our gut feeling. Hence started the very long process of creating the game, and learning a lot along in the process. We did not think that the game would take so long to make at first, even though the scope was not too big (this was not an MMORPG), but we went steady and we never gave up. In 2018, we were approached by Team 17 who saw value in what we had built already, and after some discussion we signed with them.
We refined the game for a very long time and let it grow organically to become what it is today, and fast forward to 2022, our company has been created and the game has been ported to console.
Words cannot express what a wild ride it has been between 2015 and now, and I guess it's a bit of a crazy gamble to invest so much time and energy for a project without any guarantee of success, so I would advise you not to do the same thing of course, but here we are now, and we're very proud to share our game with the world: nothing can describe the first times I could watch people play our game and have fun with it, taunting each other during PvP sessions, and getting really passionate about it. We really hope you will enjoy it and that all the love and care we put when making it does show :)
Thanks for reading this until now, go enjoy the demo or the full game!
Ivann
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Comments
Latest
twat
twat
1
bravo! the two man game studio makes a great game.
11/21/2022
Author liked
Ivann D
Ivann D
Bravery and Greed Official
Ivann D
Author
Thanks a lot man :)
11/30/2022
GAND4-^•
GAND4-^•
1
it looks like fun, considering I finished Game dead cell a week ago and I became interested in trying this game with the roguelike genre
11/16/2022
Author liked
Ivann D
Ivann D
Bravery and Greed Official
Ivann D
Author
Lemme know if you like it :) You can always try the demo if you're on the fence
11/30/2022
Potatofu.io
Potatofu.io
TapTap Business Manager
Potatofu.io
2
Get touched by your story. The game looks fabulous! I will definitely try it and find some friends enjoying it together! *I'm truly motivated. Hope to build my own game in the future.
11/16/2022
Author liked
Ivann D
Ivann D
Bravery and Greed Official
Ivann D
Author
Thanks a lot, good luck with your project and remember, never give up, never surrender!
11/17/2022
Daxx Axx
Daxx Axx
1
haven't played the game, but Theo and Ivann, keep it up guys. I'll be looking for it
11/15/2022
Author liked
Ivann D
Ivann D
Bravery and Greed Official
Ivann D
Author
Thanks :)
11/16/2022
Thando
Thando
Thinking about the way you do it to me a hospitalizations and I Done A Reece thing to make sure you were not in it with is and for will hope For everyone to be your the want or to for kids next their kids
08/23/2023
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