The Founder

Hello, my name is Franck Poulain, i'm 25 years old and I am the founder and the only developer at Lonely Bits Games (and yes I love cat's). Let me share a bit of my life with you.

When it all started

My passion of video game making began at the age of 11 years old when I played Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation. When I saw the end credits I knew that I wanted to be a game developer. As I come from a humble background, my parents didn't have the possibility to pay me some studies in computer science (in fact i don't even have any diploma related to computer science yet), so I began to learn game programming by myself.

The Self-Learning quest

As I didn't had any computer yet I have begun to learn programming on the Playstation 2. Yes that's true ! On the demo disc that were provided with the console you could find the "Yabasic" application, a programming language derived from basic. Believe me, that was quite a tedious work to type programming lines with a console controller by using a virtual keyboard ! When I knew how to do some "simple" things like drawing simple 2D shapes, move them and such, I received my first computer (I was 14). Then I jumped immediately in the PC modding community, I started to learn level design by using valve Hammer tool to make various levels for half life 2 / counter strike source and I also started to learn C++ by looking the Half Life 2 SDK code. I didn't read any programming books or web tutorials to add some challenge and because i am kind of a crazy guy.

The second start

From the age of 16 to 19 I have released various maps and mods for various games. Then my modding skills paid off and I was hired to work in the video game industry. I did spent a great time and released two games with the team that I was working with but I always wanted to do my own games, to start my own indie studio. This is were I began to work on Dangerous Rays the fisrt game of the future studio that i would build, Lonely Bits Games.

Dangerous Rays Was Born

The development of Dangerous Rays started in 2011, from the beginning I knew that I wanted to do a "modding friendly" game and that's why I decided to do my own game engine. This is way more fun for the brain ! The engine base code was finished at the end of 2012. Then from this date I have been developing Dangerous Rays gameplay. Those were quite hard times and I was (and i'm still) working almost 15 hours a day on the game.

The future ?

And here I am, writing this short story about myself. It's been almost three years that I am working on Dangerous Rays, and I am getting close to the release of the first early access version, I really hope that you will like my work and that you will give me the fantastic chance to continue to do my biggest passion, making video games !

My Greatest Thanks,
Franck