Wlad Marhulets

Wlad Marhulets overcame unimaginable hardships to make his dreams come true. As a result, he cares deeply to empower others to do the same. Wlad first came to the U.S. from Poland in 2007. All he had was $300 of borrowed cash. Wlad didn't speak a word of English, had no connections, and suffered from a severe stutter and social anxiety. His only skill at the time was writing music. It wasn't long until Wlad became a Hollywood composer, scoring such movies as "The Giver," starring Meryl Streep, "November Man," starring Pierce Brosnan, "Sabotage," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Marshall from Detroit," starring Eminem, and others. One could say that Wlad's career in Hollywood was going well, yet he continued to struggle financially, as film gigs didn't come regularly. At that time, Wlad decided to start his life from scratch and ventured into entirely new territory: game development. As a first-time developer, with no prior experience in coding, modeling, texturing, animation, game design, etc., Wlad managed to launch DARQ to commercial success and critical acclaim. DARQ was developed mostly solo, with $0 spent on marketing. The game was featured in major media outlets, such as IGN, Kotaku, PC Gamer, GameSpot, Forbes, and hundreds of others. DARQ won a number of industry awards, such as The Best Game of the MIX / PAX West, and received a user rating of 9 out of 10. DARQ was one of the top 50 most wishlisted games on Steam before it launched. Upon launch, it made it to the "Top Selling," "New and Popular," and "Featured and Recommended" tabs on Steam. Ultimately, DARQ became #42 Most Shared PC Video Game of 2019 (Metacritic). Video game development became Wlad's new career and running his own company, his new passion. Above all, Wlad cares about empowering others to realize their full potential. In his book "GAMEDEV: 10 Steps to Making Your First Game Successful", he shares everything he learned during the time it took to develop DARQ. He also shares how he built a winning mindset and self-confidence that allowed him to turn every dream of his into reality.