06
May

Home » Features » From Developing Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V to Indie Game Terralysia

From Developing Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V to Indie Game Terralysia

Why Flavius Alecu Left Rockstar Games and AAA behind to Start His Own Indie Studio

Games don’t come much bigger than GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. Studios don’t come much bigger than Rockstar North, Rockstar San Diego and Build a Rocket Boy. Flavius ‘Flav’ Alecu worked with them all but still felt there was something missing.

After decades working AAA titles he’s now stepping away from major studios and into the world of indie games. He’s starting his own indie developer, Tiny Game Dev and already working on his first title, Terralysia.

Flav’s been on a tremendous games development journey to get to where he is today, but I get the feeling he’s only just about to embark on his greatest adventure.

A Career in Games Development

Flav grew up in Eastern and Northern Europe, he’s had an obsession with games and specifically game tech since he was ten years old.

His primary interest was in building game engines and the lower levels of game implementation, rather than specifically games development. That’s how he learnt to programme and code, but he confesses it’s no way to go about finishing a complete game.

Flav began his career in gaming when he dropped out of university to join Splash Damage and work on Brink as a programmer. He then spent close to a decade at Rockstar North and later Rockstar San Diego, working on GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2.

He then went to Sony for a few years, where worked on the PS5 system software and R&D at PlayStation. Most recently he was the CTO at Build a Rocket Boy, the Edinburgh based studio created by former Rockstar North veterans – soon to release its first title Everywhere.

In June 2023 Flav left Build a Rocket Boy to start Tiny Game Dev. He now operates as a solo indie dev, with a talented group of contractors to support him.

Tiny Game Dev’s first game will be Terralysia, a third-person action roguelike coming to Early Access in 2024 with a Demo out on 6th of May 2024.

Rockstar and AAA

Flav describes his time at Rockstar as eye opening learning experience. He joined the team as GTA V was in production, building on years developing the ever evolving and hugely popular video game.

“Rockstar Games had an established franchise, with proven tools and technology to build games,” says Flav. “Which presented different challenges compared to a company scaling up or trying to find its footing.

“Some studios attempt to produce a popular game, but it’s different when it’s an established organization that’s pulled it off a few times. The train moves at a different speed, so to speak, you need to learn to hold on.”

Flav’s time at major studios gave him some varied and enviable experiences. “I’ve worked on a new multiplatform IP, from a young and relatively inexperienced team. I’ve worked on multiple incredibly ambitious new IPs from a newly assembled but relatively experienced team. And I’ve worked on arguably some of the biggest games ever made.” Says Flav.

Working at AAA studios can be incredibly demanding. Flav admits that his passion for games and development got him through. Sometimes working 80 plus hour weeks to meet deadlines, while avoiding burn out.

“I actually enjoyed it but I couldn’t do it nowadays, with a family.” Says Flav, “You sort of learn to be dysfunctional and thrive in the environment. Ironically at PlayStation I felt I was underperforming because there was less pressure, because of how well the team was run and managed.”

Like most things, Flav believes working AAA is sometimes more appealing to look in from the outside, than from the inside. “At the end of the day it’s just another job,” says Flav. “You have a task list you need to get through and there’s a deadline. If you’re lucky you get to ship a game you’re proud of.”

Enjoying the Experience

Flav had some great times working in AAA studios, through the relationships that he built with colleagues and the projects he was part of.

“Hanging out in the office at 1am playing the tennis mini game in GTA V with my tech director while we waited for some cert QA, is a memory I am fond of.” Says Flav.

“At Rockstar North I worked with Leslie Benzies for some time.” Flav continues, “But it was recently at Build a Rocket Boy I got to hang out with him a bunch and get to know him, which was awesome and I’ll always appreciate that.”

“One not so fond memory was when I bricked a PS5 dev kit so badly it needed to be sent to Japan to hopefully get fixed!” Quips Flav, “People seemed concerned and I was meant to have a call with Mark Cerny about progress on what I was working on. He was super cool and even joked about it, but for a while I was wondering if I needed to look for a new job!”

An aspect of the AAA experience that Flav didn’t enjoy was the politics, something which he says was impossible to avoid and rarely contributed anything positive to the process. But that’s not the reason why he decided to move on.

“I never actually wanted to get out of AAA, until I did. It was a very quick decision that suddenly felt right and I knew I had to do it.” Says Flav.

Moving Into Indie Games

For Flav something had changed, he suddenly felt that he needed to be able to make and finish games in their entirety. Whether that be creating the game itself or assembling the team that would build the game.

“I was lucky enough to climb the career ladder as high as it went, but that didn’t mean much to me once I realized I couldn’t do what I cared about,” says Flav. “I have no interest in playing a management metagame.

“I have no desire to be part of a team with hundreds or thousands of people working on one project. There’s a significant amount of inefficiencies that start to add up at that scale.”

The solution for Flav was a reset, to find a new approach to game development.

“Tools like Unreal Engine allow individuals and small teams to make games that stand on the toes of AAA studios.” Says Flav, “Just take a look at the top games released in 2024, it should inspire anyone who’s considering making their own games.”

Flav already has a number of ideas that could be taken into development, some more ambitious than others, but none that require a nine figure budget.

“The foundations of the company need to be built first, but my ambition is to make games that I would want to play, that don’t already exist.” Enthuses Flav.

Taking Learnings from AAA Into Indie Games

“A lot is applicable because the process is the same.” Says Flav when discussing the skills he will bring to indie games. “The tools used and the content produced might be different depending on the game of course, but in general you’re creating the same type of product, hopefully at a smaller scale.

“What I will bring to indie gaming is confidence, from knowing what it takes to ship a game. Through decades at major studios I’ve seen how important it is to get to that point, not just be around for part of a development cycle.

“Prototyping is different from production, which is different from hardening the release candidate, which is different from maintaining the live game. I feel many indies without previous experience are way off in their guesstimate the effort this takes.”

The challenge for Flav is that he’ll no longer be a small part of a much larger machine. When it comes to indie games, you are all departments. You might have done engineering, or art, or design at a AAA company, but it’s highly unlikely you’ve also been part of a different department.

Flav has found that he’s now performed many jobs he would never have touched at a AAA studio. Not to mention all the sides of game development you never experience when you’re a specialist at a large AAA company.

Setting up a company, learning accounting, talking to lawyers, speaking to investors and liaising with publishers. Setting up a Steam page, learning the Steam algorithm. Creating a PR and Marketing strategy, speaking to press and influencers. Setting up social media accounts and Discord servers. Flav has now done it all.

“It’s been an amazing learning opportunity and, while I don’t necessarily want to do all these jobs full time, you learn something that sticks with you from each one,” reflects Flav. “The most important thing for me though is the ability to work on the game I want to work on.

“I have learnt that it’s ok to not know what you are doing and it’s important to realize how much there is to learn. This is enough to get on the right path and then consistency usually leads to results. There’s a lot of ups and downs running your own company and it helps to remember that small improvements compound.”

Tiny Game Dev’s debut title Terralysia

What began as a test project for Flav to learn the latest Unreal Engine 5 features, will be Tiny Game Dev’s debut title. Flav explains, “I thought I could build a ‘small’ third-person MOBA type game but quickly realized that might not be the best idea. I pivoted to a slightly simpler and single player game. I’m not sure the scope ended up much smaller!”

Flav describes Terralysia as a third-person action roguelike heavily inspired by Risk of Rain 2 and Vampire Survivors. It’s got the third-person combat from Risk of Rain 2 and the chaotic passive abilities from Vampire Survivors.

“I wanted to go a bit farther with the concept so there’s multiple maps, each with their own objective chains and boss battles. There are also multiple playable characters with unique playstyles,” explains Flav. “I want variety and I don’t want every map to play as an arena with the exact same mechanics.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what people think of the variety, but I’m also trying to be mindful of scope creep. The first map and character will be playable in the Demo, which is out May 6.”

Want to know more?

I wish Flav all the best to on the next stage of Terralysia’s development. If you’d like to know more or follow him on his game’s making journey, you can find everything you need to know at the links below.

Terralysia can be found on Steam and will be heading to Next Fest in October. You can subscribe to the Tiny Game Dev newsletter via the website. You can follow the game’s journey on Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. And finally, join the Discord channel, where you can see how development is going and even live streams of Flav’s Unreal Editor.