From Jungle Town to a Dream

It all started with Jungle Town, our first game, which, although not a commercial hit, has garnered over 500,000 downloads on Android, iOS, and Steam. This experience has taught us a lot, but most importantly, it has shown that the market for children's games is difficult to promote.

Then I decided to go the other way. Being a fan of GTA and NFS Heat, I thought: why not create your own racing game in an open world? The city, cars, customization, freedom – everything that we love so much. This is how the idea of Benza Street Unbound was born.

Development began almost three years ago with three people. At some point, we completely disconnected from commercial projects, sold the office and went full-time to bring the game to release. It was a risk, but there was no other way.

Build an open world

The city in the game is not just a backdrop for racing, but a lively, detailed world. We took Miami and the map of the NFS Heat game as a basis, studying how the roads are arranged there, where the buildings are located and what elements make the city truly atmospheric.

Creating roads turned out to be more difficult than we thought. There were two ways: either manually simulate in a 3D program, or use procedural generation (for example, Houdini), but this requires specialists. In the end, I found a middle option: I made procedural intersections in Modo 3D, transferred them to Unity, and manually assembled the road network. This allowed us to achieve the right balance between flexibility and control.

When the roads were ready, it was the turn of the most difficult thing – the formation of the island. I wanted to find automatic tools for terrain generation, but in the end I had to manually draw every corner to make the city look natural.

3D, which no one prepared for games

To revitalize the city, buildings and surroundings were needed: trees, traffic lights, trash cans, and thousands of other details.

At first, we tried to follow a simple path — to buy ready-made 3D models. As a result, we gathered more than 8000 objects – and from that moment the real chaos began.

At first glance, the models looked great, but it was worth looking deeper, as it turned out.:

Some of the buildings were beautiful, but completely unplayable.;

Others looked fine, but used dozens of materials, which is detrimental to mobile optimization.;

Some turned out to be unsuitable for work due to unnecessary polygons and incomplete geometry.

We had to find a compromise: use what was suitable, refine it manually, and re-model individual buildings.

At the same time, I started assembling the first island, the part of the city that will be released. When he finally took shape, it seemed that all the difficult things were over. But in fact, the problems were just beginning.

The most painful stage of development

While I was building the world, the core of the game and the interface were being developed. This stage almost buried the project.

I entrusted the work to one developer, sincerely believing that everything was under control. It's been almost a year, and when I checked the result, it turned out that:

The garage is buggy and works every other time;

The code is unoptimized and overloaded;

The interface is unusable for normal use.

It was a difficult moment. For several days I tried to comprehend what had happened, but then I turned on critical thinking. I've always lived by the principle of "never give up," and this case was no exception. We started all over again.

AstanaHub and a Second chance for Benza Street Unbound

At that time, AstanaHub launched the SeedMoney program, where it was required to provide an MVP. The version was crude, but even in this form we were able to convince the jury of the game's potential and received funding in the amount of 10 000 000 tenge. It became a real salvation. Money has given us the opportunity:

Hire people to outsource to recycle problematic 3D models;

Support the team so as not to be distracted by third-party orders;

Fix key bugs and bring the game back to working order.

AstanaHub helped us not only with financing, but also with places to work: coworking became our second home, where new ideas were born, and every day we made the game better.

A team without which nothing would have worked.

Dmitry is me, the author and inspiration behind the project, a road architect and a city landscape designer, as well as a programmer, 3D modeler, UI/UX designer, and optimization specialist all rolled into one. The person responsible for all processes in the team, starting from the idea and ending with the technical implementation of the project. It's not an easy burden, I tell you.

Stanislav is the programmer who saved the project. At first, we scolded him for being late and making small mistakes, but then we realized: this is a man who really supports the game. He fixed all the critical bugs, brought the multiplayer, interface, physics and much more to mind.

Vika is the architect of the game world. My wife, who, having no experience in GameDev, mastered 3D modeling and level design in six months. Now she is the main "mayor" of our city. I love creating brutal courtyards and broken roads, and she loves beautiful infrastructure and cozy neighborhoods. Sometimes I have to make "secret incursions" into the city to add to the chaos, but she immediately finds them and restores order.

What's ready now?

A large open world;

Customization of cars and characters;

7 racing modes;

Multiplayer with the addition of friends, voice and text chat;

Exclusive car shop, leaderboard, daily tasks.

What's next?

The game is almost ready, but we understand that it will feel raw on the day of release. We will continue to refine it together with the community, add new mechanics, improve the content and listen to your wishes.

We need partners and investors. We can develop the game ourselves, but it's going to be a long journey. Therefore, we are open to suggestions from investors that will help us speed up the process and make Benza Street Unbound even cooler.

How ChatGPT helped us in the development

This project has largely become what it is, thanks to artificial intelligence. ChatGPT helped us:

Come up with a game name;

Optimize a lot of processes;

Develop texts for marketing;

Give ideas for new mechanics;

Even this article was written with his participation.

Join us and wait for the release!

Benza Street Unbound is just the beginning!

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Wait for the next article – we'll tell you how the physics of machines was created.

And, of course, wait for the release – it's coming very soon.