I was curious to try it out, and I got hooked immediately. I didn’t know what ZBrush was at the time. I bought a tablet from Amazon – to my surprise, it came with a license to ZBrush Core. In the early stages of the development, DARQ was supposed to be a 2D game, so I thought a drawing tablet was a necessary purchase. At first, I really didn’t know what I was doing. When I started working on DARQ, I knew nothing about coding, texturing, modeling, animation, or any other aspect of game development. How did you first begin using ZBrush and what attracted you to it I couldn’t be more grateful for all the hardships I had to go through – now I can see that all the difficulties I had to face were opportunities in disguise. Over the course of 13 years, I went from a helpless starving stuttering orphan to the founder and CEO of a rapidly growing company. It blows my mind every time I think about it. With a user score of 9 out of 10, DARQ won multiple awards, including The Best Game at the MIX / PAX West, and ultimately became #42 Most Shared PC Video Game of 2019, according to Metacritic. It was featured in major media outlets, such as IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot, Forbes, PC Gamer, and hundreds of others. When it launched, it got to “Best Selling,” “New and Trending,” and “Featured and Recommended” tabs on Steam. DARQ was one of the top 50 most wishlisted games before it launched. The journey was turbulent and full of challenges and sacrifices. I’m very fortunate that my first game DARQ turned out to be successful. With a few months’ worth of savings, I entered a completely unfamiliar territory: the video game industry. It was at that point that I decided to change my life and basically start it from scratch. It also didn’t help that I was still struggling financially, as film gigs didn’t come regularly. As much as I love writing music, working in the film industry made me feel emotionally drained. One could say I was doing well, considering I was fresh out of college. However, it wasn’t long before my name started to show up in the credit rolls of big Hollywood movies ( The Giver, starring Meryl Streep, Sabotage, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, November Man, starring Pierce Brosnan, and others). Again, I had to go through incredible hardships to make it happen. Right after I graduated, I was headed to Los Angeles, to make another dream of mine come true. It was pure luck – the kind of luck that is earned by acting despite fear, working hard, and overcoming obstacles. Suffice it to say, I got the honor of receiving a full scholarship and studying with Oscar, Pulitzer Prize, and 5-time Grammy-winning composer John Corigliano. It certainly wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Thanks to a series of serendipitous events (accompanied by countless obstacles, suffering, actual starvation, and living on the edge of homelessness), I somehow ended up getting into Juilliard – the most renowned music school in the world. At the time, my dream was to pursue a music career. Although it’s not easy to admit, I also suffered from social anxiety and severe stuttering. I was broke, and there was nobody I could ask for help. I literally came with $300 in my pocket, without knowing a word of English. Thank you for speaking with us Wlad! Tell us a little about your background as an artist Wlad has now written an eBook entitled Gamedev: 10 Steps to Making Your First Game Successful targeted at first time game developers, sharing advice from his experience making his first game DARQ! from poland in 2007, he details his journey from poor musician to first time game developer using ZBrush to help bring his artistic vision to life. We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Wlad Marhulets, founder of Unfold Games and creator of the award winning game DARQ.
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