Finji
CompanyUnited States
Documents about Finji
Game Developers Conference61 min
What Indie Game Publishers Really Think: 15 Years of Industry Insights from Finji's Rebekah Saltsman
Indie game publishing functions as a strategic partnership designed to mitigate the financial, operational, and interpersonal risks inherent in software development.
- Indie publishers typically manage titles with budgets of $2 million or less, focusing on small teams across all genres while providing essential business development, marketing, and operational support.
- Publishers act as mediators for team communication and project health, protecting their own reputation and financial investment by ensuring developers avoid burnout and adhere to platform-mandated schedules.
- When pitching to publishers, developers must demonstrate they can ship by providing realistic schedules, documented budgets with appropriate buffers, and clear team breakdowns to de-risk the project.
Game Developers ConferenceSep 2026
Game Developers Conference64 min
GDC Plays Overland with Finji co-founder Adam Saltsman
Overland serves as a case study in minimalist, turn-based strategy design, prioritizing emotional stakes and tactical vulnerability over the traditional power-fantasy tropes common in the post-apocalyptic genre.
- Overland was designed to evoke player vulnerability and fear rather than the traditional power-fantasy loop found in many post-apocalyptic strategy games.
- The development team prioritized 'proportional warning' for random events, ensuring that players receive a multi-turn heads-up before reinforcements or threats appear on the map.
- Procedural generation in the game utilizes a system of placement masks and 'wild card' modifiers, which act as cascading overrides to determine level layout and resource distribution.
Game Developers ConferenceOct 2019