E McNeill launched the primary full VR sport for Gear VR headsets again in 2014 drawing from huge display screen depictions of our on-line world.
That includes hackers taking up the “Darknet” to accumulate digital bitcoin, his technique sport sees you hack computing nodes to buy stronger digital weapons.
On the time of Darknet’s authentic improvement in 2013 and 2014, a single precise bitcoin might be bought for about $1,000 in the true world. On the time of our speak on January 31, 2025, greater than a decade after McNeill initially made the sport, a single bitcoin might be bought for greater than $100,000.
This implies if McNeill had acquired, say, 5 bitcoin at a price of $5,000 on the time he added the idea to Darknet, the cryptocurrency can be value $500,000 immediately.
McNeill says he acquired no bitcoin.
As a substitute, he spent the final 12 years as an indie sport developer making the primary full VR sport for Gear VR adopted by a collection of VR titles for many fashionable client VR headsets.
“There was possibly a quick second in time once I felt like I used to be doing tremendous superior and had struck it wealthy, and that second has handed. Perhaps if I had purchased bitcoin like we talked about in the beginning of this interview then all can be totally different,” McNeill stated of his journey in indie sport improvement. “The truth that I have been in a position to preserve it going already for 12 years is miraculous to me, and I believe if I went again and talked to my youthful self and stated ‘in case you set out on this you’ll make this work for a minimum of 12 years’, I’d take into account {that a} dream come true.”
Earlier than McNeill heads off on depart, Don Hopper booted up Darknet: Remastered on Quest alongside McNeill’s most up-to-date motion video games Ironstrike and Ironlights. I interviewed the developer for greater than an hour with Don taking part in every of the video games within the background.
Ultimately, McNeill met up with Don and taught us how one can forged spells and achieve fight. The dev gave Don a crash course tutorial in each Ironstrike and Ironlights, and McNeill confirmed us why he made such particular decisions on the subject of weapon dealing with in his VR video games. Our because of YouTube member Arlen for becoming a member of us with some questions through the present, and you may try the complete timestamped hour-long dialog with McNeill under.
Final week, we heard from the developer of Airspace Defender and Tablecraft in the identical deep dive format and, within the weeks forward, we’re beginning to line up a schedule for developer interviews that ought to embrace us model new or upcoming releases.
We solely performed three of McNeill’s video games through the stream, leaping from Darknet: Remastered to Ironstrike and eventually ending in Ironlights, however you possibly can study extra about all of his titles on his web site.
We’ll remember to comply with up with McNeill within the months forward.
