How game dev frustrations led to Lootfabriq
When we finally launched, I couldn’t help but reflect on the journey that brought us here. It’s been a path filled with excitement, frustration, and way too much coffee. After all, what’s a project without a few sleepless nights and questioning your life choices? But in the end, we made it, and our project is now out in the world. So, here’s how it all started.
The Struggle
I worked as a software engineer in game development for over 10 years, and part of my job was maintaining a data editor. Game designers would use the editor to manage game data and export it to JSON before importing it into Unity or other game engines. The tricky part? Each studio had its own version of the editor.
These editors all looked different and used different approaches. But one thing remained constant across all of them: they had to provide a convenient GUI for managing game data and seamlessly export that data, whether for Unity, Cocos2d, or another engine. Maintaining and adapting each version was a constant challenge, and it took a huge amount of work to support them all.
From game dev to game creator… kinda
After many years in game dev, I shifted industries and eventually decided to start my own side project — an economic simulation game using Godot. Along with making games, I’ve always loved playing them, so this was a passion project for me. However, I soon hit a familiar problem. I realized I’d have to manually handle JSON or CSV files, or set up a database to store the game data. Neither option was appealing; both were complex and would slow me down.
From my experience, I knew that creating my own editor would be the best solution, but I also knew how difficult that path was. I couldn’t help but think: What if there was something universal?
“Aha” moment
When I started thinking about how to build a solution, I quickly realized the choice of technologies wasn’t that big. It boiled down to two options: a desktop application or a web application. A desktop app seemed like the logical choice, but delivering updates? Nightmare. A web app would make updates easier, but it came with a lot of complexity, and let’s just say my front-end skills weren’t exactly award-winning.
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I already knew my co-founder, a frontend dev who genuinely enjoys working with JavaScript and CSS, so I shared the idea with her. I was half-expecting her to run in the other direction, but instead, she agreed! With her onboard, we decided to take the plunge into the wild world of web applications and make the vision a reality.
Putting it all together
We wanted to create something user-friendly, focusing on simplicity. The core idea was this: users could create templates using drag-and-drop functionality. These templates would automatically generate forms, allowing users to create and modify items as needed, then export the results to JSON.
From my experience, game logic often requires more complex structures within items and their connections, something flat formats like CSV or XLS aren’t built for. These formats force you to simplify your data structures and relationships, which can even lead to changes in game mechanics — definitely not something any developer wants to deal with. That’s why we made sure Lootfabriq allows users to maintain these more complex structures without sacrificing flexibility or game logic.
We chose JSON because of its universality and future potential for game engine integration. The key was keeping the app simple, but powerful enough to make changes to templates and keep the JSON consistent with the changes.
What’s next
A few days ago, we finally launched the first version of Lootfabriq, and while it’s just the beginning, it feels like a huge milestone for us. After a year of hard work, we’re thrilled to see the product live and in the hands of users.
Of course, we have plenty of ideas for new features and improvements — because, let’s be honest, does any project ever feel truly finished? We’ve come a long way, but there’s always that little voice asking if we’ve done enough or if we’ve missed something. It’s a bit scary putting something out there, knowing people will judge it.
But at the end of the day, we built Lootfabriq because it’s something we needed ourselves. It may not be perfect yet (what is?), but it’s a start, and I’m hopeful it will help other developers solve the same problems we’ve wrestled with for years.
