He Knew Nothing About Making Games... Then Sold 67,000 Copies (w/ Sebastian Drews) — Ep 64

Okay, imagine if you, I don't know, you knew nothing about game dev. And then you play Hollow Knight and you think, "Well, you know what? I want to make a game like that." What do you think is actually going to happen? Well, it's likely you're going to make a pretty crappy game. And if I'm being honest, uh you're probably not even going to finish it. This happens all the time. People [music] get inspired and then they want to make the greatest game ever made, well, one of the greatest games ever made as their first game. [music] And they instantly realize that the idea was way too ambitious to execute on. But my guest, Sebastian [music] Drews, he somehow knew nothing about making games, he got inspired by Hollow Knight, and he proceeded to actually build a team and make a gorgeous Metroidvania called
[music]
Constance. Perhaps you've heard of it. Pretty cool. But here's the problem Sebastian found himself in. It's one thing to actually finish a game inspired by Hollow Knight. That's great. It's another thing entirely to publicly

state on Twitter, on social media, that the game is inspired by Hollow Knight and Silk Song. I think that's kind of risky. I mean, sure, it's great to get traction on Twitter and get wish lists this way, but is the game actually even comparable to Hollow Knight? It's kind of a terrifying thought and it's something I instantly wanted to break down with Sebastian. Did the game live up to the hype that he himself built up on Twitter? How did launch go? How were the reviews? Was the game a success? We also discuss his marketing strategy, his development process, his team, how he went full-time with just an idea and he knew nothing about game dev, and so much more. These are all questions Sebastian willfully opens himself up to and I learned a ton from his honesty. And I want you to stick around to the end because Sebastian is going to go ahead and open up Constance in Unity and we're We're to take a look at how his beautiful game was made. [music] Tell me about how this game

how the public has responded to comparing it to Hollow Knight because Mhm. Uh I guess my my opinion is Hollow Knight is it created a genre or at least expanded a genre. So, you're going to get games that are Hollow Knight-esque just like we got Metroidvanias when Metroid came out, right? So, what is that comparison been like for you and how have you Mhm. What are your What are your thoughts on that? Of course yeah, that was something that um it was there on the side all the way, right through the whole process of development. I would say it changed actually. Funnily enough, now that the game is out, I can say that the public opinion and what what people are saying actually changed. And I saw something [clears throat] similar on Crowsworn as well. When you first come up with your, you know, release trailer or your first announcement trailer, people very quickly go into the why is this exactly like Hollow Knight, right? Very very quickly you get the this is one-to-one a

copy. Why why do I want to play this? This is just a copy, right? And then when you come out actually with demos and more trailers and actually people getting their hands on the game, it's it you get a little happier because people are realizing, "Oh wait, no, this isn't actually not the same, right?" And so so a bunch of people actually forming proper opinions because they're like, "Hey, I played the demo. It plays differently and I see the differences in the art style." You will always have the people of course who will say this is exactly the same, but I can guarantee you 99% of those definitely didn't play the game. They just check a trailer. Yeah, they obviously they check a trailer and then that's that, right? And now that the game is out, mhm it's not so much on the Well, it changes, right? It's it's not so much on the visual aspect anymore. People notice that obviously it's inspired and we're doing, you know, we're we're respecting the same rules on the 2D art styles of like readability of the level layer versus what is in the background. You have to, right? Otherwise, you cannot

see what's going on in the game. But, funnily enough, that is people also see that as the art style, right? Classic example, blurry background, right? So, blurry background is the easiest thing to Hey, this is just a deco. Don't get distracted by this. But, people who see this is like Oh, Hollow Knight, right? Because this is one of the things that they did fantastic and great, right? Um Yeah, so I I guess that's that. And And another thing where it is um they they obviously they I think a very challenging thing to to kind of handle is when people then, now that they play it, that they still they have this behavior of doing a lot of comparisons now on the gameplay, right? Now, they're basically They just played Silk Song. Now, they're playing Constance. And now, the comparisons comparisons are like Oh, this boss is not cool because you didn't do this and that, right? Or why is the Why are your bosses like this? And it's very it's very easy to fall in this hole of like Oh my god,

our bosses suck, right?
[laughter]
But, but then but but then it's like you need to also trust your game and your instincts. And never forget if if the game has 85% positive reviews, there's probably also a bunch of people who actually like the bosses, right? But, this is something we read a lot. Yeah. Hey, so I asked that because I'm making a BioShock an indie BioShock, okay? Yes. And and and I have had paranoia, and I think it's justified. Uh but, I've had paranoia for 3 years. Maybe No, it's been 5 years. 5 years that this game that this game is going to be ripped to shreds because it's not BioShock, even though it looks similar to it. Were you scared about the comparisons? Like, were you Were you a little bit paranoid or did you sort of trust your gut? Both. Both for sure [laughter] scared. For sure for sure scared. Especially on the you know first demo releases for Constance. I think we did three demos.

We always went like to Gamescom with the demos. But you know the thing that was cool I also trusted what we had. I was I was always a fan of what we were doing. So my gut was telling me no you're doing something right. You're changing the right um you're changing the correct things to have something fresh, right? One of the things again talking about the bosses we we didn't do the 2D um Dark Souls inspired one-on-one combat, right? Where it's about your reflexes and dodging and parrying and our bosses are much more like the hey you learn a jump a platforming ability use it on the boss like like a a Mario Odyssey or something, right? Where it's like hey we teach you this gimmick in this biome, right? And this is all about this gimmick, right? This kind of platform or this kind of hazard. Now this boss will test you if you can handle this hazard, right? So it's a much more classic Mario approach put in a Metroidvania, right? If you

will and Can I ask you about and by the way I'm looking at Constance on Steam right now. You you've crushed it. Like in terms of like reviews you've done amazing. Thank To make a game that is like Hollow Knight inspired and it's not Hollow Knight and get very positive I think that's a very difficult thing to do to be completely honest because I think I when when I was watching you launch this game man I was expecting it to get a little bit more uh ripped to shreds. I'm being honest with you because I I just know how people are. I know how Steam reviewers are. If it doesn't meet their expectations you know and it is it is your responsibility as well to market the game correctly, right? And so it's not like it's let's say it did get ripped to shreds on Steam, which it didn't, but let's say it did, it would be partly the Steam audience is just being completely unforgiving for no reason, but it could also be that you just marketed it incorrectly, right? And you're not

telling us what the game is. And so that's that's really my next question is did you have to really be precise about how you marketed this game so that it didn't um telegraph that it was straight-up Hollow Knight? Mhm. And that's a good one. That's a good one for sure because I what comes to my mind now are like very very crazy like this was my first Twitter beef where I was actually like included, right? I never had something like that happen before.
when that happens. It always makes my stomach turn upside down. I don't like it. You it feels so you feel terrible and you your heart sinks and you're like, "Oh God, what have I done?" What like what like right? And you just it's really like you you and what because what I was doing was I saw how the Twitter algorithm went really crazy and really favored whatever I posted when I just used the word Silk Song, right? So it was that
[clears throat]
that was my golden ticket to whatever I posted hundreds of thousands of

impressions because that was the time when Silk Song was about to launch or just launched and so I did a lot of those, you know, this this is I'm sorry. It's just the the online marketing 101. It's the if you know this works and I saw it, right? It was like whatever I posted, you immediately saw on Steam that tweet 250 wishlists. That one 400 extra, right? And this this it accumulates, right? And if you see that it's it's of course a it's it's a it's you know, it's the typical social media addiction, right? You see it's but it's not for me as a person, it's for the game, right? You see, "Oh my God, the spikes the spikes the spikes." So I continue doing that and this this work it worked well for like I did this for many months, and everything was cool, and people were even thankful and like wow, and now I only discovered your game, right? And everything was good. Until I basically overdid it in some people's eyes, right? That that was when Silksong was launching, and basically my gameplay clips from Constance were also there. You know, the typical thing, hey, if you're excited for Silksong, now you

can play our demo, right? Basically, it's like hey, if you cannot wait for Silksong, play our demo. Right. I did a lot of that, and so yeah, a lot of social media action there. But, I would say overall, I think I did a good job basically marketing it as something similar and but not exactly the same, right? I always I always tried to also focus, hey, by the way, we have this, and this is how we're doing it. Like this is more Celeste-y, this is more really platformy, it's more Mario-esque, and and people could play the demo, and then you can see basically who who saw which tweet, right? If it was just the hey, play more Silksong, those those are the people who review like, but what is this? This is this is not Silksong, not Celeste, right? Where are Where are my Dark Souls bosses, right? And then, if somebody saw a tweet where I'm more focusing on hey, by the way, we're doing this different and both systems, and have you ever seen this in a right, we have the screenshot function from Prince of Persia or whatever, right? Yeah. That's the people when they saw something like that and went to Steam, I

could imagine those are more the people who are like, oh yeah, it is it is Silksong, but different. So, I got what I I got what I saw, right?
Right. Um yeah. Okay. So, you feel like you you
[sighs and gasps]
you you walked a fine line there. Like you could have gone you could have gone
[laughter]
you could have gone a little too far in one direction. I do want to let you know that when I first play played Constance, cuz I played it on my channel a long time ago, Yeah, what's that? I saw it Yeah, great. I think it was last year and um I didn't think it played or looked like Hollow Knight at all. I I I I felt like you had bloom, you had a glow, it has a glow visually. Um and then the foreground gets dark when it gets close to the camera. But like I'm looking at the art style and it just even though it's like line art it looks completely different. And then it also, to your point, plays very

differently. So, I'm just I just want to clarify that when I ask these questions it's not cuz I think it's too similar to Hollow Knight. It's just that I think I think that was a concern that a lot of people brought up. Um but you definitely walked that line well. We're looking at 86% very positive on Steam. You've got almost a thousand reviews. Wait. 871 total. It just changed. I learned about that, by the way. It just Steam just changed it. We we actually the total amount of reviews is 2,000 something. But once we cracked that 2,000, that was the moment where Steam decided now I'm going to switch it depending on the country what it's showing to us. So, now you see the thing English where basically I I saw it somewhere on Steam it says you have now enough reviews in English that we're showing those primarily. And that's the ones that you see now. Um because to be [clears throat] very fair, if you look at just this was three days ago. If you

looked at that, the overall all languages is at 82%, 83% and the English just cracked 86 now. I I think 86 where I'm very happy about it. Okay, so let me ask you a question. Um are you I I I'm going through this thing where I I'm scared. I'm scared to launch my game. Um this is my third commercial release and I'm scared. Surprise, surprise, right? Everybody's scared. Um, but I'm scared because I don't know what I I I'm having trouble figuring out what's the metric that matters. When you launch a game, is the review score that important? Is the revenue what matters? Is the play time what matters? So, let me ask you this. What what did you look at when this game launched? What did you look at to help you go, okay, this game this is this was a success. Like, what was the metric?

I feel like all the metrics that you mentioned right now, of course, I mean, the easy answer is it's a combination of everything, right? Yeah.
[clears throat]
I I personally feel, so here's here's a little bit of here's a little bit of production background. Um, obviously Constance didn't launch, as you can imagine, it didn't launch exactly the way we wanted it to be, right? It's, you know, production gets in your way. You always have to kill a lot of darlings, right? Cut a lot of content and Constance is no exception there, right? Like, during during like 1 and 1/2 years before 2 years before launch or like, you know, the rough launch window that we had in mind, it already became apparent, okay, we took this amount of time for that biome and that demo and that boss and you do the math, right? And it's like, this will not work. Let's not We don't want to crunch, you know, we want to you know, we want to try this in normal working time and we want to release it there. And so, there was a lot of a lot of those conversations where, okay, but for that we need to cut. What do we cut? And some of the things we cut, it's like, that's okay.

That's okay to not launch with that, right? With that feature or that element or but unfortunately, the more This is our first ever commercial project, right? I never worked on a game. Wow. Seven Seven of my eight team members have never worked on a game. So, it's really it's really a premiere for us. And so, so 1 year before launch, it became apparent that we need to cut even more, right? And that stuff, the stuff that we had to cut like a year before, where it's like, "Oh, actually that biome has to be condensed. This will not be a full biome like the others. We need to think about something how we can pull off this biome because we really want it. We want this biome to be in the game. We don't want to cut the whole biome because we've teased it since the first trailer. We had the assets, we had the visuals, so we're like, 'No, no, we're going to make this work, right? We're going to put this in, but it will be a little different.'" In the end, it turned out to be like a little bit like a boss rush biome. And to be honest, that is it's very obvious that this is one of the most criticized elements of the game because if somebody plays the beginning of the game and reaches this biome, it's

a Metroidvania, right? If you go there first, you're seeing a part of the game that it has never been done to its full potential, right? It's like it's like So, so and that that thing, I think, now to to loop back to your question, sorry, um is um I feel like that element and the things where we knew we had to cut stuff, they are responsible for this game not hitting a 94, 95, you know, the legendary overwhelmingly positive, right? It's like You launch the game, your fans get on it. I think everybody who launched the game has exactly the same experience, right? Your fans get on it first, right? Your Discord, your wish list, your super fans. The ratings immediately go to, "Oh my god, we had 96% blah [laughter] blah," right? And then very, very quickly reality hits, and you're going it's like percent, percent, percent, and you think you're going to settle somewhere. Unfortunately, it drops more and more, and that that was a very I hated that phase for me mentally. Oh god, it was like this

every day like this, it will stop at 89, right? Come on, 88, 80. [laughter] And it's like, "No, no, no, no, we're in free fall." Well, it is like we were it went because you know, more people see it, which is great, right? That that's the thing. Because because the initial sales were there, right? And the wish list conversion was good enough. Steam basically, hey, let me show this to more people. But then of course you get non fans, people who have never seen the game. They play it, they go into this biomes that has have not reached their full potential and they're like uh they leave a negative review, right? There's many reasons for a negative review, but I feel because of that, because of this that very quickly we landed at this 80 to 83% range. I know it from myself. I I hate it about myself, but my brain is so trained on this to to basically look at the game. Basically, I I see it launch and so I'm I am I don't critique anybody there because I'm I'm similar, right? I see a game launch that I had on my wish list for a long time. I see it at 79 to 83% and instead of saying, let me make

up my own opinion, I'm like Yeah. I'll put it let's wait for the sale. And that's that's exactly what happens, right? That's exactly This is not it's not a 95% so it's not a banger banger. So so why would I invest in it now, right? And I feel a lot of people think exactly that way. So I actually think that the the that's how I this is just a gut feeling. I have no I have no statistics on that. It's a gut feeling that if we could have launched and actually stayed on a 93 to 95 positive, I feel like that might have further increased sales and success if I I I I I think you're right. It's it's almost as if the score is irrelevant in most areas except for when it's at that 95%. Like if you're at that 95%, that's when the game is suddenly you're sitting at 20,000 reviews. Because
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
see that number, they really do. That overwhelmingly positive is a huge deal.

Yeah.
But it's so hard. I know.
hard to get. I have never hit that mark. I've I've always been at very positive. Um my games they usually are at like 89% but they don't have as many sales as your yours do. Um so I that's probably why mine hasn't gone down to to the mid-80s, lower 80s. But I know that feeling of like of like checking your phone in the morning Yeah, it's just stuff I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please God and then you look at it and it's dropped since like oh dude, when I launched the uh when I launched [snorts] the Twisted Tower demo, that was a really that for me was almost a launch in and of in and of itself. You know what I mean? Because it's like the demo, you you mentioned this earlier. You said um part of your uh development or production cycle, a big part of it is putting together that demo. You know, it's a huge part of it. And

did you launch you launched a demo for for Constance, right? I think that's what I played. Um Three three demos. Like we had to like we had two different what two different ones and then updated one. So yeah, a lot of work. In a weird way um and I want to get your thoughts on this. I I feel like the demo is a scarier launch than the 1.0 and that's because it's that's that's where the rubber first meets the road where you're like okay, is this actually good, right? Does the public like this game? The 1.0 launch, that's where you go okay, is the public willing to spend money on this? That's the next big question. So let me ask you this. Does the did the demo launch go well and did its reception correlate to the 1.0 launch?
[snorts]
Yeah, I think one thing that's that's there's there's a difference between I think the Twisted Tower demo and ours because exactly in that time frame, Steam changed a bunch of stuff,

right? So for you, you could launch the demo with the reviews and everything, right? You you could have reviews enabled and a sep- separate page and we didn't have that option. We still we we still launched as the So so funnily enough, I would say the psychological terror there was was not as big because it wasn't at this thing of separate page. Oh my god, people can leave reviews. We
[laughter]
we we So it's it's it's a it's a double-edged sword, right? Because on the one hand you know that that helps against the algorithm. If your demo lands well and you get those great reviews on the demo, then already such a big indicator. For me the demo was really very much more of a a local thing. Like I live in Cologne, Gamescom is here around my corner. So for me the demo was really like, let me get our demo, go there and have the people play in person. For me it was a much more which was That was really cool because it was a very personal thing to stand there and talk to the people. So I also feel that makes it a little easier with the feedback because people will not

behave as unhinged as they would do online, right? They They actually filter maybe the feedback a little nicer. We still got a bunch of good feedback. Yeah. But yeah, it No, I was just happy to finally get people on it, see that in person, and I didn't have the reviews there yet. So I was I was okay with that.
[laughter]
Dude, I think that I would rather get unhinged feedback. So I'm going to I'm going to push back on you. And maybe you weren't saying that, but like Yeah. I want the unhinged feedback because that's what Steam is. It's the reality check. Of course. Yeah, yeah, I know. Of course, of course. But for me as the first app No, you want the good feedback, right? You want you And good feedback is not everybody's saying, "Oh my god, I love this. When is it coming out?" No, you want to hear the Why is the jump so flimsy? Why is the dash What are the boss should do Why are you doing Right, you you want that, right? We got a lot of that still, but not to be honest, I was glad that at this point there were no reviews. I could fully focus on Let's just For me the only

metric was player numbers of the demo. It was the you know the how many people played the demo and that was that was good enough for that and I think I think the demo launch was Let me think. This was Steam page launch, trailer. We were in a little showcase at Gamescom. So the we had we went from zero wish lists to 15,000 in in four days, which was for us this was mind-blowing, right? It was like wow, this we no presents, right? No, there was no big social media. It was just organically through Steam and that showcase. So yeah, no the the demo was with the demo released we finally had this first sensation of oh we're on the right track. It was It was definitely the feedback was was good. It was It was um uh it was constructive criticism mixed with a lot of joy and excitement from people. And so that that's I couldn't wish for anything more. That was a good launch.

Yeah.
Yeah, so let's talk about beta testing. Um And by the way, all of these questions are selfish questions. I'm not Because I'm going through all of this. Yeah, [snorts] yeah. In my head I'm like how relevant is beta feedback to 1.0 launch? How relevant is demo feedback to 1.0 launch? Because I'm I'm I'm sitting here trying to look in a crystal ball and go is my game ready for launch? And I'm in that right now. I'm in like I just got a five out of 10 from one beta tester. And I'm like what is this? Is this Is this valid feedback, right? Um so my question to you is like when it comes to beta testing um when it comes to play testing were you able to kind of predict that the game was good and it was ready?

And and could you predict that you were going to land a very positive or did you have no idea? Oh, wow. So, first of all, testing for us very very big topic because we couldn't test as much as we wanted, right? To be like super open. Of course, we tested, right? We had people from the industry, right? Game designers, play testers. To be honest, from all kind of, you know, artists, animate We had We had a bunch of people test our game that we knew from the industry, right? Many contacts of our game designer who was like, "Hey, let me push this to him, right? Let me push this to her." And so, we had like these These These were our VIP testers, right? But, of course, as you can imagine, quantity matters a lot also in testing, right? And that's the thing we couldn't really go go for much quantity, right? In the end, it was time and budget constraint. So, it was a little bit like this Korea testing, right? Test within the company,

right? Because our studio is part of a bigger company, right? So, it's like, "Give the game to them." It's like, "Have it to be tested by by everybody that we could have." But, we didn't have like a a proper "Let's reach out to a QA company and do this Have a hundred people test this or whatever, right? Unfortunately, this we couldn't pull off, right? And the but still, the the testing that we did was Oh, it was so incredibly important, right? Because it it showed us a few big flaws a few pacing flaws, right? For us For us in Constance, it was especially pacing flaws, right? Where it's like, "Okay, intro of the game, tutorial, everything great until a certain point where it's like Wait a second." It's a thing that in development we didn't really notice. One person points it out. It was like a thing where it's like, "Oh, if somebody" Because again, Metroidvania. "If you play this order that means you force the people into a think it the situation was two and a half bosses in a row with not

much breathing room so right so it was like this and we were like and that's within the first hour of the game suddenly you have to fight three bosses in a [laughter] row and it's like oh no no no no and then it was it was not easy to fix right it was a huge so this was one of the big things where it was very obvious if you would have released in that state no you cannot right that was one of the things it's like we need to fix this to even have a chance to be very positive everything right
Yeah. Was this only was was this only revealed to you through through the beta test or through the play testing?
yes
your team had no idea that this was a problem until the play test. Through testing exactly right which is great which is crazy right because we have been testing of course within how many times I defeated all of these things and everything and then there was one change and that had this as a consequence which then like oh god no what have we done that change was important but it had that as a consequence so no test your game guys it's really no really important um besides that

I think to be very like we all knew there is something special here we know we all know that where where the game really accelerates like we knew that our animations are top notch right I can say that I can I I I because everybody says that there's every negative review still says okay the animations are insane that's because our animator Sumita is insane right what she pulls off in in what speed she creates those animations and how fluid they are is so this is one of the things where we knew that's great great great great we also incredibly happy with the music what our composer Tiago pulled off so we knew we have elements in the game that are amazing and great and of course there we also knew that there were some things where it's like well it's going to release with this right it's like this this will be in the release. Like this this this is where my job comes in where I have to, you know, our game designer Edgar, he he knows he's like I'm not certain about this. And I'm like, I know Edgar and if we had the time, we would do something about this.

It's one of those things it has with 1.0 it will release it because we have no time to open that kind of worms, right? And I think those elements, that nagging, you know that you're not a perfect game, right? You know that you're not going to be the 99% positive. But you also don't have to be, right? That's the That's the That's the That's That's the big thing. Um and so
I'll honestly dude, I'll remember that that sentence you just said for a long time. It doesn't Seriously, that that was a really important sentence that I think people listening right now need to fully understand. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to launch with all of every single kink ironed out. Ideally Ideally, yeah, you would. But I'm the reason I'm passionate about this right now and the reason why what you just said put a little lump in my throat is because in the beta testing that I'm in, it's started It's By the way, it's going

well. I'm I'm getting like 8.4 out of 10. And so I feel like that's pretty good. And then everybody most people are are I think I've only got one person who said they wouldn't recommend the game. Um so I'm getting good feedback, but every morning when I wake up to check my beta testing feedback, the survey, I'm just like oh, like I want to throw up. All right. Because I'll get like 10 things, 10 complaints from players, and I'm like, I got to fix all 10 of these things. But I just got 20 pieces 20 different people with 10 different things. That's a ton of stuff to fix. And so what I realized was when you just said that, what I realized was no, you don't. Not all of it. You don't have to fix every single thing that someone's upset by, right?
Um how many how many times have you played a game on on Steam where you could have written out 20

things you wished would have been different, right?
Yeah. But you still liked the game. Of course. Of course. But there's there's a disconnect I think a lot of developers, including myself, have when people play their game. If it's not flawless, we assume that they hate it, right? And that's that's not true, right? No, not really. Yeah. So, so you did you have enough time to beta test you feel? Well, no. As I definitely not. It was
that? Um well, many many reasons because the way Constanze has been financed, right? We are very very fortunate in Germany that we have a games funding, right? So, from the state from the country even, right? So, um uh Constanze has been funded by that and not to go into details, but you get money, right? And you have to pay pay some money and we were very fortunate that we again that company that we have in our back, right? Our mother company, um they it's like a half half thing. You get some funding from the state and some funding

from the the company and together this is your budget, right? And obviously, you are limited, right? It's not like you cannot we already pushed it very hard because the original release for Constanze was the the thing that was planned for day one because obviously you can imagine in the funding application you have to put a date. Yes. was May 1st, 20 or like May 2025. So, half a year sooner. And that was a thing that during production we had to talk to our boss and producer Robert, Robert, that's not going to that's not going to we cannot it's not So, if if we would have insisted on that, I guarantee you Constance would have been a mixed game because it would not have been done. It would literally not have been done. So that that would have so and that half year that we were really fighting a lot, we got a publishing partner here, a publishing partner there. So we kind of co-released this game with a company from Germany and a company from Japan. And so we we had more funding, right? And but at some point you have to, right? Like

this this half a year game, we couldn't push it further. And one of the and it was just unfortunately one of those things again, first project, right? We're learning a lot of things. And the QA part of it, you know, it has been spoken about in the middle of well like, you know, starting at like seven when the game was like 70% complete, right? It's like, "Hey guys, for the end we need like proper QA, bug hunting, issue hunting, right? These kind of things." And it was it unfortunately was just a topic that kind of fell over a little. So we couldn't we did the most necessary. We did we fixed all the big stuff, right? Um but to to be very very honest, the 1.0 launch for us in a way was more QA, right? That's [laughter] that's that's it. We can be very lucky that it was a successful as it is, right? And now we just released 1.1 and 1.1 actually fixed a bunch of more complaints. And that was the in that time we already went from 82% to those 86% or I don't know like at least the

English reviews, right? They went up. Um and so we're on a good track. But yeah, I wish I really wished That's the thing that for the next projects I would insist of course proper QA quantity, more opinions. And then it's still your job, right? What we just talked about, it's still of course your job and a big part of my job to sort them by priority. Like, "Hey, this is a thing. This is just somebody favors this. This is like something that they like, but it's not something that destroys the game or the launch." If If hear though three people point something out where it's like, "Oh, oh, this is a game feel mechanic of the dash or jump or the wall dive that we have." It's like, "Oh, and that we should look into that, right?" But somebody complaining about that we don't have an elevator get out animation, yes, I wish to have that animation, but it's not going to That's not going to kill the game, right? That And that's the That's where the perfectionist brain comes in. You for sure know that, right? It's like, "I got to fix all of those, right? No, it's sorted." Do you know what I have found

is the the best way to get a game done is to fall in love with a new game. That's for for me, that's what's really helpful. Now, obviously, it's it's probably very good in some way to have a financier breathing down your neck. That'll get a game done real fast, you know, which it did for you. You launched the game when they told you to, right? Yeah. For me though, I'm I'm looking right here at a piece of paper where I drew my next game idea down on, and I won't show it, but um I'm so done with my previous game, the Twisted Tower. I'm just done. I'm I'm getting feedback, and I'm like, "Yeah, you know, I'm going to It's like what you said. It's like it's going to launch with that. It's like, "Sorry, you know?" This those things, even though I might even agree with them as being flaws, I'm sitting here looking at them going, "It's not going to move the needle." You know? Like there might be
Yeah. I'm more relaxed. I almost feel

like it's like when one day my son, he's he's five, one day he'll be a man, he'll be 30 years old, and if he if he makes a big mistake as a 30-year-old, I'm going to be much less upset by it than if he's 12, because you know, because he's he's he's matured. And the same is true with a a game. It gets to a point where you're like, I you're not a baby anymore. Like I've I I've pretty much matured you as much as I can. Mhm. It's time to go out into the world and if people have a complaint with you with this game I did about all I could. Yeah. I I did about all I could and and it is what it is, you know. Um and I think maybe this is just coming from a place of pure exhaustion. Uh you know, being for four four years, five years being constantly worried

about this project, constantly stressed about is this game going to be perfect? And now just before launch, I'm just like I don't care anymore. I'm so tired. Let's get it out there.
Let's get it out there and be done with this thing. Um did you ever feel that way with Constance or do you do you still love Constance? Oh, absolutely. I I do actually I do, but in We also had
those conversations within the team to be honest, right? We are We are hoping that you know, we still don't have a launch on consoles, right? And we're hoping
Oh, cool. that when that goes well, so we're right now we're in the porting madness.
[laughter]
So Yeah. that that's a whole different topic, right? But if that all goes well and if the console you know, and we we can self-finance maybe some DLCs or something. Of course we wish to do that because of course DLCs for us would be the ultimate redemption where it's like now all the things that we had to
cut we can bring them back in a nice creative way. Yeah. And so this is not a DLC announcement. That's very important.

This is very we we want to do this, but it depends on console success and we will announce it when we can, right? Yeah. But um so but no, there has you know, there have been conversations in the team obviously. What do you do like as a studio, right? You have now this IP and if this continues to grow from a financial perspective it's like hey, if this continues to work, um you know, you immediately there's talks about sequels and everything, right? But then as a team you also like, "Do we really want like what exactly do we want, right?" And it is becoming clear that genre like everybody in the team loves Constance really like the character and all the story surrounding it because it's a very personal thing for all of us. She is our baby, right? Absolutely. That's right. But what we would do with her in the future that uh like you know, maybe we're doing like a Shovel Knight thing where it's like, "Hey, if we have the if we are allowed to do that, right? That we can creatively explore other genres or whatever, maybe that's something where we might go, right?" But but

mentally to tell the team, "Hey, you just worked 4 years on this 2D platformer Metroidvania or specially our programmer Leo, right? Like, "Let's do another Let's do another 5 or 6 years now [laughter] of of that again." It's like, "I'm not sure. I'm not sure, right?" So yeah, Constance, yes. Genre, we will see, right? We will see.
Okay. So what are um if you could if you could do this all over again, or let's just say for your next game, what are you going to do differently? Blah. Okay, that I need to think about that for a second. Wait. What would I do differently? I alwa- I always said to myself there have been these conversations, right? With our boss and producer where it's like a definitely next time let's not do that again. And actually one of the big things is is the QA part, right? Let's not Let's not ignore like or let's not Let's re- Of course we didn't ignore it. Let's not push it until there's no time anymore. This is This is something that has to be done Yeah. earlier, right?

Because then we might have had that and maybe 6 months more and we would have the chance to the 90% and better, right? Maybe. Another thing that that actually very specific what localization. Don't Don't underestimate localization. Holy wow, right? So that's um we work with a local Did you not localize? No, of course we No, no, no, of course we we we we localize the game in 16 languages or something. We worked together We worked together with a localization company, right? But um it that it takes so much more time and iteration rounds and implementation. We just released Arabic support in the 1.0 1.1, which is technically absolute insanity, right? Like our programmer Like Leo Leo was going like so many challenges. It's not just that the text goes from right to left, right? That's the That's your base issue. That's your base issue. But the consequences of that UI UX, oh my god. Like it's so Holy

crap. So that kind of stuff you need to plan with a lot a lot of time. Yeah, exactly. That was another big learning. Um And then uh let me think. Let me think. Uh because my my way of or like, you know, getting starting Constanze was of course out the wild west, right? I started it as a solo project. I tried to try to pull it off as a solo project. I had a prototype um and then I realized that this is as far as I can that that yeah I I will never be able to go further than this. I need people, money, time. I need a team. I did this on the side of my other job. And I was like this kind of project don't do that, right? It's like a lone uh yeah, no. So huge respect to everybody doing this solo and especially on the side of another job. Like be Take care of yourself, right? It's really really [laughter] really really really hard, right?
And I've been there. It's It's It's um

It's not healthy. It's not healthy. That's why That's why I always say, and I'm curious what you think about this, but like if you could find financing or funding, it's worth a shot. It's worth looking at because I mean, even if it's not like the best deal in the world, it and and it is risky. It's risky to to go with a publisher or to go with a
Of course. uh any any investor because they're going to hold It's like golden handcuffs a little bit. They're going to hold hold you hostage sometimes. Hopefully not. But um it's better than not finishing the game and being miserable and just quitting the project because you're doing it on the side, you know? So, it's kind of a necessary evil, especially for for for game devs um starting out, you know? Yeah. So, hey, do you want to open up the game in Unity? Of course, yeah.
it Unity? I'm going to assume it's Unity. Yeah, it is. It is. Let's take a

look here. Yeah, here we are, man. What do we got here? Welcome to Constance. Yeah, this is our our um yeah, our two-fold view, I would call it, right? So, basically on the left side we have our scene, on the right side we have how it would look in the game. And so, when I'm moving the camera here, right? On the left, you can see that you have the perspective camera on the right showing you how it would actually look like, you know, in the game if you would run around there. And um I would say, you know, as a behind-the-scenes, probably the most interesting thing is if I zoom out here, you can actually see the whole game, right? So, we have like
What? Basically, we have our program very very early on he built a system where So, those are scenes, right? So, all those squares He he basically I guess that was just something that you know, it was also his first time building a Metroidvania, right? And it was came just natural to him to like, "Let me Let me attempt something, you know, instead of putting the names of the level Let me actually try to show

the map, if you will, also in engine so we can easily like, 'Hey, I want to go to the level here up top.' And then you do that, right? And say
what That's what uh That's what Thomas Mahler did for for his He He made He made Ori. Yes, of course. But he was He was the previous guest actually on the podcast and that's what he's doing for No Rest for the Wicked. It's the same thing. Okay, crazy.
It's almost like a mini-map on top I mean, is that the best way to describe it? It's like a mini-map in the editor that you click on and it it loads up the new scene?
Exactly, if you if you will, that's exactly what it For me, it's infinitely practical. Like I have For me, it was it's very natural, of course, to work like this, especially imagine a part of my part of my job was also to do a bunch of scene decoration. So, of course, going back and forth between those rooms and basically like, "Hey, okay, so if this looks like this here on the bottom, how should it look in this room here on You know, it's it's it's instantaneous, right? It's like it's it's and you don't want to have a lot of manual work of

like, "Let me load the other scene." And so, yeah, Leo Leo did a great job in this It is a very nice quality of life feature for development. I can literally go anywhere, right? And this is like a whole different biome now. Um So, yeah, it's the it's the whole game in this screen, basically, and he
positions It's It's okay if you don't know the answer to this question, but are the global positions actually up like those sprites that you that just appeared? Yeah.
Are those sprites now the Y position's really high up there? They're actually up there? Um Or Let me actually check it if it is based on I think it's based on the room, so it should not be a
local to the room. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, it's not the it's not the 5,000 Y You know exactly. It's It's based on the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we talk about your parallax layers, how you're doing it? Is it Is it a a for loop with an orthographic camera or is it an actual perspective camera with a Z
Yeah. axis?
We did the perspective Z thing. That was actually That was actually one of the things that I wanted to do like that

because um well, it's you know, when I started the game solo, that's how I you know, that's because I'm uh when I did the programming and the art, it was for me it was the most
[clears throat]
accomplishable way of just doing it, right? It's basically without too much programming. So, I was like, let me push this back and Z parallax, right? So, of course I did it like this and so I had a bunch of um obviously I worked like on the prototype for my month. So, it was kind of what I was used to and then when our game designer came on and he's like, "By the way guys, you know that there's also this other technique. You could do it with the orthographic and you could do it by code and pushing." And I don't know, it was like it basically my program and I we were like, "Well, we have a million of other things to program and
[laughter]
I personally like my workflow like this because I it might be a little bit more finicky and more manual work and you might even miss some corners, right? Because the perspective camera will not always shows you what is going on with the dig. But to be honest, I wanted to do it like this because I think that's how Hollow Knight did it and I was like,

"Of course Hollow Knight is a reference and a big inspiration for the art style." So, I was like, "Let me do it how they did it." I That is actually one of the things I wanted to do how they did it. It's just Z layers. It's also how, you know, I was working as a motion designer before. So, for me it's a very natural to be in a software and just work in Z space after effects, right? That's where I spent a couple of years in so this is just I felt at home with this so I wanted it to be like that, yeah. I tried to do the Hollow Knight look. I did I did it last week. Yeah. I did like a a little Moss Proto Moss Proto scene. And um it it really was hard to capture that feeling with six layers. You You've got to You've got to have for me I had to have all these tiny layers where I'm pushing the Z axis to create that that diorama feel where everything

is subtly moving. Um [clears throat] and so the reason I say that is because that's best I think that's best done with a perspective camera. Um when you use an orthographic camera, you'd have to basically loop through hundreds of layers in a for loop and move them relative to the camera. Yeah.
And so the orthographic method I think is only good like five parent layers. So I don't know. I I I think I think there's there's advantages to both a perspective and an orthographic camera. Totally. Do you mind if we exit 2D mode and and turn so we can see here's the axis here? Yeah. And also yeah, I wanted to add to that. Yeah, it totally depends on your game's art style. If you're doing a pixel art game where it's like you have a very clear level layer, background one, background two, foreground, then sure you can put you can find a good way of pulling that off. But yeah, we also we wanted You can see here, right? You

can if I do this, of course you can see like some main layers, right? So for example here those windows in the back. And if I go even further, you have like a bunch of clouds. But within those clouds, you can see there's a bunch of different Z, right? Yeah. Looks like a theater play here, right? It's um uh uh exactly. The stars, the the the you know, the starry nights in the background. And but yeah, once you go here, once you go here into this into this level layer, you kind of want the subtle differences, right? Of like to basically do a little bit more of that hey uh-huh. And so yeah, I know for for me it was like yeah, I know that that variety and that that big depth I'm only going to get I'm only going to get like this, right? How often Sebastian, how often are you working in perspective mode or instead are you manually typing in the Z axis number based on your intuition. Or a good hm Does that question make sense what I'm asking?
Yeah, of course. No, of course. A very a

very good mix I would say actually. I know I am I can only speak for myself because of course our artists Vicky and Ziba they they in the end it became too much for me. I realized oh my god, I can never decorate all these rooms. So our artists at some point they were like okay, let's not just draw those assets. Let's actually also do the work in Unity so they joined me and helped me there. Um they did in the end they did most of it, right? Um and so I cannot speak for them, but for myself yeah, it's like this I I start with the Z numbers because the more you do it the more you know, okay, this is a three, that's a four, that's a 4.5, that's a six, right? Do do do do do So you start with that and then you test it, you play it and then I go into the 3D thing and if it's I would say the 3D thing I used a lot for specific cases, right? Where it's like oh oh like this thing for example here, right? You can see this this pile of books, you see that little line here, right? Oh yeah.
This kind of stuff where it's like hey, can my game actually can the camera in the game get to this point, right? So

[laughter] fixing fixing those things I like to do also, you know? And then you you know, you actually take the books and you're like ah let me actually, you know, let me let me do a little bit here. Oh, there's a oh now it gets behind that layer, right? And then it's like so for that so yeah. Both. I do both. I start with the Z
That 2D 2D game development.
[snorts]
Now that I've done all of it, I've done 2D and I've done 3D. I don't know if I want to make a 2D game again. It is it's that kind of stuff where it's like oh it looks it looks good at this angle and then all of a sudden you're like wait, what does it look like when I go like 50 50 meters up? Yeah. Can I now see the books floating there, you know?
Yeah. And so you got to get just fine tune everything whereas with 3D it's all I mean it's all there. What you see is what you get, you know.
Exactly. And then also you get a lot more I'm I'm not I'm curious if you've made a 3D game. Um.

Because. I I found that making 3D assets you get a lot more um. Mileage out of 3D assets because there's you know there's a whole other assets. So just creating a tiny little scene like let's say a forest in 3D a player is going to potentially spend 30 minutes in that scene just looking around, you know, exploring whereas in 3D it's it's much more limited, right? Yeah. So you got to create a lot more. You got to add a lot more to your game.
Tons of work for potentially 7 seconds of running through people never look at it again, right? Yeah, it. I know. It's it's it's wild. Can I ask you I I'm sorry to interrupt you and keep rambling here but like can I ask you how granular and modular your assets are? Like it is that let's say the platform that the player can walk on with the fence posts? Uh this guy here, yeah.

Yes, is that one piece or is it modular? Let's see here.
Um we have definitely we have a lot a little bit of everything in the game for sure. So this one is built in a way so this one I'm pretty certain. Has so that's a repeat thing, right? You just need to of course so this one I could I could do that with that and I'm also pretty sure I could do that so that's that one. You can do the same with the you know with the bottom one. Yeah, those are those are all repeatable so yeah, those those ones I think everything here and then these are manually placed, right? So that is actually pretty much Lego and you can just create this platform if you wanted to you can make a tinier version of that or bigger one. Now, Unity doesn't let me get this guy. But, yeah. So, we have those, but we definitely also have a bunch of like these guys. That's the That's the other That's the other thing, right? These are as you can imagine, that's not modular, right? This is This is a So, we you know, level design first and then it's like, "Okay, guys. I need

a a four unit, right? What is this? Uh Do I have a my grid my grid Yeah, a long time I haven't been here. No, your grid turned on. It did. I saw it. Your lighting? Yeah, it turned on. I'm going to use this one here on the other side here. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, which is actually not set up here. So, this is a six unit, right? This is a four one, but it's not perfectly on the grid. Um So, yeah, those ones are Those ones are obviously built for the level design. Um but, then there's a bunch of stuff that is also modular. It's like it's a It's a mix, right? This one is also a single a single asset, right? Can only be used in that size. Yeah. So, you're using a grid. Everything's on a grid.
[gasps]
That was a That was a Oh, that was a very big huge decision in the beginning. Our level Our game designer came on and he's like, "Guys, if you want this to feel good and like precision, you know, there's no way we're going to do this with Unity forces or random. Just put it there." No, no. He He designed that

stuff on paper and he's like, "You need to go You need to build me a system that I know exactly what happens when a player holds right and holds jump to the max. I need to know the number that he would end up, right? So, we had to build a whole system of like that he can basically go ahead, "I want that max jump to be exactly seven units." So, he can then design proper levels based on that, right? That was a a ton of work also, but very worth it.
a Exactly. Totally agree. That is a So, that is a insanely valuable uh piece of advice from your designer. And it's it's it is sentences like that that might make going to game design school worth in America hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Because because I didn't know that. Like I didn't know the value of a grid for a decade.

You know? And I didn't go to game design school, and I'm sure that they teach that. Um I'm sure they teach a lot of stupid stuff in game design school as well, but and a lot of it's probably just fluff. But that everyone listening right now needs to understand just how important it is to build your game on a grid. Even Even like a first-person shooter. Like Twisted Tower's built on a grid. The whole thing. Because um because it's so hard to gray box a level um when you don't know that the player can jump four units high. When you when you don't really know what his motion what the units of his motion are. You're just going to guess and check. And everything's going to be guess and check. And then you set dress on top of guess and checking, and it's not going to feel like the world is built for the player, right?
[snorts]
You cannot do 3 years of game development with just um guessing, right? You can't like uh try

to never all the time. No, that's how we started. That's how I started, and I'm very happy that Edgar came on and was like, "Guys, we're going to that's Edgar's the only one by the way who has experience in the industry." Even though even for him it is also the first big commercial game like for the rest of the team, but he was the one when he joined the team, he kind of you know, he he was like, "Guys, let's let's let's do some things actually by the book." And this was one of the you know, we're not even we didn't even aim with Constance. It's it was not supposed to look like a grid game, right? It's not like look at Celeste, right? You can see the grid through the through the pixel art, and that's great because it's the best most precise platformer ever, right? So, but but we wanted at least So, we wanted our visuals to be as organic as we can. What you know, with the we were at least attempted to have like this Celestish grid under it, right? That was the That's the combination. Yeah. And that's that's important to note. Your box colliders are what's on the grid. The

artwork is bleeding off of the grid, correct? Exactly. Yeah, exactly exactly. Yeah, yeah. The The top The top line, you know, where you actually put your feet, that's always based on on the grid. And then what happens below or on the side, well, not on the side, right? But, you know, yeah, exactly. And then you can The rest can go where it wants, kind of. Uh so, is your Are your box colliders on the sprites or are they a separate layer? Uh that's like a sep- it's a separate Let me see. Those are all prefabs, right? So, uh Unity selection stuff. Jesus Christ.
Oh, I know. It's the worst. They need to figure out a better way to select things. So, this is how it's structured. So, this is a typical 4x1 platform, and so that game object has actually all the you know, the the code the rigid body colliders, and the sprite is just the child.
Okay. I could even, you know, if I felt like, "Ah, that asset is actually not perfectly drawn to a grid." I I I could

manually here very easily, you know, sometimes you can even get away with, you know, scaling it by like 10% up or down. That's also It's also okay. Um yeah.
let's talk about naming conventions. Oh, god. Um I I see a nightmare on the left side of your screen. And by the way, I'm not insulting you. I'm just telling you that that is That is the way making a game is, right?
going to I'm just going to close everything. So, so so, even as a clean So, this is No, yeah, of course I I personally am the worst with naming conventions and this is where our programmer actually really shine. He comes from a more classical programming background. He was doing He was doing a lot of online websites, web programming, right? So, he really and he learned that and he did that for 10 years. So, he has that thing of like guys, structure, organization, naming conventions. And he kind of needed He needed to force us the creative people obey to his rules, right? And for most part, we do this, right? So, it's it's

just that, you know, if we're looking at the level layer, right? It it it's supposed to be like Look at that. Um See, there's a bunch of level assets that are there correctly in the level layer, right? And then you have these things that are prefabs, right? It's a It's an entity. It's a prefab. So, this is the This is the part of the naming convention that makes sense, right? But then you also have got You have something like Why is this not a pre and right? So, of course it's the thing that it's so hard to keep consistent over the years and Leo really tried. He really tried, but to be honest,
[laughter]
at some at some point, and this is really also just my fault and the artist's fault, at some point it was like it works the way it does and I told you guys five times it's still happening. I'm just going to ignore this now. And we go at At least we have folders. So, this At the end it was basically like, hey, the artists know how to put their art in the folders and that's fine. The programmer knows how to handle his layers in his folders as long as you're not annoying each other, like really

basically interrupting the workflow of the other person substantially, we That's how we said, "Okay, this is This is okay." Well, it's funny because I I know what you mean where it's like I've got so many more important problems to deal with than making sure my sprite's named correctly. And I I obviously in a perfect world I want everything to have a really good clean naming convention. But the truth is is that I've gotten to the point now where the way that I search for assets in my game is flying through the scenes. You know?
[laughter]
Yeah, right. I don't even look for the name. I just click on it, you know, the actual asset in the scene and I'm like, "Okay, so what's that prefab?" and I'll go find it in the scene. Um
Yeah. I would say our our worst offender for sure is our particular effects where it's like they don't even have so particular is like, you know, you search for them and you would probably search for like, I don't know, like a VFX or something and you will find a bunch of those, right? So where are they? These are scripts and

shaders and where actually here. Right? So there's a bunch of So yes, but there's also a bunch of effects that are not called VFX and they're called that they just says particle underscore and especially the worst is there's so many of them and they're not always in the correct folder. So yeah, I think this is where really, you know, what the programmer says is like, "Yeah, you're right." like because finding a particular effect I always need his help kind of like, "Yeah, that's on the boss, you know, the boss when he throws the thing from the top and then he has to go there's your effect, right?" I cannot find it. So that that's actually where Yeah, you see how important it is, right?
[laughter]
Well, dude, thank you so much so much for showing me this project. It's so cool to see. Of course. Uh it's cool to see some of my assumptions being correct and some of them not being cuz I I'm um last week I I I tried to make Hollow Knight and and so I see a lot of the same sort of methods here Yeah. in this game as well. But dude, congrats on the launch of the game. It's just amazing what you've achieved for your first

game. Thank you. You should not have been successful just statistically. You should have You should have kind of failed maybe. I don't know. Yeah. You did great, man. So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on. Um link is in the description, of course, to play Constant. It's a great game. I've played it. I love it. Feels the Feels really good. It's beautiful. Looks amazing. And anything Any last words before we wrap up here? Thank you so much for the opportunity, man. This was This was an absolute absolute pleasure and always fun to go a little bit behind the scenes. And I hope I could help somebody with my rambly. So, thank you very much.
you did a great job. Seriously, that was one of one of the best episodes. You're really easy to talk to. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. All right, Sebastian. Take it easy, bud. I'm good, man. Bye-bye. Bye.