From Mod to Metacritic Hit: 10 Lessons I Learned Making The Forgotten City
summary
The Forgotten City moves from a 3.7 million‑download mod to a standalone game with a core team of three, four and a half years of development and about $100k personal investment, using Unreal Engine plus Character Creator 3, Trello and a lip‑sync plugin. Outcomes: an Epic MegaGrant, Steam wishlist goal of ~80–100k, a Metacritic score of 85, 60,000 words of dialogue voiced by 27 actors for ~$22k, and a $4k commissioned mock‑review process that lifts average score from ~70 to 85.
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chapters (15)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:15About The Forgotten City
- 0:52My Journey
- 1:52Risk Reward
- 3:30Keep Your Team Lean
- 7:00Use Unreal Engine
- 9:53Manage Your Time
- 12:35Use Trello
- 13:00Dont engage with trolls
- 14:39Prioritize Steam Wishlists
- 17:15Get a Publisher
- 23:40Get Advice
- 26:15Ask for Help
- 28:49Voice Acting
- 35:58Commission Mock Reviews
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