Test Your Game's Potential in Just 3 Days

We do a game jam game, release it after 3 days of work, like only 3 days, and that's the first validation point. And

then we got like 200,000 wish lists in a month. The quality of the game, how it's

month. The quality of the game, how it's how it is crafted, or how interesting the idea is will tell you nothing about how popular it will be. This is a conversation with Renee Haramman, an

indie game developer you might know from games such as Dome Keeper or Planet Fidong's Canon in Commandant. He's

running a game studio called Bip and Bits together with his wife and he has some very interesting perspectives on how to make indie games that sell reliably.

I would rather spend half a year in vain than 2 years.

Yeah.

In person said, you don't need to like the game you're making. And I

fundamentally disagree with this.

I'm a big fan of his perspective. So,

I'm excited to just sit down and nerd about game design. I was uh thinking about if developers make a game and it flops or doesn't work out or doesn't enable them to do another game, why is

that? There are three main things like a

that? There are three main things like a main causes. Uh one's a very obvious one

main causes. Uh one's a very obvious one that the game is unwanted that there's basically no audience for a game and that hits really many games. The second

one uh was misaligned and that is basically uh a game that was announced and people were kind of hyped for it and then it got made and when it released people were really disappointed for some reason.

So we have unwanted and misaligned, right? What's the third one

right? What's the third one in my book? It's overdeveloped. I've

seen some games that um overdeveloped just means okay this game could have worked out if you just had not expanded the scope so much in some directions

like uh it's a game that is probably wellm made and for example with a simple graphic style it would have worked nearly equally well as with a sophisticated graphic style but the

sophisticated graphics cost so much money that the game really now can't be profitable because suddenly it needs to sell 100,000 units instead of 10,000 because it got so much more expensive to

make. Like graphics are yeah our prime

make. Like graphics are yeah our prime suspect in this.

So would you say the strategy you should go for is you make it as minimal as possible and check what you get away with. Essentially you're like if nobody

with. Essentially you're like if nobody complains we'll leave it exactly as is.

That's a good summary. There's still a little bit of an art to it to find like this first good level because of course you can also make it way too simple and

then no one cares and if it would hit the right spot like people would be interested but you made it so simple that no one cares because it doesn't transport the fantasy in any way.

Okay, it it's not trivial. I guess you need to understand the game really well and the fantasy you are delivering on and then think about what's important for this

fantasy to arrive basically at the player to work for the player. Let's

take another step back really quick. So

we had as the three main problems uh unwanted, misaligned and overdeveloped.

Yeah. Do you do you think there are essentially different strategies you have to deploy to avoid each one or are there workflows that you can use to avoid all three of

them at once?

Yeah, for us a key thing uh is what uh we call validation points um that we basically a validation point is a point where um you get key feedback

on the game and this can inform how the rest of the development looks like. If

you do that well, I think that helps avoid nearly all of the problems. There's there's still more nuance to to each problem. But, uh, if it's only one

each problem. But, uh, if it's only one thing, like the validation points for me have the biggest impact. And that that can and these these for us at least, they come really fast. Like we do a game

jam game, release it after 3 days of work, like only 3 days. And that's the first validation point. It's released

now. And now we can see if is it popular? Does it resonate with the

popular? Does it resonate with the players? Are they excited for it? Do

players? Are they excited for it? Do

they want more? And if if not many people play it or um and and not many people are super excited about this, like this validation point succeeded in telling us that this game is not very

exciting and that we should not continue with it with this.

So in which order do you validate things? Do you validate um fun first? Do

things? Do you validate um fun first? Do

you validate appeal first? Like which

which order do you validate things? Or

do you validate everything at once?

Everything at once, definitely. It's

it's much more high level than this.

It's B like what what at the end of the day what I care about is do people want to play this a lot? Um and with with a lot I don't mean do they want to play it

for a super long time.

I I I mean do they have a strong desire to play this and play more of this. That

that's the only thing I really care about. And like it would be totally fine

about. And like it would be totally fine if they want to play this way more because it's super fun. But it's also perfectly fine if it's not that fun, but

the appeal of this is so high uh that they kind of want to stay in this. So we

do have um I think we we have two gem games that are representatives of one one is super fun and one is super appealing I think.

Um and the fun one I think is Dome Keeper because it like it started also as a gem game and it's very simple in a way. When I shared screenshots, people

way. When I shared screenshots, people were not overly hyped about this, but they play it and then they have fun and then they enjoy it and they like it.

That was definitely a game that worked over fun. And then we have another gem

over fun. And then we have another gem game on our each side also released.

It's called Raven Hall and it's basically a tycoon game, but you you have this small little tower and you manage these uh birds that are

delivering packages. And I think that's

delivering packages. And I think that's a game that uh the tycoon part is nice, but it's it feels like it's secondary to the appeal and to the fantasy and to the coziness of the experience. So what

you're looking for is just how excited are people about this game and you almost don't really care about why. It's

like maybe it's a maybe some games are appealing and that's why they work.

Maybe some games are just super fun and that's why they work and all all you really care about is are people excited to play this and play more of this?

It's a first step definitely. Like

that's that's the key thing. Game can

even be very appealing and very fun for very few people. But that's that's also something of course we care about. Like

if you make a game that in the end 100 people will buy and love, that's not sustainable. So we need a game that

sustainable. So we need a game that sells at least I don't know 20,000 units or something like that. But we still need to really really well understand what they like about. So we do need to

understand is it do they like the game play so much uh or do they like the cozy atmosphere so much or the writing or the characters? we need to really understand

characters? we need to really understand to the detail as much as we can uh what people appreciate about it.

Okay. So saying you don't care was maybe not the right way to put that. It's like

you check for how excited people are for it and of course you try to understand why so that maybe you can make up for the weaknesses or play into your strengths um to the best of your

Yes. So, so for the validation point

Yes. So, so for the validation point itself, it doesn't matter too much. But

then if if we if we see it's people are super hyped about it uh for whatever reason and we say okay then let's see if we can continue this game and expand the prototype then then we really need to

know uh what's cool about it. But

usually usually it's not an accident that Mhm. Like we usually we know first what

Mhm. Like we usually we know first what should be cool about this about the game then we make the game and then we just basically confirm what we expected like okay yeah this is just a funtoplay game

something like that I think there's an interesting difference between our approaches that maybe we can dig into a bit cuz um I think I personally I would be

really worried to make a game that I'm not sure is appealing enough. Is that

something you're equally worried about or or are you like, "It's very very fun.

It's not that appealing. Let's make it anyway." How do you think about that?

anyway." How do you think about that?

What's an appealing game?

So, an appealing game, I define appeal as like the pull factor that you get when you look at a screenshot of a game, for example. You So, you look at a

for example. You So, you look at a screenshot and without anybody explaining the game to you, you're like, I I want to play this. This looks

interesting.

Yeah. In that sense, I think having an appealing game is great, and you probably can make a game that's already fun way more appealing. Like, um, for

example, if Thronfall was ugly and didn't have a nice style, it would not be as appealing. Uh, but, uh, Thronfall is does have a really consistent and

nice style uh, on top of the the gameplay that looks immediately fun. So,

so I think it works. I Yeah, I I I'm not sure. Do you think uh Dome Keeper is a

sure. Do you think uh Dome Keeper is a game with high appeal or not?

Uh that's what I find interesting cuz intuitively I would have said yes it is quite appealing but um it contradicts what you said is that um people weren't

reacting to screenshots very much. So

I'm torn and obviously there's a hindsight bias here. So very very difficult to say. But I think that you know the the dome it has a unique shape so it's very recognizable when you see

it on a screen shot you instantly recognize dome keeper and then you also have you know what's appeal is not just graphics it's not just h how visually

how greatest visuals also what happens in the screenshots it's the the fantasy and the lore of what happens there for example if you have a a screenshot of a

little character digging into the ground then that has the appeal of exploration, of like um the intrigue of digging into different directions. And those are all

different directions. And those are all things that you can potentially derive from a simple screenshot like that. Or

if you you show the dome with a couple of attachments and the the you already get your mind going of ooh, what else can I attach to this dome? How can I defend this? So

defend this? So there's a lot of nuance in in appeal as well. I I personally I would have said

well. I I personally I would have said Dome Keeper looks like an appealing game to me personally as yeah uh it it might be uh it might be that just my marketing attempts were not

great. It might also be that my

great. It might also be that my marketing attempts back when I shared this were oh doing not too bad but still

like uh getting 30 likes on a Twitter post is not it doesn't look like it's it's growing super well or something like that. So um yeah okay then then

like that. So um yeah okay then then appeal is definitely a quite a broad concept in in that sense and then I would never make an unappealing game um because that that's one thing you

mentioned um that that I I find absolutely key um which is the fantasy um and in in my experience or from what

what I can see uh that's that's a core driver of people wanting to play this because they see see the fantasy and they they like it. They they want to

experience this. And that's also I think

experience this. And that's also I think um very much why why I make games uh because I I want to create these little worlds where you can experience

something that you cannot experience in the real life. Uh and and live this this sort of fantasy that that's that's interesting.

It's difficult to talk about because there are so many like definition mismatches. We don't have a very good

mismatches. We don't have a very good shared terminology for all of these things. But okay, I see. So, you would

things. But okay, I see. So, you would not make a game that's not appealing.

You would try to have something that works on a screenshot.

Yeah, ideally. Yes. Uh but also coming from Dome Keeper, uh it's still like the the the Gem game looked also a lot simpler than the uh release game. It had

quite primitive pixel art in a way. Uh

it it's had still an interesting color scheme and uh the it was it was maximizing what like the real estate that it had but people weren't jumping onto this in the thousands or something

like that. But then uh when we released

like that. But then uh when we released the demo suddenly uh people found it fun and shared it and then suddenly it it blew up. So I kind of had this

blew up. So I kind of had this experience of having a game that is not appealing that where you can where at at least it feels like you can share

arbitrary material of the game and no one really cares or just too too few people to make a commercial game out of this but then have it released uh have

it be played by people and people going uh really really wild uh for it. Yeah, I

think so. So, can you pinpoint what what was

so. So, can you pinpoint what what was it that made it go go out? Was it was it uh the Steam algorithm giving it visibility? Was it word of mouth between

visibility? Was it word of mouth between players? Was it the game doing well on

players? Was it the game doing well on YouTube or or where where did the spark spread?

Yeah, it was definitely on YouTube uh that YouTubers Retroation was the first he played it and that that a lot of people watched that and found, hey, like this looks like a fun game. I want to

try it out. They tried the demo. Uh they

liked it. Then other YouTubers saw that the retroformation video was doing quite well comparatively and then they also made videos on that and that snowballed uh a ton.

Oh god, that is exactly what Gavin talked about, right? It's like

if if the if it does well with the content creators then content creators will play it a lot.

Yeah, that that's also um that that when I speak about validation points.

Yeah. Um that's also a point of validation that I take into consideration like do people make if you make a prototype uh and release it do are are there any videos of this on

YouTube? Uh that's a good sign and then

YouTube? Uh that's a good sign and then I look at okay like what's the view count of this video? Is it higher than the average of this channel? Uh if so

that's also a really good sign because then it means yeah people kind of were hooked throughout the video and watched it more than usual and then YouTube kept recommending it to some more people. So

that's that's definitely an really important bit.

I see. So one more possible interpretation of this could be that maybe the appeal of dome keeper was not as high on screenshots as it was on

video. Maybe you need needed a little

video. Maybe you need needed a little more context to understand the appeal of the game. May maybe that was what was

the game. May maybe that was what was happening there.

It could be. Uh I did make a lot of gifts before that were quite representative. I also made a a very

representative. I also made a a very crude trailer of this uh which actually the Johan the scout from Raw Fury saw

and this made him like take note of the game. So at least it was he saw some

game. So at least it was he saw some appeal in that I guess. Mh.

So I I don't think it was necessarily the moving image. I think it was I I have two examples. The Vampire Survivors like seeing that on a screenshot, I

don't think anyone would have cared. The

game has no appeal.

No, no.

But but then people played it and it was a lot of fun and then like it gets played and then people are like this game doesn't look very appealing, but why do people keep

playing it? it it's kind of this mystery

playing it? it it's kind of this mystery and this intrigue about okay the game looking like this must be so good to compensate uh that that people are

really really hot for that and the the other example like um in in some past talks I I for students and such I I mentioned that I feel like there are two types of games that you can make one is

the really appealing game like uh tiny clate or wandering village that you share on social media that will be popular because it's such such a nice

and cozy fantasy that that that just vibes well with people and people want to see more of that. And the other thing the other game, my example there was Potato because also a screenshot of

Potato, I don't think it looks like you see that screenshot of this egg and this this gray background and you think like, oh yeah, this looks like an amazing game. I need to play this. Uh it's more

game. I need to play this. Uh it's more it's it's a game I think that works way more uh through the game play. And so I I think you you have these types of games that will do well on on

screenshots and videos, but you also have these games that people kind of need to play to really get it how how great it is. Uh that generally won't do

super well on screenshots. And even for potato, I'm not sure. I I guess there are some ways you could make it appealing. Like for example, if we are

appealing. Like for example, if we are stay in this hall of torment, I did something good there. I think that I think they created a lot of appeal pushing into this retro Diablo 1 style

which immediately is appealing to a lot of people. So, it's definitely possible.

of people. So, it's definitely possible.

I'm I'm not sure if it would have been better for potato because again we we come back to this potato looks so simple which means it can create a ton of

content uh very fast and people are not sticking around for nice graphics. they

are sticking around for build variety and great runs. So, um it's still a question like where where where is the work where has the work they put into

the game the greatest effect. I think

for Vampire Survivors I think um obviously once the game's already big, you can say people play it because it's popular, but that's not really an explanation for how it got popular, right?

Oh, yeah. So, I guess what I'm thinking for something like Vampire Survivors is more like word of mouth probably is more powerful than we expected. I can't

really explain it any other way. I don't

see this becoming a big thing like on Steam alone just through Steam algorithm. I feel like must have been

algorithm. I feel like must have been word of mouth in some way. Or maybe the seam algorithm tracks how long the people play the game for and identified that people play this like for for hours

and hours and then decided to promote it more or something like that going on.

Yeah, I I think it I think it just needs like one influencer to kick off this this like if you have this snowballing

effect that gets created by algorithms pushing a content, you basically just need one person at the top having having a snowball and rolling it starting to

roll it and the rest will kind of flow by itself. We had the same with

by itself. We had the same with redformation like no one made a video on dome. Oh, I I guess that's unfair. There

dome. Oh, I I guess that's unfair. There

were some people like tiny tiny channels that made videos on on them. But then

Retroation was the first smaller or mid-size channel like with a some thousands of of viewers and that was enough uh like that was the spark and

and then other people watched this watch watch that space, right? And I think for Vampire Survivors, it might have been similar that you just need one person to play it at the right time or not

necessarily the right time, but if you have one person to play it and for it to do well algorithmically, uh, a lot of other people might jump in.

You know what I find very fascinating about this is because you said Dome Keeper was essentially the same thing um as as what Gavin is trying to do with his strategy, but he has like a completely different approach to it.

just like let's have some memor like some recognizable characters. Let's have

good story, good tension arcs that YouTubers can leverage.

And and then you tell me like something like Dome Keeper that has just like pure pure gameplay focused game like not optimized for streamers or content c creators intentionally from from what I

can tell.

And did you just tell me that that just did well on YouTube and that's why why a lot of content creators played it well?

Yeah, I guess I guess sorry. Go ahead.

The question I have for you, but I'm sure you were about to answer anyway, is why why do you think that why the dome keeper works so well on YouTube?

That's a great question. Uh

I think uh I mean we can always try to make sense in retrospect about things that go well. But um if we would know

this, we could also sit like before we release anything, we could also sit there and say like this will do well, this won't do well. uh because of of course we we have all the explanations

in hindsight right and for me that's the key thing like why we are also making many prototypes uh because I feel like the quality of the game how it's how it

is crafted or how interesting the idea is will tell you nothing about how popular it will be. So you we we kind of make these games and uh try to get

validation for example by releasing them very very quickly. Uh and then we will see what works and we don't need need to understand exactly uh so we definitely

don't need to understand beforehand that that it will do well and then after it did well we can understand what people like about it and do more of that. Uh,

and then we can assume, okay, if people like this and we do more of what they like, then hopefully they will like the the the expanded game more. And yeah,

for Dome Keeper, what do Do you have an idea why it did well on YouTube?

I mean, what Gavin said was essentially like you need um something that's easy to understand and that's also sort of a high stakes scenario. And I guess don't keep in a way um fulfills those

requirements, right? It's like high

requirements, right? It's like high stakes because if you if you lose it's game over, the run is over.

Yeah.

And there's sort of a a tension also a very well-designed tension curve that feels good to watch where like there are waves of enemies. You have like moments of high tension, then you have moments of low tension where you go down and mine some more.

Yeah.

So I I guess but still it's still it's still not something you'd expect to do. Well, honestly, like I can't fully explain it.

Yeah. But um that that makes sense to me. like uh it it's fun to watch if it

me. like uh it it's fun to watch if it has these qualities. Uh and it has these qualities because these qualities are also fun to play. Like it's like a thing

is fun to play uh if you can get into it very easily. If you understand the goals

very easily. If you understand the goals and the circumstances really easily and then if you do it if you feel like uh you you are challenged and there's something at stake here.

Like that's that's also how you want to design the game to be fun. U and by that logic uh it doesn't really there's not really a thing like optimizing it for

YouTube at least in these qualities because you probably want not not with every game genre but uh with the games I'm making for example I'm doing that anyway just from the game design side

so when you optimize to just make a good game you're usually optimizing to make it work well on on for content creators basically it it depends a little bit on the type

of game I think because if you make a visual novel or if you make a grand strategy game that that will be different but for for at least for these

games uh I think yeah that there's a high overlap in what makes it appealing to play and what makes it appealing to watch.

So but your your approach is not to like from the onset you're like I'm designing this for content creators. You're very

much designing for players and testing how players react to it.

Yeah. Uh yeah absolutely. Uh so gen generally like the the starting point of of any game I think is also not necessarily for me that I think so much

about the players like I I don't think about who is going to play this what demographic will they be and what do they generally like in these genres. So

I like I I don't think about this at all. It can be it can be very simple

all. It can be it can be very simple like for PVKK that's that's a very primitive sort of want uh that that I wanted to tap into with this game which

is okay it's nice to press nice buttons and pull levers and this feeling and then you have this cockpit and this it's sort of complex uh and you have all these buttons and it's a little bit overwhelming if you look at it but then

also you know there are people who can understand all all of this and very soon you will be one of these people to understand all this and and control this complex machinery and

listen to every crank and and such. So

that's that's very primitive and at that point in time I don't think about okay are there are people who want to play this how old are they where do they uh play their games what games do they play

I'm I'm not thinking about about the players in in in at that stage kind of you have an unsatisfied urge in mind and are like if I have this urge then more

people have this urge and then and then you have maybe some validation points later to confirm if that's the case or not. I I I guess that's even one step

not. I I I guess that's even one step too far. Uh I mean, yes. Yes. And maybe

too far. Uh I mean, yes. Yes. And maybe

not. So maybe it's exactly right. Like I

definitely this sometimes I just have an urge and want to see that in the game.

Uh but very often like the the underlying base assumption is also if I have a true and honest human emotion about something, uh I won't be the only

one that feels like this. And that's I I feel like that's the case for really a lot of things. Uh because as much as we think ourselves super individual and

unique, you usually there are a million people like us. So that's true. But I

think it's dangerous to maybe derive advice like just make something you like from this, right? Because you still have to check is there something like this out there at least? It's like be be careful not to make something that

exists already or be careful not to make a verse version of something that exists already, right? Yeah. But I I I wonder

already, right? Yeah. But I I I wonder if it's if it's starting from this really simple primitive point. I feel

like the risk of making something that already exists is not too high. And then

I I found when whenever there's something that's similar to what I was thinking, it's still different enough

that my idea, my version of this has uh room to stand on. And what I see much more with game developers is they see like they they see a game they like and

then are thinking, okay, I want to make this game but with this twist and this change. So they they are much closer

change. So they they are much closer usually thinking about other games and that hey I I want to make something like slay the spire but uh in this in my case

we are not going up a tower but down in the dungeon. So something like that.

the dungeon. So something like that.

So what about just make a game you enjoy? Do you agree with in terms of

enjoy? Do you agree with in terms of game advice and what do you disagree with? It depends on what making that is.

with? It depends on what making that is.

Spend 3 days on a game just you just you want to play. Yeah, absolutely. Spend

two years on a game uh you want to play without ever bothering if anyone else wants to play it. No, don't don't don't do that. Uh and so for for me that's

do that. Uh and so for for me that's that's the beauty of validating super early and to have these prototypes that are also released is you can be really playful and experimental and you will

see very quickly if someone else likes it and spending 3 days or a week on a prototype is not a bad investment in that it will ruin you if this prototype does not work out.

Mhm. I it it should not at least I think there's a difference between starting from a different game you like and basically saying I want to make a

game like and saying you have a specific feeling or fantasy in mind and making a game from there cuz there are different like basically what I'm getting it is there are

different approaches to make a game that you want to play right there's the there's the approach of make something like the games I enjoy or make something.

Yeah, I would enjoy that that there aren't any games like this. There are probably even more ways to approach this.

Yeah, there there's definitely a difference uh there. And um I think there's also a danger there because the the most common thing I've seen and heard before is that people take a game

they like and they want to add to it.

Basically, make this game but bigger and cooler and better. And that's usually not a good idea as an indie developer because the games you like are often either small teams that worked

incredibly long on something or that uh like really big teams like 20 people teams and I don't like it's it's definitely harder like I think it's it's

also easier in a way to take an existing game and just change it which is why why this is also popular and that's also how I thought about games in the in in the

past. I always looked like to a game I

past. I always looked like to a game I like and then kind of thought about my version of this.

Mhm.

Um but it if if it's if it's not starting from another game, you you kind of have this blank canvas and that enables you to also strip out more of

the things you might not need for this game. So, it's a kind of a

game. So, it's a kind of a the the blank canvas is is way more difficult to handle in a way because you need to think about the whole and you don't have as much established stuff,

but it also allows you to deviate more.

But I think as a like depending on what you feel comfortable with, it's also a perfectly fine starting point to to take another game and make a version of that.

But I would be super careful with adding uh to any version. I would always think about subtracting from a game I already know. I have I I do have some concepts

know. I have I I do have some concepts that are exactly like that that are that are more about for example with a grand strategy game. I I really want to make a

strategy game. I I really want to make a a grand strategy game but like Europa Universalis but not with that scope. I

want to break like I want to take what's interesting and fun about this and bring it down to something really really small but have the same dynamic. And you you have and later I found out there are

already games like that at least to a degree like territorial.io which is if you take the grand strategy and strip it down as far as it's

possible you get this game and and it has really interesting dynamics and that's I think that that's a viable and interesting approach as an indie def also.

So taking something away can be a feature.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there are a lot of games that are interesting that did exactly that that took something away like Territorial. It's a popular game. It's it's really interesting. It's

game. It's it's really interesting. It's

dynamics. It's it's a game that's like makeable as a solo death also.

Uh which is not the case for a proper grand strategy game like Europa Universalis. You couldn't make that game

Universalis. You couldn't make that game solo. I think I hope

solo. I think I hope like it would be a little bit crazy.

Also, I guess um what I also think is that obviously taking things away creates new room to add things, right?

You that's exactly what you said. You

can't just go, I'll make this game, but I I'll add a bunch of things to it.

That's going to be out of scope. So, if

you want to add things, then you need to find other things to to remove. And this

is 100% what what we did with all of our games. Like Islanders was basically what

games. Like Islanders was basically what if we take a city builder and reduce it to its score. Then thrown was what if we take a strategy game and reduce it to to its score.

And then because you reduce it down so much, then you have some some room to play with to add other things you you like and you find interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. For me, for me the like the the guiding principle also in that is what's the player experience I I want to have like what what what what's the fantasy and what what should the player

experience in this and that's that's a very different goal set than thinking about a feature list.

Uh because sometimes I like a lot of projects to think more about features and you see that in their in their content description like it's it's not it's not what's what's the fantasy what's your experience in this game.

It's, hey, we have 40 levels and we have three difficulty modes and a campaign and and that's that's the game.

Something like that. So fe I like experience goals in that sense much more than feature lists.

Um, so we were still about the the validation point. So maybe what we can

validation point. So maybe what we can do is um let's simulate a new project and let's see um which validation points we walk through. So let's say I maybe

maybe to begin with there's there's one very interesting uh strategy that you use to to sort of breed new ideas before you dive into them sometimes. I already

know your your sort of answers to this but there's one things I I would just like to document for the viewers because it's quite interesting and that is h what you do with it.io and game jams. Can you can you uh tell us a little bit

about that real quick?

Yeah. Yeah. So generally uh we love game jams um and participate them uh in in them a lot and there of course we make a game in 3 days and then release it and

then uh we we can compare these games between each other and see like uh okay this game we just made no one basically wants to play list. no one cares about this game. And then we make another game

this game. And then we make another game in half year later that's that's not better in in like in quality. And then

suddenly a 100 times as many people are engaging with this. And

what what I've um we now have nearly 20 games on it. And with that I I uh created something I call for for these itch games engagement rating where I

just um calculate how many people uh need to play this game for one like for for one sorry for one rating on this game and for one collection which is some sort of arbitrary list people can

make and then I can see like okay this game 500 people need to play it before one one of those puts it on a collection and on this game 30 people play it and

then one collection comes the game is put on into one collection and that's again data and interpretation but I feel like okay if you put it in a list you want to keep it for later so the game

was meaningful to you when you played it and if I have a game that's way more meaningful to you when you played it there there's something interesting about it there there's something good it could be fun it could be appeal it could

it's probably a mix of both right because both kind of need to work I I think yeah and that tells us a lot and sometimes we also have games with high

engagement but very low viewer like very few view low player counts then we know okay the game itself is good but it doesn't sell itself in any interesting way that maybe it doesn't have a fantasy that's that's interesting that people

want to click it maybe it has the wrong graphic style can also be like that and we also have games that have higher player count but low engagement so these

are I think most commonly these are simply abrasive to a degree like they are not very friendly for a first-time user and that's sometimes the byproduct out of having a too big a scope for 3

days that that can happen.

Yeah. So essentially to summarize you're using it.io as your uh prototype testing ground.

Yeah.

And yeah you you see which ideas work and then uh dome keeper was uh created like that.

Yeah. Yeah. But you also mentioned, okay, where do the ideas come from? And

that that that's a step before that, I guess.

Because sometimes, uh, okay, there's a theme for the jam and I'll think of a new concept and then we make that. And

that was the case for Dome Keeper where we actually tried to not be clever, not make a innovative game and try just tried to make the simplest game we could think of for the theme because in the in

the jam before that, I had this kind of um more sophisticated high level concept. uh that that I was interested in. It's more about behavior

interested in. It's more about behavior and and feel feeling. Uh it basically was a was a game about learning the layout of a of a city like you played

GTA back in the days or games like Moral Wind uh where you didn't have a uh quick travel. So you kind of over time really

travel. So you kind of over time really got familiar intimately familiar with the landscape and and where you needed to go. and I

wanted to recreate this and this this game. No, no one cared for this game.

game. No, no one cared for this game.

So, and then but then um after that we were like, "Yeah, okay. Last game no one cared for. Let's make just something

cared for. Let's make just something that's simple that we can polish that's fun."

fun." Yeah, that's ah that's uh one of those bitter lessons in game development that Yeah. Sometimes it's just you don't need

Yeah. Sometimes it's just you don't need to get fancy. You just need to do something that works and do it well.

Yeah. I'm I'm so personally I don't like uh that flopped game less than Don Keeper. It's still for me like uh I love

Keeper. It's still for me like uh I love all my babies so say like I all these games have have uh have their place and

I enjoyed making them and I enjoy having them. I guess I guess it comes down to

them. I guess I guess it comes down to why uh do you make these games? Is it so as many people as possible can play this or is it more of a I was interested in this con concept and wanted to explore

it and now I did it and now I can see yeah it works like I like I imagined and it's cool but it's not for many people uh like very few people appreciate this

nobody can argue with I want to right if you if you say why are you make this because I want to the the argument is over it's like u Yeah, sure. But if you want to make

something that works um with a larger audience or with a niche audience or something or if you have more more specific requirements, then then that's where the discussion becomes interesting, right? Cuz if you can make

interesting, right? Cuz if you can make whatever you want, if you want to.

Yeah.

Yeah. But for me the like the the idea of uh wanting to make something for many people. It's it's not part of the design

people. It's it's not part of the design process or like the early design process in that sense uh or of the prototyping.

It's more like um I'm making 10 games that I'm interested in that I like, 10 prototypes, and hopefully there's one or two among those that resonate really well with a

lot of people that so so so the production can have basically commercial legs because otherwise yeah, we we couldn't make a one-year project out of a game that 500 people want to have. But what's

very cool about this process is that it basically ensures 100% that whatever project you make is something that you're passionate about and you'll never end up with something that you're like, "Ah, okay, I

have to make this because it's popular."

It's like all of the ideas you start with were things you cared about to begin with and then you just go with the one that worked the best.

Yes. Yeah. that that that's really important and and sometimes it's like uh after finishing a prototype my desire to continue this uh is really high and sometimes it's it's way lower because I

feel like yeah this was uh really tough and uh I can see all the problems in the concept now and uh it it will be tough to get right. So that there's there's a big

right. So that there's there's a big difference, but usually in those games, those games are also not popular and then it's very easy to say like, yeah, okay, it was a cool prototype, but let's forget about this.

Um, yeah, but I I do think it's really important to really love the game that you are making. I I watched the your interview with Gavin also and I found it

like his approach is super interesting because it's so highly analytical but it's also a little bit sad that he lost the joy of making basically in that

but I I read one comment that I think was also very true is that there are different things to enjoy about game development and I think one thing that's

also very much enjoyable is exactly this theory crafting and architecting and and tryh harding in a way that that too can be very enjoyable. So I think it's not

not entirely fair to disregard it as um soulless or something. It's like um you can derive a different kind of enjoyment from it.

But obviously as mentioned you can't if somebody says they have a certain feeling about it, there's there's no arguing with that. If if if he's like I don't really enjoy this much anymore, okay, it is what it is, right? But

right? But yeah, I think it's it's two different things. One is a game in itself kind of

things. One is a game in itself kind of how can I make a thing that's super popular? How can I engineer it into into

popular? How can I engineer it into into something hyped and loved? Uh that like that's that that's a thing as you said like theory crafting that's that feels

like a game in itself.

And the the other aspect is the the craft in itself like sitting down and um making the thing uh and talking about the thing with uh with your team and

guiding them uh as needed. And that's so that's like ideally you you can have fun in both and you can like both.

Yeah.

And I did hear it recently on on a talk I attended where the person said you don't need to like the game you're making. And I fundamentally disagree

making. And I fundamentally disagree with this. So I I think you really need

with this. So I I think you really need to like uh the game you're making. I can

understand the perspective a little bit because I I have this feeling sometimes where where it's like I'm I'm playing this meta game of I'm trying to be as good of a designer as I possibly can be

and I can derive enjoyment from that.

And so if somebody hands me a random game that I there's like I I don't usually make games like this at all.

somebody hands me a horror game or something that's like not very system heavy, something I don't usually enjoy working on and it's just like here balance this, tune this to make it more fun.

Then basically the fun for me comes from saying challenge accepted and buckling down and trying to figure it out. So I I have this um yeah, there's a little bit

of this competitive urge that I think can make almost any challenge enjoyable for me, any game design challenge. But I

wonder if it's a it's a still a little bit of a different thing. If you truly want to work on a project for several years and put in your all over that entire time span, then maybe you need

something that really fuels you in a lot of different ways and not not just in this competitive way.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's uh that's really the core of it. Uh I think even in a game you don't especially like you can find things to do that you that you enjoy but the game like finishing a

game and making it good is so hard and there's a lot of lot of grueling work also and repetitive work and filling it with content uh that's that's so much work and iterating

and play testing and fixing bugs like uh you need to have I feel like um if you want to keep enjoying this you need to have really positive feelings about the

game. Um, that being said, like for like

game. Um, that being said, like for like I I do really like Dome Keeper, don't get me wrong, but uh I I haven't I haven't played mining games uh before.

Like it's not a genre I enjoy in general. And the all the games uh that

general. And the all the games uh that people reference I I barely played or I I played after they got mentioned. So as

to see what I can steal from them basically.

Mhm. Okay. Let's uh let's go back to our little thought experiment. Let's say um so to come up with our game idea, maybe we just do what you suggested. We come

up with a bunch of things we personally enjoy working on. We put them out there like little mini versions of them and we just see which of them do well. Like we

see which of them get picked up on YouTube, which of them get good engagement.

Yeah.

And then we we say like, okay, this looks promising. What do we do now? Then

looks promising. What do we do now? Then

it's basically both figuring out, okay, uh, this a 3-day game with half an hour of play time, maybe, how can this be a 10hour game or how can

this be a replayable game that's uh fun to replay for 30 hours? Basically, uh,

expanding the concept into something that's worthy of of a full game. Like

there there you can end up with a $30 game or a $5 game. like that's also a big difference uh in expanding the game.

But uh also depending on the game and how far you want to deviate uh it can be basically an incredibly difficult task to to expand this and make bigger for

for Dome Keeper especially like I I felt like the prototype was already representative of what the game should be and I just need more of this and uh

the game already works and now I need not break the game. um like I I cannot add systems and stuff to it until this g this game loop suddenly does not work

anymore. Basically, I just need more

anymore. Basically, I just need more content and more game modes and more monsters and so more reasons to replay.

I and I I I must keep what's what's working already. That that was the goal.

working already. That that was the goal.

And then but in terms of in terms of validation points, the first validation point was sort of maybe the like the pre-selection phase where it the idea went up against all of these other prototypes and ideas

we had and we were like okay this this validation point is passed. What is the next validation point after it?

Is it the demo? Is it the trailer?

No, no. uh it's it's much uh earlier in a way like it would be the first playable of the expanded prototype and that usually is way before a demo. Uh

that's basically okay I I created the first hour of the full game or the first two hours or three hours or whatever and and now now I'll have a small

discord community uh for example who can play test this and there there's also some iteration happening before that where just I as a developer or or we as

a team we iterate on the mechanics and uh like we we play test together eat our own dog food basically and iterate until it tastes nice And then we can do friends and family test like it really

depends on the concept and eventually it will reach a discord community and and that's so play test community and that's that's another validation point because that's not so much about finding out if

a million people want to play this.

It's more about really nailing down what people are excited about. Is the

direction good? Uh is like where are friction points? Where are systems we

friction points? Where are systems we thought would be interesting that no one enjoys kind of figuring out these. So

basically this is this is a key moment to avoid a misaligned game where you had this promise.

I was just about to say yeah yeah we can make the the arc back to the very beginning there like we we have tested for desired so we have avoided undesired by picking something that people desire and and now I guess the next thing to do

is to make sure it doesn't end up misaligned.

Yeah. Yeah. also uh overproduced is also part of this like what's like in this in this part we would usually also figure out okay what's a sensible production

pipeline for assets uh how how fancy can we make that stuff do we have in sprite animation or do we just use squash and stretch or something like that uh like

how how simple can we make it without hurting this player experience and that's a big big part of it and then so and that that's a validation point right so that it's not necessarily public but

You can also validate with a community and then it really depends like I for some games the next step for me would be to release a demo where I feel like okay this is a game where where it's more

about you must experience it to really appreciate what it is then then I would try to release a demo and that demo should be ideally released within half a year after starting the production on

this. not not super long because I I

this. not not super long because I I want to know as soon as possible that people want to play this and it works or people don't want to play this. Like I I would rather spend half a year in vain than two years.

Yeah.

In interesting cuz there also I think there also some conflicting strategies.

For example, I think if you ask some marketing people, they will say launch your demo shortly before Steam NextFest so that you get the most momentum for Steam Nextfest. But obviously that might

Steam Nextfest. But obviously that might be way way later. that might be literally 2 years later than what you're suggesting.

I mean, Steam NextFest is three times a year, so uh you you should be able to find a slot that's not too bad for you usually.

Uh but yeah, fair. But then then it might be

yeah, fair. But then then it might be that your demo is still out very very early and it might still be a while before your full game comes out, right?

Yeah. I mean, you can you can what you also can do, you can release a demo at a basically arbitrary point and see if if it does okay. And if it does okay, you take it off. You continue the game for a

year and then work towards release. And

then you make a new demo that's super shiny and cool. And that demo participates in Steam next fist.

So you can have a validation demo and a Steam Next Fest demo. Double demo

with with Dome. We actually had that. We

had a demo of basically the expanded prototype that still looked really like the gem game. And that was the demo that took off. But that was not the demo that

took off. But that was not the demo that was representative of the final game because we also had this big art rework.

Uh so we had um a few months later we had uh the basically the proper demo out and that participated in Steam next.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Fair.

Yeah.

Interesting. Um so I I I said there were two ways now from this like demo. But uh

instead of releasing a demo uh what's also a sensible approach for many games I think is doing an announcement. Make a

nice trailer have good visuals. uh in in the talk I made, I called it uh the core fancy, like the core of the game is ready and it looks fancy enough to show off. And that's that can really be the

off. And that's that can really be the the basis of the announcement. You don't

need a vertical slice for that necessarily. And then

necessarily. And then you need a core fancy.

Yeah, it's it's a strange term I'm not sure of.

Okay. Yeah. But uh yeah, if the announcement goes really well, you already have this as a big validation point and then you don't need to rush out the demo. And that's exactly how it

went for PBK for us. like we we made this we I didn't want to do an announcement at all at first but then people were like yeah maybe it's a good idea like marketing people and I thought yeah it's not hard to do an announcement

and the game looks nice so let's do it and we hoped for like if it would go really really well we would get 10,000 wish lists out of the announcement which was which would be amazing because yeah it's it's not a known IP and it's um

it's a strange game and then we got like 200,000 wish lists in a month or something like that from the announcement.

By the way, if you're watching this, you have to check out the the store page.

Like the it's a really strange game like getting 200,000 wish list like from a trailer from from an announcement. That's that's fascinating.

announcement. That's that's fascinating.

So, but but this time it was not YouTube content creators that got you those wish lists. It was where where did those wish

lists. It was where where did those wish lists come from?

For PVK.

Yeah.

Yeah. Basically, it Yeah. I I need to think if I'm if I'm not forgetting anything. So, essentially, we had the

anything. So, essentially, we had the announcement trailer and that just got a ton of views on YouTube and it got reposted on some uh trailer YouTube

channels. It got featured by IGN. I that

channels. It got featured by IGN. I that

doesn't mean too much because most videos releasing like IGN does like 50 videos a day and many of them have 10 to 20,000 views. Uh but some really go off

20,000 views. Uh but some really go off uh because they they have a super high potential reach. But then the the video

potential reach. But then the the video itself must be the car like the carrier of pushing this. And so I think we just had a a really good trailer and and people saw that. And then the reason

like the the reason this was so popular because people resonated so much with the fantasy and the concept like that was that was an incredible driver for for this getting shared. What also

helped I think is the strange name of the game because it's called planet commandant which is very easy for a German to say but not for anyone else. So and and that

caused a lot of people to jump to the comments and make fun of the name and I think that's it wasn't engineered like that.

We just did it because we thought it is stupid and funny and and other people thought so too. Hey this is stupid and funny. But what what happened then is

funny. But what what happened then is also that I I think at least uh the engagement on these videos would probably be really high in terms of how many people leave comments and engage

with those comments uh because they suddenly have something they can talk about in the comments. Something that's

very easy to to mention it. It's a memorable way. It's a

it. It's a memorable way. It's a

memorable name even though it's like impossible to pronounce for for non-Germans.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like ah yeah that very long name.

Yeah. Like we did we did a lot of did have a lot of fun with game gamescom.

We made pins for PVKK and uh we we had the idea of making the a really stupid pin also. I I also brought it to Gamescom telling like everyone I spoke to is I said, "Yeah, we

have the most stupid pin ever." And it was basically in like one long word written as a pin.

And it this pin got incredibly popular and in demand like people were writing us, hey, can can we get these pins? I

heard you have these super cool pins.

And that's like there's all these things we did that we just found funny and stupid in a way. Uh that suddenly resonated a lot with people.

Okay. But just to be clear, it's not a not a meme game at all, right? It's a

very Yeah, I think it's extremely appealing.

And I think what also helps it is that it's a kind of appeal that hasn't been exploited a lot yet.

Yeah.

Like this playing with big complex machinery that is a strong pull factor. And I don't think I know of any games off the top of my head that really do that. There are

probably some, but it's like I think you have plenty of games, but not necessarily uh that work like that.

Uh like for us it was also really tough to just find market comparables to PVK like games similar to PVKK just to estimate okay could this do well like we

didn't we didn't really find anything like there there's very little in in that regard you have a game like high fleet which is uh which shares a lot of the aesthetic um but you also have like recently a

game released called Roadcraft where you just drive the like it's basically a building simulation game like uh Snowrunner, mudr runner where you drive these big vehicles and and just build

roads.

Mhm.

Uh and there there you also have this fantasy of this big machinery. But a PVK is also a lot of other things where it's not necessarily only about big machinery, but also this really this joy

of cockpits and this playfulness also in that. But it is essentially the appeal

that. But it is essentially the appeal of a simulation game, right? Simulation

games for some reason are also extremely popular like Flight Simulator, Farming Simulator, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

And you're kind of dipping into that, but with a with a madeup machine.

Yeah, that's for that's for sure. Uh but

it also gets the I would say BIP and bits treatment. I don't I hope it's not

bits treatment. I don't I hope it's not pretentious.

Yeah, it it just means for me uh we we make it very accessible. Uh just like dome keyboard, I think. Why why don't keep also work well is because you can launch it and you are immediately in the

game and you are immediately playing the game. You are not doing a tutorial. You

game. You are not doing a tutorial. You

are not learning. The game is not telling you how to play this. Uh you get thrown into this uh and and you it feels like you you just naturally learn it and

that that's carefully crafted this experience. It's way more work than just

experience. It's way more work than just the game going pop up and telling you how this works. And we also do that from time to time in to dome. Uh but for with PVK we do the same like the whole

complex machinery you see it's it's we iterate it a lot to get it to the spot where you can just sit down and bit by bit learn how this works without needing a manual or something like that.

Yeah. You do you need to learn basically the entire machinery once you start playing or is it like different parts of the machinery become important basically one after another and you

it essentially starts as simple as possible and then uh new bits of the machinery uh get introduced so you don't have the full machinery initially just a subset and then you get upgrades you

install them and uh more things to to play with so that's okay that's I think I feel like that's a difference to a lot of simulation games uh that it's that we make it really

accessible in the sense that it's easy to learn, relatively easy to learn, and it's more about quite direct fun than about simulating the reality of being a PVKK,

right? That but then if somebody turns

right? That but then if somebody turns into a random stream of somebody playing, then it looks like they they're operating this complex machine and like

still has that intrigue once they're in there. I think a related genre is like the these Ubot games where you would drive two hours to shoot one torpedo and that that's really the

simulation thing where you would really drive through the Atlantic for half an hour uh and while doing nothing just keeping your eyes open or or people playing a flight simulator and doing a

real-time flight from uh the USA to Europe or something like that for eight hours. Uh that's that's a big

hours. Uh that's that's a big difference. Um, we we would do that with

difference. Um, we we would do that with PBKK.

Yeah. Okay. I'm wondering if we if there's still um if we still need to finish the um the story arc with the validation points.

So, you say we were like the the validation points were like either a demo or a press announcement. Are there

any validation points after this or are we now just fully locked in into finishing this? We're like, "Okay, we

finishing this? We're like, "Okay, we got 200,000 wish lists. Let's just

finish this damn thing.

Or is there anything else we need to validate?

I mean, if you do the announcement, you get one more with the demo, but it's it's hopefully not important anymore. Uh

because throughout development, uh we still continue play tests and we still continue first-time user experience tests. We we get every few months u

tests. We we get every few months u maybe every 8 weeks or so, we get new players in who have never seen the game, who would get to try the game, and we can see, okay, does it still work for

for new players? how do how do they feel about? But then it's more about um

about? But then it's more about um production and also staying aligned to what what's fun for the players and not drifting off into some strange corner.

And the nice the nice thing about this is ideally this is done in half a year and then you have a fully validated project and then you can spend two years or 3 years if you want on this.

But uh you'd never have this this fear of this not working out hopefully. But

how old was PVKK when it got 200,000 wish list? Was it half a year old or was

wish list? Was it half a year old or was it older than that?

At most half a year. And it's it's around half a year work for a full-time equivalent of one person. So it's still it's not a it's not a or one and a half

person at most like uh it's not a lot of effort that I mean it's a it's a lot of passionate work that went into this. uh um I I don't

want to diminish that that's for sure but for the comparing to what the full production of it is for example uh we had this validation very early still.

Mhm.

What what do you do if you fail one of the validation points and even more importantly what if you're not sure if it's like so so what do you what do you

do in those kind of cases?

Yeah. Uh that's a that's a also a good question like uh we didn't have a game yet that we brought beyond the prototype state that then failed the demo or

something like that.

We have a game in development right now that I love very dearly where I feel where I feel this day of validating the demo because if if it if it turns out badly I I would have to kill the project

like that's that's the that's the consequence of this. So either it's killing the project because uh we thought it was cool but we found out too few people are interested in this or we

need to really dig deep understand what's not working about this and do basically a pivot do some major change to the game that could turn it around completely and yeah if if we are not

doing that we have to stop the project but the vast majority of of games stop at the prototype like the three-day stage because our 10th game jam all nine

before that basically did not deliver great numbers uh that would warrant a big production or anything or or have be a really positive

validation point. And then after after

validation point. And then after after DOM, our like hit rate got definitely higher, but that still means of the of the nine

games that we did afterwards, I think there are two or three that are really that feel like really safe bets. And

then you have uh again two or three that do show really good numbers but are also complicated for some reason.

Mhm.

Maybe because they are difficult to expand into a full game or they don't fit our core skills really well or the numbers are questionable but they they are still like 10 times of the of what

the bad games have.

Mhm. So you say if it goes poorly, you obviously just kill the project. But

what what do you do if it goes so so or you're not entirely sure or you don't have any reference points. Let's for

example say what would what would be a so so amount of wish lists to get from a demo. Let's say something like 15,000

demo. Let's say something like 15,000 and you're not sure is that good, is that bad? What do we do from here?

that bad? What do we do from here?

Yeah. Um that that's a good point. So

usually I before before releasing the demo I should have an idea about what what's my kind of threshold where I consider this failed where I consider it

a big success or where where it's in the middle and what what's really a key thing about the validation points is also that they should inform the scope

of the next stage until the next validation point. So if I have an itch

validation point. So if I have an itch game that's get gets played by a billion people which which is no it game ever but supposing the the validation point

is enormous then I might feel good also taking a year until the demo because I have such a high validation. So that

that might still be okay. And if if I release a demo and the demo is not doing super well, but also not super bad, that tells me I probably should not take two years to make the rest of the game, but

I should maybe if I took half a year until the demo, I should look into, okay, if this with this wish list now, uh what do I expect how this develops, a conservative estimate, and then I can

roughly see, okay, maybe this game will do $100,000. Uh and then I should

do $100,000. Uh and then I should roughly scope that that uh it it should not cost way more than this. And then

maybe I'll I I thought I would want to work on it for two more years, but then um the validation is so small that I need to strip it down to half a year and release it for cheap like that that can

definitely be a consequence. And I mean in the time it can still happen that suddenly it picks up for whatever reason or you have an update to the demo that makes it so much more interesting and

then uh go better. But yeah, changing the scope according to how much validation you got, I think is a really key thing for us.

Mhm. Okay. So, if I get so so feedback like not not enough to go all in on the project but not enough to cancel or or not little enough to cancel the project,

then maybe what I would do is maybe firstly try to shift direction a little bit. Maybe try a bit of a different

bit. Maybe try a bit of a different angle and maybe also scope down a bit.

Make make it a bit smaller. Yeah, I'm

I'm slightly careful with uh shifting direction in a sense like I I would need a strong feeling about okay there there there is there's part of a game that's

true to the game and super popular and a part that's not popular. Then then I might focus more more on that part that's popular. But um generally I would

that's popular. But um generally I would I would not bend a game way too much or or in an extreme way uh to fit uh to fit

something that I think has more promise.

I mean it can work. Uh Fortnite did it and like the the the craziest pivot of all time probably. But for me it's at the beginning of the project I had this

idea about what the player experience of this is. And if I pivot really a lot,

this is. And if I pivot really a lot, then I would need to pivot into a game that I also really like.

Uh or or I just make something else.

Yeah.

Like it feels like a 3-day prototype investment. Like that's that's doable a

investment. Like that's that's doable a few times over.

I guess the problem with shifting gears too much is also that you invalidate your previous validation points, right?

You're not sure if um what you validated in the past still holds true for your changed concepts.

Yeah. Yeah, that that's a good point also and it's also one thing we we didn't speak about. I feel like that's a that's a learning for us or a realization that we carries now for quite some time is uh we have to make

games that fit the team first instead of having basically a concept that we find really cool but are not really equipped to make. uh we can always shift a little

to make. uh we can always shift a little and we can also challenge us uh to a degree but um it would not be possible for us to uh even if we have a great

idea or it would not be a good fit to make a visual novel because we are not a writerheavy team. So we should not we

writerheavy team. So we should not we should not make this and a pivot also uh needs to happen within the constraints of what the team can actually do and what's what fits the team. That's one of

the advantages as well with your prototyping approach with just participating in game jams and so on is that you probably make these prototypes as a team, right?

Yeah.

So that forces you to make something that the team is equipped to make.

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a good point.

I haven't thought about this uh before.

That's a good point. And I guess even even if the team is not really well equipped uh to make this prototype, the prototype will also not get popular because it's not not a good game that comes out of this usually.

Yeah, fair. Okay, then let's let's maybe dive into one more topic that I'm itching to ask you about and that is this entire business growing a growing an indie studio. Can

you walk me real quick about how what your arc was there? So you started as a solo developer or did you start as a team with your wife and yeah basically uh I started making games

with my wife in back then she was my girlfriend in 2012 and then it took us 5 years of meddling with some projects that were always overcoped. Uh we never

released something and then we thought okay these these game jams sound nice let's try a game jam because we struggle with releasing and finishing anything.

And that's what we did. That was 2017.

And then in 2021, we made the Dome Keeper game jam game. Basically, we were still two people. And then we worked with freelancers on Dome. Like that's

not that that was the like a huge amount like uh it added up to maybe 1.5 full-time equivalents of uh of of work

basically. So, uh, in case anyone is not

basically. So, uh, in case anyone is not familiar with FTE, full-time equivalent, it's basically if you have four people that work like the a quarter of their week, uh, you basically have one more

person.

So, you just add up the fractions of how everyone is involved. So, until release, we were maybe 3.5 people with Dome Keeper and we had 9 months of production. So, it was a really short

production. So, it was a really short project also until release. uh release

was also 2022 and then in 2023 we hired two people I think 2024 we hired three

people and in 2025 I hired one person and of of these hires also two didn't stay at Pepin Bits okay

for different reasons but also like just the involvement of the freelancers got way more so right now we are around yeah we are seven like full-time employees a

few smaller employees, but also roughly the same amount of freelancers in full-time equivalents. So, right now we

full-time equivalents. So, right now we are like 18 people. So, it's really uh 18 18 people or 18 full-time equivalents.

18 full-time equivalents over 30 people maybe and and then you also have have the publishers being involved and we have external dev. So, it's it's quite a quite a lot now.

Okay. Wow. It's quite a lot bigger than I expected and also sounds a bit like almost a exponential growth curve, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Not that long ago.

Yeah. I didn't realize we were this many. I don't know. But I I had the

many. I don't know. But I I had the habit of basically starting side projects.

And so right now we do have four games in development in parallel. And on some games we have basically multiple projects where it's about okay getting

multiplayer. Domer coming to consoles.

multiplayer. Domer coming to consoles.

Storm Keeper. Um maybe happening on mobile and on PVKK. It's like this SC like we are doing this fancy Gamescom build where we basically have the real life uh where we have a real life

console that's more than 2 m wide and 300 kilos heavy replica of the in-game thing and bring that to Gamescom. Like

that's that's a project also. Uh that's

that's separate from the the core game development.

Yeah.

And we have more more of these. So it's

uh quite quite a lot. So, what what's it like working with your wife and how do you split the workload there? She does

she do art stuff or what does she do?

Yeah, for for Dome Keeper, yeah, she did most of the art. Uh that's her that's her specialty basically. 2D pixel art is where she is most comfortable with.

And then for Dome, I did all the rest except the audio. So, design,

programming production marketing.

Yeah, these are the the key things. But

we also had a sound designer. we had a composer, but then I also had had someone as a basically tech artist because I'm not good with that uh for all the effects and shaders and

and such. And uh then we hired uh

and such. And uh then we hired uh someone just to do icons for the game because we realized we had like 150 upgrade icons and that's one or two months of work. That's in a 9 month

production. That's that's that's really

production. That's that's that's really bad. And then we also had someone for

bad. And then we also had someone for all the monster animations because the animations also take a lot of time if it's 2D sprite animations. So it's uh

it's again more people than than it looks like in fulltime equivalents.

So what I hear there is so I guess the way I thought about hiring and bringing people on the team recently was more like only bring people on the team if they're better at you at something that

you need. And you're you're saying it

you need. And you're you're saying it was a bit different for you. You also

like that that was maybe the case but the the main thought was also just to keep the development cycle short or how did you think about those?

Yeah.

Freelance hires the the freelancers like there are some skills we obviously do not have like sound design and composing music.

So uh that that's a no-brainer to hire someone and it's also a relative no-brainer to not hire a full-time sound designer at Pippen Bits because we don't have a way

to keep them busy all the time. So

that's a natural freelance position. And

then uh for the people I hired full-time at Bib and Bits, these are these are very capable people uh quite senior who

can fill multiple roles who usually have a a really really strong suit in one area but can but can also do like two other areas. like our our first proper

other areas. like our our first proper hire. He's a great tech artist first,

hire. He's a great tech artist first, but he's also a great 2D artist and he's also a really good engineer and he can also create and cut great trailers like he did with PVK.

Okay, that was a fantastic trailer. I

watched it for the first time on Steam a couple of days ago and I my my level of intrigue went up by a lot after watching it. Yeah.

it. Yeah.

Yeah. We did the basically storyboarding and iteration on it together. But he

recorded everything. He uh worked his ass off to make it look good and have some assets polished in game and then also cut it and uh like cut it in the right way that it's engaging. And then

our sound designer for PBK did the sound pass and had this like initial sort of rhythmic button pushing and pressing and such. So yeah, the these are the the

such. So yeah, the these are the the highest for people. It's more

generalists who where where I feel confident that across our projects, we will always have plenty of work for them and we are never sitting there like ah we don't really know what you can do

today cuz that's a big problem with hiring people is you need to keep them busy, right? Otherwise you're losing

busy, right? Otherwise you're losing money.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hire somebody fulltime.

Yeah. We did also hire two other like specialy roles but were not generalists.

Uh, one is internal QA. Uh, because QA can save you so much time as a programmer or developer in general. If

you can just let someone else test the build and then you fix it maybe and let someone else check if the fix actually works, uh, that that can be really really really useful. Or you get

community reports and just reproducing the issue sometimes can that can take hours, right? Yeah.

right? Yeah.

And if you have someone who can do that, like I just just give you a perfect description of how you can reproduce it, a video, screenshots, it might take you 5 minutes to fix this. So,

and across all projects that happen so often that a full-time position is worth it for that basically.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's it's still a little bit tricky because sometimes we have like okay uh this week we don't really have anything for you and then another week we have like two

games in parallel need needing QA like that's uh but that's how it is with every job.

It's like Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

There they're calm times and not so calm times. Yeah.

times. Yeah.

Yeah. And we also have a concept artist who's basically making concepts and also creating 2D uh assets. So the but real drawings uh that are not um basically

digital drawings.

So how how are you looking at this entire company growth? Are are you looking at it like from a business perspective and like this is this a good

investment of resources or are you looking at it from the perspective of this allows me to do more of the cool things I want to do or what's your approach behind it? My my goal is to

keep the teams as small as possible basically which is not visible if I'm if I'm talking about this like this. Um

yeah I I do really value small teams of great people. Uh, I think that's uh

great people. Uh, I think that's uh that's the most fun way to work and also uh where you basically can make the most out of the least resources because you

can make a game with four people that's about as successful as a game with made by 30 people for example if if it focuses on the right things and having a successful game in turn means for us we

can be really relaxed about the future.

we can do nice stuff uh that that like for example with PBKK. So the the success with DOM allowed us to take really creative risks with PBKK. I like

I'm not sure if we had outside funding for PBKK if we would have gotten away with choosing such a strange name because it's not the safe option.

The safe option would be some something else. But we we were like yeah it's it's

else. But we we were like yeah it's it's a small game. we are making fun and we we can allow this ourselves. So that

definitely helps. And in in terms of the growth like the growth was basically purely coming from me wanting to make more games.

I do have so many games I want to make.

Uh and I've I've always looked for ways to make more games and then at the beginning of this year we had six games in parallel in development.

And that and that and there it was clear okay yes that's that's quite a lot so it's good if we can scale it down a little bit and now we have four games

and uh in September after September we will have only three games I hope in development okay so we bring it down a bit and yeah the thing like like one game that we haven't

announced properly I make that game just with a bunch of freelancers there's no one from Bib and Bits or that's not true anymore like Anna my wife she's making out for that game also.

Uh because like the the other game didn't need her anymore and or still does need her, but this new game is more important.

It's uh it's a little bit different, but it's essentially a second team that's independent of the team that works for PBKK and the people who work on dome

right now, they are totally independent of the PBKK team. So, it's very much split.

So you have um basically a bunch of mini teams working on different projects.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so the most realistic summary of this is we have four teams uh with four people each.

That sounds roughly fits it.

Mhm.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's super fun. Uh but

it's also a lot and especially something like with Gamescom we suddenly have uh there's a lot going on.

Yeah. And also has your role shifted to like people management or what do you do for the projects?

I still do mostly the thing uh I did before and I still do the things I want to do which is I'm I'm still directing all the games. I'm still doing high

level game design narrative. I don't

program anything anymore in the newer projects on Dumpkeeper. did still like most of the programming and also in the game design I'm more um like for for example in thronefall you have the

highle systems you designed but then you also have this like individual enemy or you you have a you have designed a few enemies but then it's okay uh should

this enemy have 50 HP or 100 HP and this needs to be tested and balanced and such and that's that's a thing I'm I'm not doing anymore right now okay there's a big limitation to this approach uh which

is a little bit sad is that juniors don't really work well in this in this setup because it's a it's a high ownership high skill position uh that is

totally self-managed that's fully remote uh and that's that's not a good environment for juniors and I and I need I need this way because otherwise I

couldn't do it for four games if I need to manage like the individuals super well but so the the people who work on these teams they are they are really

skilled and and uh experienced and know what they are doing and I generally also like for people to take more ownership and and more responsibility in the

project like I gave this example with balancing this enemy but like if someone is good in design that's that their involvement doesn't need to stop there

they can in thronefall term or let's say in PBKK terms it's not just about designing one enemy ship it's designing whole missions or whole strings of missions or something like that. And I'm

super happy also to to give that away and just stay a little bit in the background, make sure it fits into the rest of the game. Uh, and guide it a little bit from

game. Uh, and guide it a little bit from the back. Uh, like bringing in

the back. Uh, like bringing in some ideas and curbing some some other ideas a little bit. So all of the mini teams are relatively selfmanaged.

Basically, you you don't have to set up team meetings for every single one or or ensure that communications working properly within these teams that like yeah the the teams are small enough that

the people really speak with each other and the amount of organization is uh roughly 2 hours of meeting per team a week.

Mhm.

So we have a weekly meeting and for for project like PBKK PBK is now getting bigger. Um and yeah I I already have

bigger. Um and yeah I I already have like uh 2 hours a week narrative meeting and then 2 hours a week development meeting and

like this adds up uh but they they are generally in the day or yeah dayto-day minute to minute hour to hour work they are super independent they they have their high level goals and

they can fill them really well. That's

interesting because that's something Paul and I always think about like if we were to scale Grizzly games, which we're not sure we want to do, but if we if we

scale it at some point, then I think this um mini teams approach sounds very appealing because that way you can basically do what you what you're good

at, right? You're good at developing

at, right? You're good at developing stuff in small teams. You know how that works. you like those skills don't

works. you like those skills don't necessarily transfer to bigger teams. So the most sensible way to scale is to keep doing it in smaller teams and just have more small teams. Yeah, I think so.

I from from what I've heard also from other people is that uh that you hit this barrier quite soon in teams of maybe seven, eight, nine people suddenly

you need layers. You need a lead programmer that manages the two or three other programmers and and you need this for everyone thing. And then you are only speaking to the leads uh as a

director and not to everyone anymore.

And then you also have more complex interpersonal dynamics like a four person group.

Uh it's much easier for a fourperson group to get along well than it is for a nine person group or 12 person group.

So, at least I I think so. And the

people I the stories I've heard were of indie studios growing either they grew into bankruptcy or into unhappiness usually.

Like you you have some that that really worked out well. But then it's also that the uh owners of that studio that them their goal often was growth beyond uh

their goal was not hey I want to make games because in a studio of 20 you're not necessarily making games anymore unless you hire someone else to take

over a lot of like CEO and management things. Yeah, that's why that's why I

things. Yeah, that's why that's why I was asking because I' I've heard a lot of story of stories of people who then essentially became people management jobs. They used to make games but now

jobs. They used to make games but now they do only people management like 24/7 and like work overtime already and that doesn't seem to be the case

with how how you have structured things.

Yeah. Yeah. For for me it works and I feel like it's an easy trap to fall into because you meet great people and then feel like oh yeah this person they if we could hire them they would improve the

team and we could make cooler games with them and you have that five times and suddenly your company is growing and growing. So that there's a there's a

growing. So that there's a there's a risk in that and also suddenly this pressure of this next game like if you have a 15 person team and you work on a game for three years you need to pull in

different league of numbers than if you are three people obviously like you need to earn five times the money and earning five times the money with a similar game.

Yeah, it's hard.

I see. So you've also kind of distributed the risk cuz you have multiple things going. If one fails, it's maybe not the end of the world. For

for people like Paul and me who are potentially interested in this model, what would you say would be the best way to start such a mini team? If you're

like, okay, we want to go from having one project to two. How should we do that?

So uh you of course need people to make this then, right? So the the first question is how do you find great people that fit with you?

And one like one decent way which is I think a very robust way is to work with freelancers who you who for example uh

where they are based and what language they speak if that's if that's relevant who you would consider also hiring as a full-time employee later on. And then

you can work with them as a freelancer for half a year and if you feel like yeah we are vibing really well and they are doing great work and they will be super useful to have around full-time that's an easy hire

and yeah so so that that's robust but I also had I did also hire just over LinkedIn for example or like these open positions and I did hire really amazing

people there but also uh people I needed to uh let go after a short time. It's

much harder to hire or it's it's not necessarily harder. It just means like

necessarily harder. It just means like you have a a false positive rate. Uh

that that because you like you didn't validate the people to the same degree as if you worked with them half a year, right?

Yeah.

Or maybe not the people but the working relationship with them because uh it's always two sides, right? So you have to basically there the there are two strategies either you um validate first

through working with them on a couple of projects or you have to accept the false positives and deal with them when they happen.

Yeah. And and with the classical hiring uh I really value also doing tests uh like programming test design life programming uh design test and what I

what I struggled most with is hiring for positions that I have no expertise in.

Mhm. Uh like that's that's super tricky.

Like if I wanted to hire a bisdev person, it would be really hard for me to vet uh what makes like do a test if this is person is good in bisdev. Like

that that's tough.

TPT write a test and then they use TPT to answer the test. Checkmate.

Yeah, that that's that's actually uh nowadays a problem too. like written tests uh people will use chat t chat GBT and

badly used uh chat bots uh you instantly recognize them and they don't make a lot of sense also in design it it's not necessarily bad for them like u if they use a chatbot in a smart way the

test could still be representative to their real work because I hope that would carry over that they would also use it in a smart way in in their work to pol polish polish a text they've

written into nicer readable English or German.

We need to find people and I think one of the difficult problems that I would be thinking there is is you you basically ideally you want generalists like or

people who are good at multiple things.

Isn't it very hard to find generalists who are not already working on their own game in their Yeah.

Like that's like everybody who's good at making indie games is already making indie games. This is sort of the dilemma

indie games. This is sort of the dilemma then. Yeah,

then. Yeah, absolutely. Like that's uh that was also

absolutely. Like that's uh that was also my thinking and like the the the perfect profile of a person uh they are already working on their game because they are perfectly equipped to to make their own

game. But I like among the people that

game. But I like among the people that work on in the Bib and Bits game projects. There are people who do that

projects. There are people who do that who could very well make their own game and often they they made their own games or are making some smaller games on the

side and and that that's that's also fine and generally being able to make games does not mean you necessarily want to make your own games commercially and

try to make this work.

Yeah. because you also have this uh if you run it as a business, it can also be you also have the unpleasant business parts that you maybe do not want at all.

And if if you can like if you can find someone who's a passionate game maker, doesn't want to do business uh is very fairly compensated and you do a like a profit share with them for example for your for

your project number two and they get ownership and they carry the vision uh that you have for the game. I think you you can have people that are put into a spot where they can where they where

they feel they they are making the the game they really want to make and have a safe net. Uh they don't carry like the

safe net. Uh they don't carry like the the business risk but but still have a lot of basically say in what what game gets created.

Okay. So essentially you you just get them by making them a compelling offer that they actually find attractive.

Yeah. Yeah. It's also often that uh one example is uh the the game we recently started the not not fully announced uh

game. Um that was a prototype from us

game. Um that was a prototype from us from 2 years ago. We made a oneweek game jam where we made this and then we didn't touch it anymore. But then like

these this these two amazing game makers that we know in our network uh were basically looking for a freelance work.

And then I was not looking for, okay, I want to make this big game that I know will work. So now I need to staff this

will work. So now I need to staff this project. I was more like, okay, we have

project. I was more like, okay, we have these two people. What project do I have in basically my back catalog that would fit these two people really well?

Mhm.

Like skill-wise and moodwise and and such. And then I suggested it to them

such. And then I suggested it to them and they liked it. And yeah, since then they've been working on this. So it's

more of a like I said before sometimes you need to find a project right for the people and not try to have a project and then staff it with someone but also it depends also

on your project. You don't necessarily need to find these amazing generalists.

You can also if for example if you get someone who does all of the programming and is smart and looks left and right and is is not a a m like a machine that

turns your voice lines into code uh but who understands the project and and takes ownership of the quality and such like you would already save so much time and if you do that with that part and

then you have uh have QA uh maybe uh or or that that can also be external QA but using QA saves you also a lot time and only these these two things could enable

you personally already to make two games in parallel potentially.

Do you have employees with revenue share? Like one one thing I was itching

share? Like one one thing I was itching to ask. Yeah, you do.

to ask. Yeah, you do.

Yeah. Uh yeah, that's uh it's actually not revenue share, it's profit share.

Profit share. Yeah, I I did I did want to set up revenue share but then it's a it's a complicated thing. So that's

that's best checked by lawyers on both sides. And both lawyers were saying,

sides. And both lawyers were saying, "Yeah, that's not to revenue share, that's to profit share." Which was really surprising to me because I felt like revenue share is the better deal for the employee. But also the the

lawyer of the employee side said, "Yeah, that's where we'll do profit share."

Okay. Interesting. And basically the idea is to to make an attractive deal for people who could otherwise also just make their own game.

Yeah. For for me the the reasoning is if I have a small team and I'm giving them a lot of ownership and a lot of responsibility also and my expectation for them is to be like this uh

self-contained powerhouse of game making uh and they they are carrying the the vision uh forward and and putting their best into this. It does make a ton of sense that they also profit if the game

is is doing well like that that only seems fair and right. Do you think it's a viable model as an indie developer if you have resources to basically like

swallow other small indie teams and like okay you need funding do you want to maybe work in Grizzly games from now now on you can be your own self-contained team and we do like revenue share or

something and just that's interesting how do you how do you mean swallow uh do you buy them are they then a basically owned company I'm I'm not sure that's necessary right

they can if they have previous IP and so on, they can still maintain over ownership over that. I mean more like just um hire them hire them in the in the configuration they're currently in

and be like you can keep working together. You can even come you can even

together. You can even come you can even come up with your own ideas. Maybe we'll

like obviously we'll probably want to say have have a bit of a say in that.

Sure. Right. Fair fair enough. But

largely speaking, I think the idea we have is is more like that we um set up the processes and not so much that we even dictate the ideas of what

specifically like these teams have to make. Yeah, I think it's definitely an

make. Yeah, I think it's definitely an interesting proposition to basically take a team that's already working together well that's already kind of complete and covering all the fields.

The question then is okay uh why would they why would they want to do it?

Yeah. So if if they are successful they will not do it. Like if I would ask you hey do do you want to be a team a pip and bits team you and Paul

you would say no I make my own games and that makes sense. Uh even though I definitely would like honestly there there there is a universe where they would happen cuz like if like

the all of the orga and bis stuff gets too annoying.

Yeah.

Um yeah we'll give you a call.

Yeah. Okay, I come back to that. Yeah,

the question is okay, if this team is is good enough to make commercially viable games, uh why are not why they are not doing this or why why did their games flop? Do they just need this little bit

flop? Do they just need this little bit of guidance that you can give them for for this to work out or is there a deeper problem somewhere? Like that's

that's that's a tricky part. And usually

you need to find people where you're like, I can fix them.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, that's

good.

Yeah, it's a strange conversation to have like I know you are amazing developers but you're not achieving anything but I can I can be your savior.

Like that's that's a little bit strange.

And you know what's even more awkward than if if it turns out that you you were wrong. This happened to me a couple

were wrong. This happened to me a couple of times where where it was like to to people I know, hey, let let me help you make a YouTube video. I know how to make them do better. And then they

they just flopped as well. Okay. Uh I

guess I don't know how to do make this well. Oops.

well. Oops.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's complicated stuff.

Uh it comes back to what I said before like we cannot predict which prototype will do well. We have to put it out and test it.

But I I think even yeah I I can imagine like a team that has this potential if if they're usual mode is to just decide for a project and then work on it for three years and then

release it and this doesn't work out. If

you can bring in this sort of structured approach that helps them validate and also cancel cancel games that are not showing this promise, I think that that could probably work.

Yeah, that that's what what I'm thinking is like you you basically force people into a workflow that you know produces good outcomes.

Yeah, it it also does mean uh everyone needs to be willing to waste years of work potentially across multiple projects. I mean, uh, you need to be

projects. I mean, uh, you need to be willing to cancel a game after half a year of work if you see it's not really working out. But I think there's a

working out. But I think there's a reason for why you say that happens very rarely and that that is that the if you set up the process correctly, the early

validation points already catch most of the failure cases. So late late validation point failures honestly mean that your early validation points weren't good enough. So if your early

validation points are good enough and then you you ensure that you don't misalign the project in the time that you have between the next validation point then I guess the next one should

theoretically pass as well.

Yeah that's that's a great point. I

think the the first ones the early ones filter out most of the games already and then uh if you do everything right uh you will not get bad surprises. Uh there

is one aspect though that sometimes making games is also really hard and then it can be that your prototype worked but now you really really struggle to bring it to the next level

to make it a full game and the team has a really hard time to do it and suddenly the the demo doesn't really work out because it kind of got bloated lost the

point a little bit. Uh I think I think that can easily happen and we we do have one project where it right now feels like this that it's really way more complicated than we thought.

Uh moving from prototype to full game.

All right. Yeah. And I guess it's a bit of a hard situation to be in than to also basically kill somebody else's project that somebody else invested more

time in than you did. So if you kid it, you also should have funded it and then it's it's their time, but you they still got paid for the work and the payment

should be good enough that the payment in itself was worthwhile and it was not the promise of maybe a success eventually down the road that kept them working.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that is a horrible way to do business. Yeah. Yeah.

Some some studios work like that. they

they pay really low wages and promise okay if the if the game goes big you get something or if the company gets sold you get something but until then you you earn a really low wage that that does

happen and I I don't want to value this it depends if it's okay for for the people working there the key thing is that I think both parties uh should start only start a project with the

acceptance that if the validation does not go well enough we will cancel this if the validation is middling we will shorten it. Uh and and then

ideally also the people like at least for me it's it's the case if I'm making a prototype that I really love then I release it and no one wants to play it. I also lose the really the

play it. I also lose the really the interest in in continuing this because I know I I could make it I could make it a game I like but uh I still would like other

people to play this game. Okay. It

doesn't m like if if I if I have the choice between making a cool game that a million people play and a cool game that a 100 people play, I would rather have do the first obviously and and ideas are

cheap and you can make so many prototypes and concepts and and if it if it takes a week to make a prototype, you can do a lot in half a year.

Yeah. I mean sounds sounds compelling to to have multiple projects and to switch into more of a high level design guidance role but uh it's it's also

sounds also risky that your job transforms into something different but still super interesting super interesting perspective. We will learn

interesting perspective. We will learn in a year or so if this actually works because uh right now uh we we do have some we have a lot of promise in in a

lot of things. Uh but so far we only released Storm Keeper, right? So it's

it's there's still a lot of proof to be made that this can work.

Yeah. So you're still essentially in in trial mode, but I think I've heard of uh bigger some bigger studios that do this as well. Like if I'm not entirely wrong,

as well. Like if I'm not entirely wrong, there's some mobile companies like um Supercell that used to work like this with like super small Yeah.

cracked teams that like work on different projects, but obviously it's it's something I think it's something quite different to do it with indie games. And I I don't think there are a lot of people doing this with indie games. I think you're one of the the first people I know of

that that are doing this with indie games. So this is this is an interesting

games. So this is this is an interesting experiment for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean, Supercell and all the the the the mobile game makers, they are generally looking for the billion dollar game, right? So,

so they they they need to put a lot of fishing rods out there and see what sticks basically.

Yeah. And uh it it it's not enough that this game will bring back its money like they want a thousand times the money it it it costs to make.

So, it's a different scale. And for me, it's it's just okay. I want to make my my key motivation is to make games. and

the business side needs to work so I can keep making games. That's a very different proposition than okay, we have these shareholders and we should do 10% more revenue this year to make our

shareholders happy and rich. Uh like that that's a very

and rich. Uh like that that's a very different setup uh than I think indie devs generally have.

Yeah, I agree. Also, it's also cool that basically the reason you're doing it is so you can just make more more games. If

you want to win some more sympathy points before we wrap this up, we should also mention that you work in in the good game engine with most of your projects probably.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And um yeah, it's it's actually also we we love gooddo for one key reason I think. So the the most important bit uh is iteration speed like

it's it's the quality I value most uh for making good games. How fast can you iterate? And God is really really good

iterate? And God is really really good at fast iteration. Uh it did like a lot of the things go really fast uh that for example in Unity you're not used to this

going so fast like just launching your game or changing a co changing code while the game is running and having that immediate immediately affect the

game uh to like you don't need to compile. So

compile. So yeahve I've dealt with GDO a little bit and I found it much more enjoyable to use than Unity. like it it's like it feels more reactive and every it's just like not like every time you do something you have a

5-second loading bar. It's like

Yeah. And also like the these 5-second loading sp loading bars, they are really killing me.

Uh because I'm I'm not sure if it's what it is, but if I'm not constantly under fire, I'm incredibly quickly distracted. So if I would need to wait 10 seconds every time

the game boots, the chances are high that in these 10 seconds I will open the browser, do something else or look at my smartphone or something like that. And

that's that's really also not just like it doesn't sound horrible 10 seconds of waiting time, but it does scale my productivity.

It does. Yeah, it does make a very very big it does make a surprisingly big difference. Like even I would say even

difference. Like even I would say even very very small delays can make a very big difference like even like even couple of milliseconds when you click on something and it needs to load in the background or something that's

you you feel you feel all of that.

H sorry go ahead.

Yeah but um yeah problem problem I think for me is that I'm very very used to the unity workflows and that that I have my my tools that I like in Unity. there are

some very cool tech that we maybe want to use for the next games that only that's only compatible with Unity and and all those kind of issues.

But like from from from the sideline I'm I'm rooting for good and I'm like come on take them down.

Yeah. But in the end it's still it quotes just a tool. So it's not not a lifestyle. it it's a tool that helps us

lifestyle. it it's a tool that helps us making games and whatever you use to to to be productive and make games is fine if it works for you. So it's not like uh

I think sometimes this this whole discussion is a little bit overblown like the control wars uh if if you like one you have to hate the other stuff like

that I think ideally the like we we live in a pretty good world where there are basically different options right there's no established monopoly and I

think the the competition is really what what drives progress usually like like the better god go gets the more Unity will try to catch up and so on.

Yeah, I I wonder how it is for Unity. Uh

I I read once upon a time that most of their revenue comes from mobile games and that that would also like unless God suddenly gets strong on mobile like the the indie game development might always

be a second thought uh there like a sec not top priority but for God I feel like it it's really different. Uh it's uh obviously like

different. Uh it's uh obviously like these Steam games 2D or 3D uh that that are in the focus of of of this how for what this engine is made even though

it's a general purpose engine.

How how is God with like a bigger game projects? Does does like the speed scale

projects? Does does like the speed scale to bigger projects or like how much load time do you have when you open up PVKK?

It's not too bad. Uh it's uh it's a little bit more than on dome keeper but not super not not very significantly like there there are some things uh that change

your like how fast does your game launch uh like initially it will only take a few milliseconds maybe a few hundred milliseconds uh but even for dome it's like 3 4

seconds or something like that because uh like few port instantiation seems to be a culprit of always adding 2 seconds And so, uh, but yeah, it for PVK, it's

not noticeably worse than for Dome Keeper, for example.

So, we're talking 10 seconds, maybe something like that.

Yeah. I mean, from from pressing the button to the game being up, it's not even 10 seconds. It's like four 4 seconds. So, it's uh nice. And you can

seconds. So, it's uh nice. And you can also just reload a lot of stuff while the game is running.

And that's that's always a nice thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll I'll keep my eyes on for sure. I'm I'm happy also if the

for sure. I'm I'm happy also if the engine does well. We are also sponsoring it so so it can uh hopefully stay around. That's that's one benefit also in good like if if you are

if you have a really nice game uh that is commercially very vi viable like dome keeper or pvk for unity for the unity ecosystem it's it's not it doesn't matter

but for good for the good community it's a it's a it's a big thing like if a game is really successful because there are not hundreds or thousands of of super successful games

so uh yeah there's a lot of uh support uh coming from from the community for this and a lot of like friendliness that that that's that's really nice.

Yeah, I can imagine like made with good is something you can say pretty proudly for sure. Yeah.

for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And people put it on uh on their games uh with a reason like they they they like it and we we do too like we put it also on on our games.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I mean there there are more cans we could open up but I think it's let's wrap it up.

Yeah.

Thanks thanks a lot for your time. I'll

put links to um to your games in the description and so on.

Sure. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me.

It was a lot of fun uh to to finally sit down and talk to you with a uh for for for a good time with with some calm because we we met a few times at several

like conferences but uh we didn't have a ton of time to to really talk deeply about something. Yeah, I think it was

about something. Yeah, I think it was very very fascinating to firstly like truly understand how your process of um finding and validating game ideas works

but also like the business side like both things were very very truly um insightful for me. So thanks thanks for that.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for for hosting