Snacko Awarded Epic MegaGrant!
We're so excited to finally announce that we've been selected to receive a MegaGrant!
What is a MegaGrant?
Snacko uses Unreal Engine 4, a free-to-use game engine made by Epic Games. Part of their program to help developers, educators, and other people who use UE4 is a fund dedicated to people like us. In the past, they have had programs like this where you can apply with your project, video series, or any other UE4 or open-source 3D graphics endeavors. The MegaGrant was started early spring of 2018 with a pool of $100 million USD to be slowly and incrementally awarded to different projects. The grant is a "no strings attached" fund - while they do expect you to continue working on your project and that the funds will go towards the project, you don't need to pay any amount of it back once your project is finished.
Why is this good for us?
We applied for this grant back in March, when we only had our first trailer and a very early build. The hope was to help us continue working on Snacko full-time, to supplement our Patreon income. Currently, Patreon income is enough to cover some software, infrastructure, and living costs like cat food and groceries, but it's not enough to live off of. We've been taking money out of our savings to help hold us over until we can get Snacko to a point where we can look into other avenues of funding such as crowd sourcing. With the MegaGrant, it gives us just enough peace of mind for the next few months to continue what we've been doing: developing the game.
What's going to change?
Development-wise, not much! We'll be continuing working on our next build update, as well as posting frequent updates through our blog and Patreon. While we're honoured to have been selected as a recipient, it doesn't mean we can rest easy. There's still a lot to do! What the grant does allow us to do is to spend less time worrying about money, or taking on freelance work to help cover our bills. We're incredibly grateful to the Unreal Engine team and Epic Games for continually supporting small developers and giving us not only a small safety net, but also a confidence boost that we're headed in the right direction with Snacko.
Of course, thank you for supporting us whether it's through Patreon, watching our videos, reading our blog posts, or telling your friends about Snacko. Please look forward to what we have in store!
