The History of Buildbox

Have you ever wondered how Buildbox came to be?

For those who are not familiar with us, Buildbox is a software that allows anyone to make professional games without any prior coding skills. Hit games like Color Switch (which has amassed over 150 million downloads) and The Line Zen were made in a single week using our software. Our drag and drop system and built-in tools enable users to build out levels quickly. Also the presets and advanced options allow users to create high-quality games with custom effects and animation sequences easily. Since our release, we’ve had more featured games than all other game builders combined.

Over 100 hit games have been made with Buildbox that have either broken the Top 100 in the games in the App Store or have been featured by Apple. It’s pretty extraordinary when you think about it.

So, how did it all begin?

The History of Buildbox

Well, it all started back in 2011, when Trey Smith got on the outsourcing website Odesk to find a developer to help him create a video game. He ended up hiring Nik Rudenko, a talented programmer from Russia. Together they created a string of hit games from Jump Pack to Monster Magical, which all did well.

Trey also started blogging about his game development journey on his personal blog called the Trey Smith Blog. He wrote about his process for developing games and his take on the mobile game industry. But it wasn’t until one of his posts went viral that EVERYTHING changed.

Trey had written a post entitled, ‘The Fall of Angry Birds’ which examined the charts, discussing how Angry Birds was no longer the top game in the scene and with this fall the premium games reign was coming to an end. In the article, he predicted the rise of freemium games in mobile. The post quickly went viral, ranking #1 on Hacker News, appeared in the New York Times and a variety of different news publications and tech websites.

He began receiving 100,000 visits to his blog, and people took notice. They wanted to learn more about making games. So, Trey decided to start teaching and selling courses on game development. He created a new website called Game Academy where people could find articles on game development and even full courses on how to make every type of game you can imagine. He also included more extensive hands-on programs that he called Elite courses to help developers further expand their game business.

From Project Zero to Success

As things progressed, he noticed something interesting happening. Like the fall of premium games, Trey saw a new issue on the rise. Game creators and entrepreneurs were having trouble finding reliable outsourcers to help them create games and keep their game businesses momentum going. It was also taking too long to complete projects. A better solution was needed.

So, Trey approached Nik about creating a game builder, something simple that could help speed up the process; the result was Project Zero. They gave away Project Zero for free as a bonus for people who bought their Elite courses, and it was a HUGE hit. Then they decided to improve it. The original software was only capable of creating a simple space shooting style game, but for Project Zero 2 they added several new gameplay types. Everyone loved it.

The success of the courses and Project Zero inspired the duo to go even further. They came up with the idea of creating the ultimate game builder, one that was not only easy to use but also capable of making a wide variety of games and Buildbox was born.

Released in late 2014, Buildbox took the game development world by storm. In the video below, Trey talks about the creation of Buildbox. He also gives a sneak peek of what’s coming soon with the relaunch of his hands-on program Publisher Elite: