Click here to experience Magic Heist in VRChat, a new community-made game world/ride that seems ideal for exploring over the Thanksgiving holidays. Co-developed by acclaimed VRC creators Fins, CyanLaser, and Lakuza, it is, to judge by the highly-polished trailer (watch above), pretty much indistinguishable in quality to a big budget console game for the family. Much of that has to do with the fact that Fins paid out of pocket to hire professional voice actors and license the soundtrack (the biggest part of the budget).
While it may look like a game built over a year, the team built Magic Heist in just about a month, Lakuza tells me, racing to finish it by deadline for the Raindance Film Festival contest:
"We ended up having to cut ideas entirely to ensure we could complete it in time," Lakuza explains, "So the hardest element was the deadline itself and making sure we could complete what we wanted." (Lukuza animated the large creatures you see in the video, which were licensed from the Unity Asset Store.)
Their work paid off, with the team winning Raindance's Indie Spirit award:
👏 Chill the champagne for @VRCFins, @CyanLaser & @LakuzaVR! 🍾 Congratulations for winning the Spirit of @Raindance Award recognising bravery, artistry and the indie spirit of the team! Magic Heist is a masterpiece in world building 🧙♂️ https://t.co/hSk5pjfGiF #RaindanceImmersive pic.twitter.com/oFMniEjHB2
— Curator of Raindance Immersive (@MariaRaindance) November 21, 2021
Cyan and Fin both have Patreon accounts (here and here, respectively) to support their VRChat content creation. But despite winning this award, Lukuza prefers to take no compensation via Patreon, nor even use it as a stepping stone into professional game development:
"I prefer to keep job life and hobby life separate," he explains. "I'm scared that once money gets involved I might lose the creative freedom I have to focus on what I want to make and not what potential supporters might want, which would make it feel more like a job at that point."
Hat tip: Foxy VRChat scout Adeon.
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