A Huge Publisher Played My Game And.... (Devlog)

So, I was watching this video about a developer having a conversation with Deolver, and I thought, did I make that video? But the truth is, I didn't make the video, but the exact same situation happened to me. So, I wanted to tell you my version of the story and how you can replicate this for your own games. Ultimately, Devolver played my game, and it's called Brave Boy. It's this old school 3D platformer about a warrior dog in the Scottish Highlands. And in the end, my dream of working with Deolver was well, stick around and you're going to find out. See, there's a little secret in the indie game industry, and it's about how to get in contact with these mega publishers like Deolver. Deolver, after all, is a huge publisher, probably one of the biggest indie game publishers, and they're responsible for some very popular indie titles. And if you can work with Deolver, well, you've kind of made it. At least as it pertains to indie game publishers. So, what's the secret to getting in contact with these publishers? Well, most of the time I would just email them. That's about it.

I've secured meetings with Team 17, Curve Digital, and [music] Armor Games by just emailing. What I do is I ask ChatGpt for publishers who publish similar games to mine. I scrub their Twitter and their website for email addresses, and then I send them a pitch deck. And that is just a simple website with your 10-minute polish demo, a video introducing yourself, the [music] concept, the hooks and maybe the schedule and the team. But I'll be honest, the way I got in contact with Deolver [music] in particular, was actually through a friendship. I met Jay when we were strapping young game devs back in 2017, I think it [music] was, at PAX. We both had signed with Armor Games, which they were a super tiny publisher at the time. So last year I emailed Jay and just asked him his thoughts on our project at the time and that was not Brave Boy. It was actually called Father which ended up becoming Twisted Tower. And also I just asked him if he'd put me in contact with any publishers in his network. So yeah, it's totally fine to send random emails to hundreds of publishers. I do

this all the time and it's worked for me, but it's even better to have friendships and contacts in the industry. So, you need [music] to get connected now as it can take years before it becomes advantageous to you. I mean, look at my own situation. It's been six years before my friendship with Jay became advantageous as it pertains to publishers. And by the way, honestly, that's a terrible thing to say. Don't say that. But his friendship alone was awesome. But having contact with Devolver, that was cool, too. So, thank you, Jay. So, I emailed this higher up at Devolver about one of my previous games. It was called Father. It ended up becoming my current game, Twisted Tower. I hadn't emailed them about Brave Boy just yet. We'll talk about that. [music] Ultimately, he felt that this firsterson shooter wasn't a good fit for Deolver. So, it wasn't until a year later where I emailed him the demo for my next game, Brave Boy. Here's what I said. I know you mentioned keeping you posted on future projects. So, here's a pitch for

another game slated for launch sometime in 2024. Yes, we're going to be working hard on Twisted Tower throughout the next year, but I figured I'd get your eyes ASAP. Imagine Cold to the Lamb, but 3D about a Scottish puppy with a sword building up his clan of pups and waging war against English cats. I wanted to share this with you as early as possible. I think it's going to be a smash hit. Notice how casual I am in the email and also how I've included a single link with everything that he needs and also reference some of Devolver's own successful titles. And finally, this is the kicker, come across as confident. I sent this confident email over and to my surprise, he responded the next day. Hey Thomas, thanks for sharing. Brave Boy looks adorable and clever. Happy to talk on it next week. Is there something to play at this point? I was super thrilled that I even got a response from Devolver. Honestly, I've been trying to get a response from Devolver for 10 years. So, it really, really felt good. We scheduled a meeting and we chatted and that conversation was

primarily a discussion of what Brave Boy could be as opposed to what it was. Which, frankly, I don't blame Devolver in the slightest. From what I can gather, Devolver tends to invest significantly more thought in their projects even before signing them than most publishers. So, the fact that they want to have input in what happens in the game prior to signing, that's totally fine with me. In fact, in the conversation, in the emails, I encouraged it. The truth is, indie developers will benefit from taking advice from these super successful publishers like Devolver because frankly, Devolver knows what sells. I want to make money, don't you? In the end, Deolver had a handful of questions about the game. All they asked were simple questions. I could have just simply answered these simple questions, but I wanted to show them that I was serious. And I highly encourage that whenever you're in the early stages of negotiating with publishers that you show don't tell. And this is probably going to mean a lot of late nights

developing answers to these questions, but it's worth it in the long run. So, basically, they just asked for an updated GDV that included much more specific information about the gameplay loop. But, I went hard here. I spent hours making this thing gorgeous. They also asked if I could actually pull off the doggy warfare. It seemed really cool to have a clan of dogs fighting, but there was nothing in the demo that included this. So, I spent a long time putting this together with my team to try and show it, not tell it. They also wanted to see the player cosmetics and see what all the different breeds looked like. So, I created that for them. And I also added Gamepad support. They also asked, at least privately, [music] not to me, about what the game would look like as an openw world game. Right [music] now, it was just a old school 3D platformer. Think Mario or Banjo Kazouie. But I think they wanted the game to be much more in line with a modern audience. And like I said, they never told me this directly. Someone spilled the tea to me privately, which was wonderful. I love tea. So, me and my

team, and that was AJ and Felipe, we scrambled for several weeks to create an openw world set of mechanics, essentially a map with some quests. So, I sent that off to them and they went silent. And by the way, this is entirely normal. Every time a publisher has gone silent for weeks or so, I've kind of panicked [music] and suddenly they just pop in randomly in the inbox and then it's business as usual. So, it wasn't until 7 days later that I finally got a response. I'm back and digging into email and man, I am sorry you were on the third page of Gmail. Want to catch up Friday? I honestly was relieved and I told my team that I was excited to continue talking to Devolver. So, we chatted on Friday and they loved the new additions. It felt amazing. They even wanted to meet me in Germany while I was at Gamescom with my current publisher, 3D Realms. [music] Me and my wife packed our bags. We took a 9-hour flight to Germany and I anxiously waited for the private meeting with Deolver. Could it be that my dream of working with Deolver

was going to come true? Me and my buddy AJ, the developer who helped create the game, we actually got lost looking for the Devolver booth. And if you've ever been to Gamescom, you [music] know exactly how anxietyinducing the maze of booths is. I mean, it's insane. I honestly hated it. These events make me want to curl up in a bathroom stall [music] and honestly just vape. Of course, you can't do that. The bathroom lines were out the door and down the hall. We finally found Devolver's booth. We were late. Well, that's what I thought. See, the girl at the booth said we weren't even on the schedule. I asked her to double check with the higherups that we were pitching to. She asked us if we wanted a beer, and of course, we nervously said yes, and we chugged the entire thing right then and there while standing awkwardly outside the booth. When she finally returned, she told us that we were actually 30 minutes early. So AJ and I stood outside the booth and just waited awkwardly for 30 minutes. It was really awkward and I honestly I

felt really dumb. But I really appreciate Devolver being so hospitable. They were super nice through this process. Okay, so the clock ticked down and finally it was time. The girl came to us and took us inside the private pitch room. We sat in front of two executives and we booted up the game on our laptop. We played the demo for 15 minutes and I tried really, really hard to explain what I thought made the game shine. Specifically, the fact that you're a Scottish dog in a game called Brave Boy. That made me laugh when I said it. That always makes me laugh. I don't know why, but I don't know. Maybe it wasn't as funny as I thought it was. The folks I was pitching to didn't seem to get the joke. Granted, my initial contacted Deolver, the guy who I was emailing, he did get it, but these folks eventually said they kind of thought I should change the whole Scottish thing as it could be perceived as cringey or tropy. I don't necessarily agree, but I really do appreciate the feedback. I also thought it was really funny launching the dogs from cannons [music]

like Donkey Kong, but they didn't seem to like that. But they brought up a valid point. Is this an open world game or an old school platformer? I mean, it's true. Too many random mechanics can create mixed signals, especially in your marketing material. I totally understand, although I still to this day I love the Donkey Kong style barrel launching in Brave Boy, even if it's an open world game. But Deolver sincerely brought up a good point throughout the demo. Another pitch room adjacent to ours was also getting very frustrated. They kept coming in our room and asking us to turn down the demo while we were playing it. I think this is because much of the game's audio was super quiet, but the sword slashes, they were super loud, so we had to turn the game up to hear the majority of the game's content, but when we would swing the sword, it was super loud. And this was on us. We just weren't anticipating being adjacent to multiple pitch rooms. Ultimately, it ended up at a very low volume, and we even struggled to just hear the game. We wrapped up the demo. We put the controller down, and I waited anxiously for their thoughts. They were kind and

they were very honest. They thought the game was cute. They thought it was clever. Ultimately, they felt they needed to see more. And they also wanted to see the openw world concept a little bit more fleshed out. And I get it. We gave them something cute, funny, beautiful, but mechanically it honestly wasn't fully there. They mentioned that maybe they could get another build when we felt it was more representative of the final product. Of course, at the time we were working on a game called Twisted Tower. We're still working on a game called Twisted [music] Tower. And the idea of creating more features just to continue the conversation felt like a big gamble for me because ultimately this stuff costs money. And honestly guys, it's nobody's fault here. This is just the way things go. If Devolver wanted to feel secure in the product they were going to invest in, that's that's their prerogative. As for me though, the idea of continuing to scramble to get something even tighter was not in the cards. [music] We left that booth actually kind of laughing to ourselves because [music] I mean it really didn't go well. That really

didn't go well. I told AJ not to feel bad and he asked if we were going to make the requested changes. I said no. Ultimately I decided right then and there that I didn't want to be stuck in a loop of making changes. If we signed Brave Boy it would be my fifth time signing with a publisher. So, I reminded myself that at this point in my career, I get to be super super super [music] super picky. Ultimately, it is a huge honor to have a conversation with Devolver, let alone let them play your game and and and have the time and give you the time to show the game to them. I'm super super grateful. Taking their feedback will only help you even if you don't sign. So, if any publisher asks for changes, feel free to give those changes a try. It might make the game better or it's just a good learning experience for you. But there's a point for all of us where it might not be worth our time to continue to make changes. As for me now, my current publisher, 3D Realms, which [music] they're publishing, Twisted Tower, they're they're great when it comes to

giving me creative control. They give me a ton of room to come up with crazy ideas, but they are going to offer their constructive feedback, which frankly that's part of their job and I I really really appreciate and I need it. So ultimately, guys, if you want to work with a publisher, this is the process that you can go through. You don't have to work with a publisher, right? A publisher is just there to help fund you and offer you feedback and provide a marketing arm that you might not uh currently have. But you don't have to sign with a publisher. You can completely self-publish a game as well. Anyway, good luck on your journey.