It’s been a while since I spoke about working fulltime at Duckbridge in the article ‘setting out on our own’ and at this moment we’ve been working fulltime at Duckbridge for 1.5 month or so. Time has gone by so fast that it doesn’t seem like that long ago that I quit my job to pursue Duckbridge fulltime.
Before we started working fulltime on Duckbridge, it all seemed so scary to me and I thought I would wake up everyday stressed out and worried about wether we would ‘make it’ in the industry or not. I mean, I thought that I would feel some kind of pressure because most people would expect us to be ‘succesful’ and it would take a loooong time before we even got ‘successful’ (and it also depends on your definition of ‘success’).
Before setting out we decided that we wanted to work through Skype instead of getting a small office space somewhere. This was because otherwise we would have to go to the office everyday and buy train tickets and stuff like this. This would not only cost a lot, but it would also feel a lot like ‘work’.
However, there would be benefits to taking an office space, it would be easier to communicate, we would be together and we could be more involved in the ‘local dev scene’. However we decided that this all wouldn’t be worth the financial costs, so we decided to work through Skype. We do meet occasionally, but not that often.
We set up a schedule where we would start working at 09:00 untill 17:00+ Monday-Friday, and in the weekends you could work whenever you wanted (so it’s more free-style). There was no work-time limitation, so if we wanted we could work untill 23:00 or so. This seemed to work great, because we always had moments when we would be able to discuss things or try out stuff together. And if one of us wanted to work late, that person could just do it. I especially liked it that I could wait with some difficult programming stuff untill the evening. So during the day I could fix minor bugs or add minor features or whatnot, and in the evening I could start fully focusing on the difficult programming task.
With the time schedule and all it might look like ‘work’ but it’s actually totally different, because we don’t always spend all that time working. Sometimes we just talk about videogames or just watch some videos or stuff for a few hours, then continue development, then take a break again etc. And because this is something that we really want to do, it feels really good!
Currenly I’m even excited for ‘mondays’, because that’s when we continue development! Having all this freedom also really helps me relax, because I’m not stressed all the time. Sometimes when I don’t feel like doing anything, I just play some videogames or whatnot and then get back at it when I feel like it. And also the days fly by and the weekends don’t feel all that special anymore.
That being said, we know that we have a long way to go and eventhough we’re not sure of how this all will work out, we’re atleast enjoying ourselves and working on something we believe in!
My name is Marciano Viereck and I’m ½ of Duckbridge, a tiny developer based in Amersfoort, Netherlands
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