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TL;DR: Rondeo Balos is a solo developer from Larena, Siquijor, and he’s been building Unforseen Quests, a 2D pixel-art soulslike for Android, since May 2023. It launches on Google Play this January, and pre-registration is open now with a free DLC for early birds.
Welcome back to Dev Spotlight, where we get to know the people behind the games we cover. We first wrote about Unforseen Quests when its pre-registration opened. This time, we asked Rondeo how it all came together.
It didn’t start as a soulslike
Unforseen Quests began as a plain sidescroller RPG. Rondeo stepped away from it for a while, and when he came back, a friend pointed out something that stuck with him: there weren’t really any soulslikes on mobile yet.
Most soulslikes live on PC and console. So he rebuilt the game around that gap: tough bosses, parries, dodges, and learning each boss’s tells. Ang challenge, gawing fair ang laban kahit thumbs lang ang gamit mo. His answer was controls designed for touch from the start.
How he builds it
- Engine: Java on libGDX, an open-source game framework that runs on both Android and iOS
- Levels: made in a world editor he built himself
- Art: some props and the boss are modeled in Blender, then rendered down into pixel art so they match the hand-drawn sprites
That Blender-to-pixel-art trick is a smart move for a one-person team. It gets him detailed, consistent animation without hand-drawing every single frame.
Three and a half years, all from Siquijor
Rondeo has been working on Unforseen Quests since May 2023, from Larena, Siquijor. Malayo sa Manila, pero proof na hindi kailangan nasa big city ka para gumawa ng game. All you need is a laptop, a lot of patience, and a game you believe in.
What’s next
- January launch: Android first, on Google Play
- iOS: planned for later, no date yet
- Pre-register now: everyone who pre-registers gets The Far Shore DLC for free
We’ll play it ourselves once the game launches and share our impressions then. Until then, check out the trailer and pre-register on Google Play.
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