The birth of Haunted Space

Hello everyone, my name is Luca, and I am the CTO and Founder of our upcoming title Haunted Space.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an unbridled imagination and a deep fascination with outer space. I remember specifically in middle school, I used to fantasize about spaceships and aircraft and what it would take for me to become a pilot one day. Once it was time for me to go to high school, I had to decide what path I wanted to take for schooling. Eventually, I chose a high school for applied sciences.

I’m very fortunate to have chosen that path. I soon became interested in computer science and discovered that I loved programming. I started making simple programs, but it wasn’t long until I started programming my first video games. Some of the first games I made at 16 years old were mobile apps. These 2D games were fun little experiments, but I remember being particularly proud when I had a game published on the app store.

By the time I was 18, I had been programming for a couple of years, and I started to take my hobby more seriously. I still remember when I made the switch, thinking I was about to enter the big leagues and that I needed to make this a more structured experience. I wanted to tie together my childhood fantasy and my new passion in a way that would captivate players. I wanted to make a game about space. After a few weeks, I made my first prototype game build. My prototypical game build won my high school’s programming team competition, which let me present my game at the Lucca Comics and Games Fair.

At the fair, I was introduced to Ivan Venturi. Ivan is a world-renowned Italian game producer, so I was absolutely floored when he said he wanted to become my partner and help me develop this game further. It’s hard to think that winning a high school programming competition would lead me down a path where I could partner with established industry professionals, but it just shows that you never know where opportunities may lie. Looking back, it’s incredible to think how our game has developed since those early days.

During our first two years of collaboration, I finished high school and started university. University was awesome because it helped me understand how to become a more sophisticated programmer. By this point, I had already made collaborations with some established companies in the gaming industry, and I learned more and more about both the technical aspects of games and game direction. Game direction is incredibly important inside the industry.

When I turned 21, I presented another prototype build of our game at the Games Connection fair in Paris. After presenting there, our team won funding, and Italian Games Factory srl was created.

In the three years since that partnership, I’ve had to develop many skills to bring our project to fruition. I had to gain experience not only as a programmer but as an entrepreneur. I started an e-commerce company to help fund the project and picked up some skills in marketing along the way. I also made a lot of life-changing business connections. I’d like to shout out to a couple of my current partners that I met during this time: Leonardo Biagini and Federico Giuntoli.

It’s crazy to see how big the team has gotten today and to see so many people with the single mission of bringing Haunted Space to gamers worldwide. Our goal is first to release the single-player version of the game and then a multiplayer version a little later.

In particular, we’re planning on building the multiplayer as a blockchain and free-to-play game.

It’s mind-blowing to see the evolution of Haunted Space and Italian Games Factory throughout my career. We started with next-to-nothing, and now we have a huge team all working on making a world-class experience.

This is my story, and I’m so proud of all the fantastic people who have helped me to achieve these goals in such a short time.

If you want to join the Haunted Space community, check out our Discord and Twitter. Join the family and give us your input on the game and the project so far.

Also, a few weeks ago, I made a video where I talked in detail about everything I mentioned in this article!
If you want to watch it, check it out here 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/f0BMq2P0g1A

Peace, Luca