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Magic From Hell: Spacetrip
Magic From Hell: Spacetrip is a top-down action space game with role-playing and puzzle elements and thrilling vegan story.
It is in development for mobile phones and personal computers from 2020 - 2026 with Unreal Engine 4 / 5.
Spacetrip: History Of The Game
I created the very first game prototype in 2005. A complete, varied gameplay level for a top-down space shooter using Anark Studio, an IDE for 3D multimedia content and the rough blueprint for what would later become the Unity engine.
Since then, I’ve wanted to create a full game of this type, the kind that now floods the app stores because of its enormous popularity.
In 2019, after working for years as a freelancer and an employee, I finally began developing a new version of this game idea, incorporating a few unique selling points. I initially used Unity but quickly realized it was a dead end at the time, with issues like unfinished renderers, clunky and hard-to-use high-performance code, and the move to .NET 4, which broke my Google Firebase backend implementation.
Unreal Engine, on the other hand, was evolving rapidly without these problems. It allowed you to use materials and blueprints from up to eleven years ago in the latest Unreal Engine 5.7 without any compatibility issues! So, in early 2020, after 13 years as a professional Unity developer, I switched to Unreal, envisioning a much-improved user experience and controls for my game.
Learning Unreal by doing has been a lot of fun. Blueprints Visual Scripting feels like a breath of fresh air compared to Unity’s C#. It’s clear that Unreal 5 was made by game developers, not by a publicly traded company like Unity Technologies with its Asset Store with a 30% fee.
In 2024, after I self-funded a playable version, despite knowing that my chances as a solo developer without a budget developing a vegan action game with accessible game design and also using the latest technology like A.I. were very slim, I submitted an application for video game funding to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The other two funding programs, from the federal government and Press Start, were out of the question from the start, as I neither have a minimum capital of €50,000 nor am part of a team.
In July 2024 I got an automated rejection from GameUp / Medienförderung RLP, without stating the reasons that led to this unfair decision. Another developer received €50,000 in the same funding round and can even apply for an additional €50,000 from the federal government, €100,000 in total. Meanwhile, poor solo developers don’t even get €100 as compensation for the effort of filling out the required countless forms and calculations.
However, Unreal Engine is not perfect either. With the release of Unreal Engine 5.6 in 2025, I unfortunately discovered that the 3D text tool included with the engine - which, after many years, is still officially in beta - cannot be updated from version 5.5 to 5.6. Since I use 3D text throughout the entire game for the user interface, I had to develop my own 3D text tool and replace every single piece of text in the game, including partially animated ones. Lesson learned: never rely on experimental or beta features / plugins, even if they have been in development for decades.
In June 2026, a real piece of bad news came from Epic Games: Blueprints Visual Scripting, the language in which my game is 100% built, will be completely removed in the next Unreal Engine version and replaced with the cryptic, typed language ‘Verse’.
This language change is more extreme than anything Unity Technologies has ever done or ever even attempted to do (such as the runtime fees), at least from my perspective as a Blueprinter. Without Blueprints, and with the goal of developing for all platforms, from smartphones and consoles to gaming PCs, in order to reach as many people as possible with my vegan stories, there is no longer any reason to forgive Epic Games for this serious mistake and not return to Unity.
For a few years now, especially since AI has emerged, I’ve had the feeling that I no longer have the motivation to ever finish my game in Unreal in its current form. With the help of AI, it is already possible today to visualize stories much better through video, something that was unthinkable just five years ago. Not to mention 3D models, music, and more.
It’s already mid 2026. I keep getting distracted by other small, very interesting projects, but the game is at least feature-complete, even though a lot of content is still missing.