He Knew Nothing... But Made $800,000 On His First Game (w/ Cakez) — Ep 66

I want you to imagine spending four years making an indie game and you live stream the creation of this game [music] for four years and the moment of truth comes. You launch the game on Steam and you're live streaming opening up the Steam backend to see how much money that indie game made. Imagine that moment. You've probably seen this viral Instagram reel or Tik Tok reel with my guest Cakes with a Z and he made a game called Tangy TD over 4 years. And the question is, why is he crying in this clip? And also, how much money did his game make? Was it worth it? We get into a very honest conversation about the process [music] of building this game, but more importantly, a very honest conversation about why he was crying and why this moment was so important to him. The conversation doesn't end there because, well, it seems like it's just sunshine and rainbows at this point, right? He's so excited. He launched his game. His dreams are coming true. Truth is is that the game got taken down on Steam. Imagine 4 years of making a dream game and then Steam just removes the

game. We talk about why that happened and why, frankly, cakes, I mean, he told me himself he made a major major error. We're going to talk about how to make games in this podcast. We're going to talk about how to make [music] games and make them successful on Steam, but more importantly, how to avoid major mistakes like Cakes made. And at the end of this podcast episode, Cakes himself is going to give us a update on what happened to his game. Is it back up on Steam? Is everything okay? Or did his 4-year project die? Oh, and by the way, if you want to make a 2D game, I have a game kit below. It's totally free. I actually used this exact game kit to make a game for PewDiePie in 14 days. I've recently updated this game kit from the ground up, so it's brand spanking new. So, be sure to click the link below. It's my treat to you. Download it, use it on any game you want. It's my treat to you. All right, let's jump into the conversation with Mr. Cakes. We're both doing kind of a similar thing

um in the sense that I do YouTube and I also do some streaming and my games take a long time to make. They take three typically three to five years to make and the same is true with your latest game. So, can you tell me a little bit about the [sighs and gasps] the process? It took four years to make, right? Four years to make Tangi. Yeah, I mean it it took a little longer than that. But the entire process of starting the project and finishing I would say about four and a half years and about one year before that was just little learning of of C++ plus Unity a little bit stuff like that but yeah started wanted to do it small 6 months but that turned into four and a half years. Yeah
I know. Oh yeah, I want to talk all about that and how long it takes to make games and why it ends up taking a long time. And I also want to talk about and this is just a little seed for the viewers right now to let them know that there's an interesting discussion we're going to have which is why there was a DMC whatever you call it DMC something

DMCA claim freaking DMCA claim
which four four and a half years the game goes gang busters. We'll talk all about it, how well it did on launch day and then boom, gone. It's just gone.
Yeah.
And so we're going to talk about that and and what what the what happened and how you're feeling. But can you at least tell me the process? What how you started the game? Did you use Unity? And what was the journey all the way until launch? And you can just ramble here.
Sure. I mean I started actually with Unity but not with a tower defense. I started with I wanted to make a Witcher 3 clone. So I was I had high ambitions. So
most [laughter] game devs do. Yeah.
Yeah. I saw the the movement system of Witcher 3 and was like I'm going to re reproduce that in Unity Dots which at the time think five years ago five and a half years ago was terrible. It was

barely supported. And I have I had this this thing for making things performant. Unity dots captured me because it said, well, you're going to have a lot of performance going to run very well. Yeah. [snorts] 3 months later, I quit Unity because I didn't get anywhere. Obviously, like you're not going to get a Witcher 3 clone done as your first game. Absolutely not.
Yeah. And then uh I started learning C++. Took about a year. I don't want to go into too much detail cuz like I literally just I did tutorials on YouTube. Uh tried out things myself engines using Vulcan. Something I I did a lot which was a mistake was a big reason why it took so long too. Yeah. Just doing small projects actually started with a 3D engine which was cool. I did like this typical for those the people that know that have done this before like this typical sponsor scene and then in the sponsor scene it's like a palace I guess you you do a bunch of

different graphic effects to test out your your uh yeah well your your engine and then I was like okay so I've I've tried that let's make a small little game I did a pong clone which took like two months which is a long time actually. But for me, it was fast at the time
and it was terrible. But then I was super proud and I felt confident. This was like this like you probably know the curve like you start out I don't know here then you're mount stupid you fall down into valley of despair. That's when I was at Mount Stupid and I was like let's make a tower defense game. Six months should be easy [laughter] and that's when I started
to work on it. first two weeks obviously in the beginning you make the most of your pro progress and uh that's when it started to couple of months in it started to fall apart cuz I learned so many things that I

didn't know before that's also when I started streaming which was a big reason later down the line why I was so successful got lucky but the reason ultimately why that journey took so long is because when you make everything yourself you spend so much time doing useless stuff that I wouldn't want to do now looking back because it doesn't have any in my opinion doesn't have any educational value towards what players want they don't care how you open up your window or load your files or manage your memory what they care about is can I play the game does it run fast is it cool to play is it fun to play like I see a screenshot I'm like hell yeah let me play that or yeah, stuff like that. Micromanaging things like how how do players react to this mechanic or when do I introduce this mechanics and slowly introducing the game keeping it fun but and and engaging

but not too easy and not too difficult like these spikes if you avoid those and I tend to make games too difficult but essentially uh that's where a lot of my time was spent. So, in a way, if you don't mind me but budding in here just really quick. In a way, you learned that you were focusing on stuff that you cared about as an artist and as an engineer, but not necessarily what the buyers of a product would care about. Meaning, like the game runs great, the frame rate's good, there's solid menu options available to tweak the game and make it uh play well for them, right? So, is that kind of what you mean? Yeah, essentially that too there's the the typical I don't know if you've played many HIO games, but you open up the game, it blasts your ears and you go into the options menu if it exists and there's no slider for sound. It's like, bro, you kidding me? And then you go into your stupid window settings and turn this down. Well, I bring this up

because somebody commented to me, and I don't want to derail you here, but somebody commented recently that
I was self-centered because I was talking about games as a product. And I actually believe thinking about games as a product is selfless because you're thinking about the audience. You know, they gave you money, so you need to give them something that works. You need to give them a product. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. Maybe he misunderstood and and and thought it it to be let's say [sighs] I don't know how you say that corporate speech but it it is a product in a way where where you say well what matters is not me what matters is what you think and if you decide that my game sucks then it doesn't matter what my opinion is cuz you have made up your mind
right
and and I guess yeah that's what you mean right you mean that the game is a product in a sense that enough people need to like it in order to play it. And that's where you base your decisions around. What you base your decisions

around.
Yeah. So, going back to your story, and I feel like I derailed you, so I apologize. I just wanted to get an idea of kind of Well, you were talking about lowhanging fruit, learning as a developer to focus on what matters as opposed to all this side stuff that you don't really need to focus on. I think that's where you were in your story. So, if you want to go back to that.
Uh, sure. I mean uh I can what I learned is that I should have probably like there are some people in this I guess world that hate using editors and I would say those people fall into the category of I just want to code and then barely move my mouse around to do something like that and there are people like that and if I think about the big players that have done this before which is Terraria to Stardo Valley Celeste those games have all been made in frameworks and I should have probably done that too. And that's what I learned is even if you are not a person that likes and after I've tried GDO recently

and I've tried Unity recently again and I even tried Unreal though I I still don't enjoy the process at all compared to being able to have I guess control and I I can tailor the process perfectly to my I can do it in an engine too. I just it just feels
often times you are forced you're going to use the Unity's animator system. That's how you do animations or you could get some I don't know I'm I'm not a perfect Unity guy and maybe a plugin like people always tell me oh you could do it this way [laughter] but right you're doing it the doing it the default way.
Yeah. Yeah.
But spending time on on Yeah. opening up windows, making a sound like I at one time time I I was adding sound samples together which is just stupid like why

and uh then writing I wrote a Vulcan renderer which is way too much for a 2D game. Then I wrote an OpenGL renderer cuz I could grew tired of it. Then shipping this OpenGL renderer is a nightmare because OpenGL for those that have done OpenGL especially on other systems it behaves differently on on different systems depending on what the graphics card implements as a function like it's a bit technical but like it's it's a nightmare and and then I even brought another renderer and all of this time is like sure you know a lot then but it it doesn't teach you what is five minutes of fun.
Someone starts the game, they get into the game for the first time,
they get told to move left or right or use WD and then like Noa for example is really cool where you barely have any tutorial but you figure stuff out by just running around
and and that's your five minutes of fun because maybe you have like an inage mechanic of destroying a wall and then

they just destroy a walls for five minutes.
Can I ask you really quick?
I'm so sorry. Can I ask you what you mean by five minutes of fun? Because I know what you mean, but I want my audience to understand what that means cuz I love that phrase, five minutes of fun. And it's so important.
And I learned this idea from Tim Willlets, who is I think he's some sea level at Saber Interactive,
which is the parent company of my publisher, 3D Realms. And he critiqued Twisted Tower, my game. He was like, he basically said the five minutes of fun was not true [laughter]
and I had to go in and scramble and fix it. Right. So, can you explain it really quick and then we can keep going with your story?
Sure. Sure. That's bad though. Like that's not good.
It hurts so bad, dude. It was like the worst summer of my life. And if he's watching, I appreciate him because without him being so brutal,
I wouldn't have had that urgency to make some changes, you know, and the game

wouldn't be what it is today. And I also wouldn't have the understanding of what five minutes of fun means. So, go ahead.
Well, let me try to explain as good as I can because like I'm no expert, but I would say five minutes of fun is you open up the game and the first five minutes you spend in the game make you forget time. in a way where you are immersed in the game and there's absolutely the least amount of friction possible so that the player has no way to complain and leave the game because he moves the player in the game or like the player moves the character in the game and he hates it. That's the first friction [laughter] which cuts your five minutes into 10 seconds and he's out the door already. Stuff like that. And so you spend essentially you spend most of your time on the first five minutes and then you try to go to 30 minutes or 20 minutes. Uh that's when you get your your demo. It's it's what you do in the

game that counts. You can time it or something like I guess I best thing I could do as an example. You boot up your game. It's a tower defense game. The first thing it tells you is move uh select the tower on the top right and put it on the map. Click play and then it plays and it gives you in the first minute it gives you oh look your tower has gained or you have gained enough money you could get an upgrade. That's how ballloons works for example and then like it keeps you engaged spaced out enough so it's not overwhelming. you can only get one upgrade in the first 5 minutes or 2 minutes, 3 minutes. And then you get the upgrade and the tower shoots two enemies all of a sudden instead of one. So you get the sense of progression. It's not overwhelming and and you you basically you are busy learning the game and you're forgetting time and then five minutes already over. Cool.
You know, I've I've had people and then we'll we'll get back to your story, but this is a important point that I want people to realize. I've had um students

and clients that I've worked with who who weren't thrilled that the five minutes of fun idea was a thing. Like it's almost like they were morally opposed to it in the sense that it's like well I want my my I I respect my audience and I want them to kind of like a movie, right? If a if a movie like Transformers comes out and in the first five minutes it's just explosions, it's like, yeah, I get that that is offensive to an audience member because it's like they they're smarter than that and they're more patient than that. But my push back is [snorts] in a crowded market in a crowded market like for example restaurants. Restaurants everyone has a restaurant and everyone's trying to sell their food, right? That's why you have appetizers. you number one obviously they want to make extra money but you want to you want to get them you want to give them a quick a quick reward to let them know that their food is good and that let them know that the restaurant is good in Steam we're

competing with 20,000 other games released every year you know and you've got attention spans that are tiny you know what I mean you've got to get people playing your game and interested in your game in in the first I would say first minute you know they got They got to be excited about that game in the first minute. So, if it wasn't a crowded market, and yeah, sure, if it was the 1990s where when you spend $60 on a cartridge, you're going to have to power through the first 20 minutes of the game because you paid the money and you can't really pick another game because that's the only game you have. You know, it's a different world now and you have to play by the game and the game is capture their attention immediately. It's unfortunate, but it's just the way it is. You know what I mean?
Yeah. I I guess to add to that, sell the gameplay loop or or get the game play show the gameplay loop as fast as possible uh without overwhelming the player. I think a good example of this

is al also vampire survivors. You start with I think one character. You're going to choose one, go into a mission, and then you run around. You evade monsters, right? And then it gets you immediately in there and then all of a sudden you get a level up and now you're hooked. It's like you get a chest and now you're you're playing for 10 hours.
That's right. And obviously [clears throat] you start to pump the brakes and you start to temper how how much reward you give them, but at the beginning you want to I don't know, you want to give them a little bit more than what they're going to get later on just to entice them. And so you back to your story, you kind of had to figure that out, right, in making your game. I don't remember where I heard the phrase five minutes of fun. Like we watched a lot of videos uh on stream too. Somewhere I heard that and it to me that stuck with me because it's you can treat your the development of your game as as some sort of a checklist or a goal post list where

you want to hit certain goals and you obviously start with the minimum viable product where you first like you get your gameplay loop in order. like what is what are you going to do in a game? For example, what I like to always look at is a cool example that really showed to me that could be so easy was a game called Miklon.
Yeah. Yeah. Super super kind of obscure, you know, nobody really knows about it, I think. Um Yeah.
The the cool thing is real civil engineer played the game
really.
And that's crazy. Yeah. And he didn't even he didn't even I think he he didn't pay him. He didn't maybe not even as far as I know he didn't even write him because he didn't think he'd get he get had a chance right I wouldn't think [laughter] he had a chance and he played it I think because real civil engineer is like a guy that likes to build stuff and order stuff like and in the game Miklon is essentially you it's a very simple gameplay loop you go out you collect resources you go back to your

base you use those resources to build defenses you defend at night knights throne foil essentially little a bit more than thronefall, but thronefall. And for me, it's like, okay, you how do you say that? You you gather, farm, build, defend, repeat. Maybe you get a you didn't get a reward at night, which made me angry, but should have gotten a reward at night. But that's a gameplay loop. And like, so you define a loop and then you work on the first five minutes. When you have that in order
Mhm. Then you work on 30 minutes. Now you have 30 minutes. That's a demo version. So that's how how I learned to ultimately treat my game so that the players have the best amount of experience. And you're going to spend the most of your time in these first 30 to two to an hour to two hour. Like you're always going to replay the beginning the most
as a developer.
As a developer. Yeah.
Yeah. What is the hack or the trick to

avoid the 2-year chasing your tail and getting lost in the wilderness?
Is it play testing? Is that the solution that people need to be implementing so they can avoid that?
Yeah, I say that, but no, actually, no. [laughter] Yes. Yes, but it's a to-do list essentially, like a final to-do list with a date where you're going to be finished. And I I got so lucky. I had the guy from Deep Rock Galactic Survivor. I don't know if you know the game. It's a sim somewhat big Surviv Vampire Survivors type game uh come into my chat. Asmo played the game. It's like really big game. Like they are
on par I think even player numbers wise with Vampire Survivors.
Yeah, they have 23,000 reviews.
They're huge.
Very big. Very big. Cool. Yeah, it looks awesome.
Yeah. And the guy came into my my stream and he told me, "Yeah, you got to write down a list of things, specific things

that you need to do." And that could be, for example, add the fireball ability to the fire sword. That's like one thing. Add write down everything that you need to get to your next demo. And then in a notepad for example like nothing fancy no whatever like you don't need special products for this you can just write it down in editor and then you you going to work on that list and but you before you work on the list you set a date you say I'm going to be done by the end of March 2025 and then you work on the list and you you keep that date in mind and if you if you're off by two weeks which you will be pretty sure all and [laughter] then you extend the duration, but you set yourself another deadline. You need that pressure, that deadline to get the stuff out there. And then when you have that done, when you have the the next

version out, that's when you play test again. And so it's like this this cycle of getting specific things that you need to do written down, working towards this goal and play testing and then repeating the process until you are confident that okay now I'm getting towards the release or now maybe you play test through the play test feature on Steam which you should because the demo version on Steam is actually really important because of the wish lists and emails. It's like a launch of the game. They send out emails to to everyone that wish listed the game. If you have 10,000 wish lists, that's going to be 10,000 emails sent out by Steam to to potential people that play the game. That's so much feedback. So, you're probably going to play test with the play test feature on Steam where they can opt in. And then after that, you you prepare your demo. And then usually after that is demo usually is conjunction with Steam Next Fest. Then you go for the release.

Okay. If I told you to make a task list for building a yacht, could you do that?
Uh, a board look cool. I don't know. [laughter] I could
That's the problem with this task list is that
Yeah, I know.
You know, when it's your f and this isn't me pushing back randomly for no reason. I'm thinking about the audience because they're sitting here going,
"Making an indie game, especially when you want to push a genre forward, meaning you're adding additional like kind of like you were trying to do. You're trying to [clears throat] make something
bigger than just a repeat of another game." Creating a task list with milestones is so foreign. Like, it's like what do you spend your time on and in what order do you do things?
Whatever you want. [laughter] And that's the devil's that's the devil's advocate argument for you, which is
maybe those two years were necessary for you to discover what the task list was.

Yeah. Yeah. That is unfortunately to the truth. You're going to uh even if you try to make a task list, you're probably going to make these mistakes, too, cuz everyone mostly everyone does it. Unless you're either super smart or super lucky. Uh like the developers of Backpack Battles was funny. They got asked, I don't know who interviewed them, but they got asked by the interviewer, well, what do you want to what how do you tell people to make a game? And like the wife said or the girlfriend, she said, "Yeah, make a game as big as possible. Make all the mistakes, spend 5 years making it, and then never release it." [laughter] And then the guy the the guy said, "No, actually, I was going to say the opposite. Make small games." And so, like, that's where for me there there was this validation in, well, everyone has the same problem. [laughter] We we want to make small games. We know that we should make small games. But then we make these mistakes and and oftentimes it could also be that what I think is holding many back and me too, which is I want to make the best

possible thing and I don't want to disappoint players when I bring out something that is not done yet. Yeah.
And you only really learn to avoid or to ignore that feeling when you have done or when you have released things often enough to where you get to a point like okay, I know what I need to do to get to minimum viable product and I'm going to do that. But even if you don't have any experience, what I would do if I I had no experience, what I would do now is I put pick something that works. Let's say Vampire Survivors and I change one thing. And I since I know vampire survivors, I know what I need to implement for vampire survivors. But I'm going to cancel out the things that make it too difficult for me. So I remove the cards that you can select in the beginning. I remove the million different heroes. I only have three heroes. Uh I remove they had so many collaborations with different things. Like I I strip it down to the most basic

concept. I write that down. And then I'm going to add my twist in the in the sense of deep rock galactic survivors destructible walls. And so then I only really need to engineer this destructible worlds part. Everything else is basically done for me and I don't need to have experience in game development. I just need to figure out how is was Vampire Survivors built. I'm going to play Vampire Survivors. Okay. So I need this this this. I could still make a list. That doesn't mean that it'll take 5 months only. Maybe it'll take you a year or longer. But at least you have like this this list from an example. And that's essentially how Thronefall also uh kind of started, right? They they started with something that a concept that was known which is defend your your base, defend your castle. That's not the first thing ever. And then uh because that works and and then you build your own thing. We make it minimalistic. That's our thing.
Yeah.
Yeah. So back to back to your story.

Let's let's move to launch if you if you want to unless there was more about your story you wanted to share but um your launch day was particularly interesting but go ahead. Um, I don't think there was too much. Uh, the only thing that I realized was that the closer I got to launch, the more YouTube and Twitch started picking up because it's just an exciting thing for someone being a basically as content. It's interesting content. uh making a game day 502 is boring, but game releasing in two days is really cool. It's like, oh, what's what's he going to do now? And that ultimately was the reason why the game was so successful. Uh is because I got lucky in a sense that I had people care about me and the game and the journey that they pushed the game so much buying it on release. Uh I streamed to both

YouTube and Twitch for a long time and uh I think on launch on Twitch I would have to check but I think it was 600 viewers and then on YouTube I spiked to a thousand which is I I have never seen these numbers before and that
live streaming viewers
live streaming viewers concurrent viewers. Yeah.
Yeah. That's good. that that gave me multiple thousand views exactly at the time when I needed it and uh that ultimately then catapulted the game immediately to 100 players which made me super happy but I was expecting that like I I don't want to sound I don't know
no
I was expecting that from previous numbers from previous demo versions and judging by the amount of viewers I had by the amount of of subscribers I had gotten okay so it's got to be about a 100red But then all of a sudden got to 200. That's where I was really happy because then Steam picked it up. It went down to 100, went down to 90 and then

Steam picked it up. Neo and trending. And uh that's ultimately the reason why the game got for me it was successful when it hit 32 32 30 32K in in the first 30 minutes because that meant for me I was able to make a new game. It was a big talking point between me and my wife.
Yeah.
Uh because well this journey we talked about engines and and learning to build games. But
what often times is not talked about how do you finance yourself? How do you especially when we had a family at that point with little daughter and we were married for I think two years at that point or let me check the ring. Yes about two years. [laughter] [clears throat]
Great man. We were married for a long time and and she was like, "Yeah, well, we need the money. We're losing money." Like, she had 10k saved up and I had barely anything saved up and we were scraping by less and less and less money

each time uh each month. And that was for us a such a substantial moment because it it put it it removed all of the pressure and and arguments we had at that moment. that we felt so happy and that uh like she was so happy that she started you know jumping around and I couldn't believe it and and that then got clipped like I didn't tell anyone to clip it like there were people that say that but these guys are stupid like always [laughter] going to have some some idiots on the internet but essentially that got clipped by by certain someone and he uploaded that to Reddit live stream fails and I got lucky that it didn't it removed because it technically broke their guidelines. Like there was no name of the streamer in in the title, but it blew up from there. Like then Penguin Zero played it, which is a huge idol of mine. Like I I I was

dreaming of this guy playing my game. I was dreaming it like and and he did.
So lucky. And and that's when it just went viral. Like people came into my chat. They started asking me questions and big guys made made videos clips. I couldn't keep up. But that's then when the game popped off.
Yeah. So the you're saying that the relief the reason why you guys were jumping up and down and you were crying is because you knew what was at stake. It's not that you're like, "Yay, I get to buy a yacht." It's more like [laughter] we don't have to worry anymore about what's coming. Yeah. I mean, I was financing my last uh three my last three monthly rent payments through the stream. I had to do a donation goal cuz we didn't have the money. If at any point I could not get the donation goal to hit $1,500, I was going to have to lend myself

money, which I didn't want to do.
Yeah. And uh for us it was basically this now or I get a job cuz there was no other choice. I need money. We need to pay the rent. We I I it's also a thing about fatherhood like something that I guess happened when I when we had Zoe is that you are supposed to be the person that provides. And if you can't do that in my eyes, you're a loser. And and that's how I was seeing myself for the longest time because well you can't buy your daughter clothes. You can't buy maybe you can't buy food. I always had to check the bank account. Do we have enough money to buy food? And that really pushed me to to try my best and to to get everything in order. It was actually the reason why I changed the entire game. I think it was two weeks or one week before launch. Uh the

characters were oranges. They were not human-like characters.
And I always struggled with appeal in the game. Like the game did not look from the outside like something that people wanted to play. Like who wants to experience themselves commanding an orange? [laughter]
I don't know.
It's so important, dude. It's so important.
Yeah.
Yeah. So you call that appeal, visual appeal. Um [clears throat]
and that is correct. That is correct. It's it's also something like a visual hook in the sense that you're not going to be interested when you first see the ability to play as an orange and also there's no wish fulfillment there. Uh you know who wants to play as an orange. Um but you you changed it right to to protecting an orange tree. Is that what it was or?
Um yeah. I mean, I still don't understand this concept 100% because bro works and as far as I know, that's just a freaking potato.

[laughter] I don't know how that works.
Well, is bro is it is it surviving off of um or is it successful because of wish fulfillment? Because a lot of games do really well because of wish fulfillment, right? Like for example, David Whley's game the uh which is called um We Harvest Shadows. It's it's not out yet, but the wish fulfillment is caring for your acreage, buying land, and taking care of your land. That's the the dream, right?
Um whereas Bro,
I don't know if Bro is successful because of wish fulfillment as much as it is just really juicy combat in in gameplay, you know? So, but but yeah, to your to your point, you you don't always need wish fulfillment, I think. Yeah, it's something I'm still learning and I I'm going to to try to absorb as much as possible, ask many people as I get to about this because I think that's where so many people also go wrong. they they

think they they built some cool mechanic and and in my opinion I had built a cool mechanic of of these items putting them on characters like it's essentially like team fight tactics but you have this endless possibility. It's not like in Bloons you have three upgrades and that's it or four upgrades and you choose two out of three lanes. You still have some options there but you can't say oh I'm going to add 20 projectiles to this tower because I can. Right. And that concept is really enticing for many people because it's it does not limit you and it's interesting and you can expand upon this a lot.
Yeah.
Uh but the way you present that is very important especially when all people can see is a screenshot or maybe a short clip of your game. How do you show that? And and that's been something that I've been struggling a lot with and and others do this so so well and I still

don't maybe potato is just cool combat and and being able to move around and and have all of this stuff happening at the same time while shooting 10 million guns around. That's the cool thing and that's all you need.
Yeah.
And then it doesn't matter if it's a tomato, potato, banana or whatever, right?
Yeah. I think sometimes a game is successful because of like or not success. There's a difference between successful and good, right? There's good games that aren't successful in the sense that they didn't go viral, but they're good games, right? I think if this game was called the potato shooter, it would be a good game. But I think it's successful because of the name Bro. I think it's just
Bro is a cool name.
That right there is like you were talking about presenting. Mhm.
It's like, yes, mechanically it might not be profound, but the presentation of that mechanic with that very strong hook is what captures people and creates 30,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews. Wow. Like, that's incredible. And I

think it's probably just because it's funny. So, if you don't mind me going back to [gasps] this concept of being a father as an indie game developer, I would say the majority of the people listening right now are either approaching fatherhood or are fathers just judging by my the age and also the gend.
Yeah. Yeah.
For me, too. [snorts]
And so many people dream of making indie games, but they're also a father and they they do. I I I I do agree with you and I'm not sure if you were saying it in justest, but I do agree that if you can't provide, you're a loser to a degree. It's like that's your that's your job. You know, that is the thing you're supposed to do and you shouldn't have kids if you can't do that. And you like most people should be able to provide for their kids in any way necessary. If I I mean, sweeping the streets or being a garbage man, no matter what it takes, that is my number one job. So, I agree with you. Isn't it hard though to to make indie games?

Like, would you keep making indie games if you were scraping by?
Yeah. I I would do it to you personally.
Yes. like but but the uh I guess it's called priority list is is there which is Zoe is first like my daughter is first and supplying providing for her first meaning okay if I have to get a job I how much do I need to provide so that I can make my games on the side cuz that's how I started when I I had a job as a web developer and I would wake up at 4. I would do two to three hours of coding. Then I'd go to the gym. Then I'd shower after the gym in the gym and then you go to work. You get home at 5 or 6 and then you're there for the family. And usually you don't need to uh

be there at 4:00 a.m. cuz they're going to be sleeping. And so then you just That's what I would do then. I would still make games because I really love making games. I have big I don't want to say ambitions, but my lifelong goal is to make a game like Gothic one, which is what I played as a kid.
Uh it's a series that was was made by a German developer called Pyanabites. And uh these guys recently had to close down, which sucks. I want to make a game like Gothic one. a small not small but [laughter] let's say compact cuz that's that's something that's been lost in my opinion RPG game where yes you have an open world but the open world is so compact and filled with stuff that a smaller team or person can make it
alone or with help of an artist and maybe one additional person uh because

you don't need to have this vast just empty El Ring Richard 3, you you need a horse, you need teleports, and the only reason you need that is because the game's so big, takes too long to run, it's boring. But if you have a compact world, and especially Gothic one did that very well, and Gothic 2, then you don't need that. And that's what I want to do. That's my lifelong goal. And I'm I'm currently I see myself as as learning or getting toward getting ready for that step. So that doesn't take 10 years, but maybe four years. Like not that long. I don't want to uh four years is a long time.
I know, dude. You don't I don't want to I don't want to discourage you, but that's what I said with my first game. I spent five years on it and it it made good money
and I said, "I'm never doing that again." And then I kept doing it again and again and again. And so my third game, yeah, right now it's I'm on I'm almost at year five, I believe. And I

sit here dreaming and maybe you do too. You dream about, okay, this is the process for my next game. And it's going to be compact, like you said, and tight and focused.
And my hope is is that you and I both learn like what's unnecessary in game development so that we don't chase our tails like we did in the last game, you know? And I I think for me, I've found my voice. Um, and I found that my voice is what sells my games. So, for me in particular, I know that story and mood are the things that people care about with my games. And if I try and focus on some crazy interesting mechanic, that's not my skill set. And that's what I tried to do with my last game. With my last game, I tried to be someone I wasn't. Um, and now I know that no, I just need to focus on what I'm best at. And I'm I'm getting too old to be unique at this point. I just need to do what I understand and

know. And so I think with you, you know, I wonder if there's I wonder if there's something you've learned about Tangi that's like this is what I'm good at and and this is what I need to focus on, you know? I don't know.
Just a quick question though um about your game.
Mhm.
I recently saw I didn't watch the video yet. I saw like update on on Twist to Tower and for me your game uh I hope that's not something that offends you but for me again your game looks like Bioshock is the moment I see a screenshot like okay it's Bioshock right
is that intentional
yes
okay that's good
why you ask curious
no because because again like I was I was doing let's not say yeah let's say research I was trying to figure out why people are people why games are appealing and then I was like wait so your game looks like Bioshock there's probably a lot of appeal there that's why people go and wish list the game right and so that's essentially it like

I'm trying to figure out okay so why is this game getting wish list and my game is not okay so [laughter]
exactly
the reason the reason I was able to get wish lists is ex you use the word lucky with your game I'm lucky that I have an audience I I mean, that's why my games get wish lists or at least now. In the past, I had to get wish list. I think Pinstripe, my first game, I think it launched with 16,000 wish lists and I didn't have an audience then
and that was tough.
You know, that was tough to get there.
That's a lot of wish list.
Is it?
Yeah. [laughter] I had I had 700 wish lists over two years and and like one player at most in the gym. I was like, "Oh, that's not going to happen."
Well, what' you launch with, if you don't mind me asking?
I launched then with 5K. I got got 1K in Steam Next Fest and then I I tried pushing again YouTube streams and Twitch streams and I I put up a link every

stream. Go wish list the game
and I ended up with 5K or something.
Yeah. not not good enough to be in popular upcoming but
but dude you launched in like it blew up and that's that means that you weren't lucky [laughter]
that means I mean that means that you made a good game
I think the game's good that it's fun yeah
yeah I I I'm sitting here with where people talk about privilege I know I'm privileged I I I know how to talk to a camera and I know how to pretend to be cool and interesting but the game. I I my my my suspicion about my game is that it's going to launch. It's going to do fine. It's going to get good reviews from my audience, from my my people who like Thomas. I don't know why people like me because I think I come across cocky, but people like [snorts] me. [laughter] People like me and they're going to leave a positive review. And then what's going to happen is this is what the Constantine developer told me or not

constant
gamers are going to come. gamers are gonna come and they're gonna go, "This isn't Bioshock." And I'm gonna go,
"Yeah,
I know. I know it's not [laughter]
I know it's much smaller than Bioshock and I couldn't afford to make Bioshock, you know." Um, but that's okay. That's okay. And and to the reason I brought all this up is I just wanted to say I don't know if audienced game development is a problem. Meaning Cakes makes games for his audience. Big deal. That's not luck. That's a strategy. That's how I honestly think that that's the future of game development. 20,000 games released a year. Let's start building our own little islands, our own little ecosystems of players who like our games and our styles and they support us during development and then we release games to that audience. I don't see that as luck and I don't see that as a problem or a bad strategy. Um, do you know what I'm talking about there?
Yeah, I I see what you mean. though. I I I I got to be honest. I kind of still

did the game I wanted to to make.
Oh, sure. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about your audience supports the game as you make it
and then they show up and review it for you and
potentially even leave bias.
What's that?
Yeah. Biased. And they were very positive. Yeah. Yeah. I was at 99% the first I I don't know 100 200 reviews, 300 reviews. Yeah.
And then the gamers came like game's too difficult or [laughter] I hate that or what is this and it's like dropped down but it kind of leveled at 91 92%.
And they they came in so hard and so fast that they even gave you a DMCA claim.
What is that? Was it them or was it some other game? Do you want to talk about this?
Yeah, sure. I mean, it's my own fault. First and foremost, like this is entirely my fault and could have been avoided if I was not lazy. Uh, essentially, I wanted to have a goblin in the game, and I I don't even know

what I was using before, but I wanted to have a goblin, and I tried drawing a goblin, and I sucked. So, I went to Google, typed in goblin pixel art,
and then clicked through a couple of images and then I landed on the goblin that was originally the goblin of the game that actually inspired my game.
Kind of funny.
So, by by, you know, clicking through through YouTube images and then clicking on similar images, I saw this goblin and I was like, hm, I like that design and I made it too similar. So I I I took literally some pixels they had and I did the same order of pixels and pixel art is
pixel art right here then you pixel there it's the same but there's not much room for interpretation
I know
and yeah I made it to similar and that base goblin is what is shown in the trailer and I think either it was an AI that picked up on the trailer and then

cuz AI Hi, let's just sc the internet, sees something similar and tells them uh or it was the fact that it went viral. But if like we we are now past the viral curve, it's it's slowing down or it's it's slowed down and found a baseline. I I think it it must have either been AI or or they just saw it by chance and then they were like, "Yo, you you can't put our Goblin into your game." and then they DMCA strike the game through Steam. The only thing that I would have loved to have the opportunity to do is like you could have contacted me first. That's what Steam says as well. Try to resolve it before doing a strike. And uh but I take it. It's fine. Like I'm losing money now. But it is true. I did not make my goblin look too different enough from what I used as as inspiration to draw it. I still think

using Google as inspiration is a good thing because often times we don't know how to draw certain things and it's it's literally Adam Cunis is a big one like he uses references to everyone uses references. However,
you gota do your own thing
and that's something I learned from this. I think
yeah,
my opinion is I think it's an honest truly an honest mistake. And the reason why is because you're not you're not an idiot. You know that copyright is a thing, right? So it's not like you're like sitting here scheming, how do I steal this goblin and nobody knows? you know, it's not that you probably got too excited uh and or or too too too inspired. Like for me, uh I woke up in a cold sweat one night when I realized that the silhouette of my games Twisted Tower Castle, which is

the castle you climb,
it was too similar to Disney. And I realized, oh my word. Oh,
you don't want to get hit by Disney. [laughter]
So, if you look at the the the you look at the tower silhouette, the 3D version is fine cuz you're looking at it from the base and it looks very it almost looks like something out of Batman uh like like um Gotham
and I woke up in a cold sweat and I realized, holy crap, I'm going to get sued. So, I scrambled to re because I had a milestone I had to hit for like a year ago. I thought I was going to launch a year ago, which is not what happened, but I thought I was going to launch like in two months. So, I was like, we got to change this. So, I contacted my publisher and everything and I made a huge change and actually the design of the tower is so much better. Anyway, but um point being, I look back on my thought process when I put together that tower and I had my artist put together the the the the

castle design. And what I was thinking was, I want people to feel like this is a Disney park. I want people to and I kept having players say, it doesn't feel like Disney. It doesn't feel like, you know, nostalgic. I don't get it. I don't get it. So, I kept tweaking the tower design until it looked like a Disney castle. And that's the problem is my motivations were overriding my better moral judgment. You know, your motivations are I need to save money. I'm not a very good artist. Let's just take inspiration and and and go from there. And so, you can find yourself making these kind of mistakes based on just practicality and also trying to to hit a a certain visual flare that you need. And so I I I feel lucky that because nobody said anything. It was just me. I just woke up realizing, "Holy crap, this is a huge problem." Um
I mean, it definitely sucks when the game's out. I think when Okay. When your game's in a demo version, surely you're going to be losing wish lists or because

you're not gaining any when the app's not not available.
Yeah. Uh but yeah, it sucks that you you really can't do much other than change the design if you don't get sued. That is
which I I don't think I will cuz they are in Japan and I'm in Germany. So I I don't think they will do any otherwise I think they would have done already.
No,
you just wait. You you change the design. You wait and hopefully they tell you it's all good. However, that being said, I'd rather have this meaning that they all look at this at a human level than some AI crap that then I have to go through 10 times telling them the same thing and they keep telling me, "No, no, no. I I'm so l we are lucky that Steam still is so much human operated there."
Yeah. Otherwise, they would just kill the game, you know? The game is just dead. What What's the plan, man? Like, okay, first question. Can I ask you

this? And you don't have to answer. How much money have you lost because of this?
Uh how many days? I I think it is almost 10 days now. Let me check real quick. 20 to 30k.
Yeah,
this is quite a lot of money.
Yeah. In terms of here's here's my theory and and you've probably thought of this. You're going to make more money because of the marketing beat you can create from this. I I'm thinking about it to to make a video.
I I think you should.
I think I think the way you just described how [laughter]
that's gonna make me look like a dumbass.
No, it's of course you copy stuff from Google, bro. Are you stupid?
Do you know it's it's okay to be a dumbass as a solo developer because you are a dumbass. [laughter] We I mean I say we in the sense that I've made games solo before. My current game is a team project, but of course you're a dumbass. like you're you're doing everything you can to do

everything, including the the pixel art. You're [snorts] going to make dumb mistakes, man. And so that's start your video with that. I'm a dumbass. Um and thank you guys. And and this is an honest mistake. And and I did deserve to have this removed because I wasn't even thinking. And then and then say, "But I've done everything I can. and I scrambled to make the changes and um here's a link to the game. [laughter]
Buy the game. I need 30.
Yeah, I think it's a great marketing beat. I think I think a lot of indie game developers don't realize how they can turn a
a mistake. I get it. I get it. If if there was like a world where I was one day I was laying in bed just thinking about what are what are my options. Uh, and obviously also being sad about the situation and and I thought, well, if if I never get my game back cuz that's

something I thought honestly could happen.
Oh man,
I would need to make a video that that would be so stupid because of one image cuz it's literally the idle pose, right? That's one image and then turn to idle pose and do up boop boop up down up down. That's literally just shifting it up down,
right? And everything else I did myself. I did the animations myself. I did the the equipment myself. Everything is is done by me out of my own like inspiration. I would have made 100% made a video on it and tried to draw as much attention to it and maybe even made like a second Changy defense app or something if Steam would permit it. Like I would have to ask Steam with obviously the change design then. But it looks like they are going to review the changes and then tell me, "Okay, that's different enough. We're going to reactivate the app."
Yeah. So, are you in contact with Steam directly at this point?
Yeah, you get an email. You get an email

from the DMCA team of Valve and then you go through the email chain with them, which it does take like the only thing would would love to have it a bit faster, but I I can also understand that probably they have to to deal a lot with a lot of stuff. So,
yeah. Have you um been able to make the fixes on your end?
Yeah. Yeah, I know. I I changed the design. The first two hours was already changed.
Yes. [laughter] Uh every single go in the game was was different. But then they got back to me and told me, "Well, that's not different enough." I was a little sad about that cuz I think I did a good job. But then I did another rework and I completely made it different. And now now it's even now it's so different. It should be fine. I'm I'm still waiting on that answer, though.
I I think that um to make a game and release a game in and of itself is an a monumental feat. I mean, dude, even if you released Tangi and it got like mixed reviews, as a game developer looking in

on that, I'd still be like, "Great job." Like, that's tough. And and and you learned a lot and you're coming down from the mountain and saying, "Hey, don't go this way. That's the wrong direction. Go this way."
You know? So,
yeah.
Okay. Well, I think that's um maybe if you come on another time, we'll have time to open up your game, but I think we're we're I I kind of have to I have to pee, so
that's okay. [laughter]
Well, dude, you're awesome, man. Thanks for coming on. Um link links in the description hopefully for Tangi um the new version on Steam. So, click below, guys. Check check check it out. for anyone interested what happened. Here's essentially how it went down. This is the goblin that was infringed upon. And this is the image from the original game that had the goblin in it. And this is the goblin that I had been using. So, it's essentially the same goblin. And yeah, I should have done a better job at making it look different. So, yeah. And then I received a DMCA strike from

Steam. Well, not from Steam, but Steam sent me the mail that the original owner of the sprite filed a DMCA claim against this particular sprite. And well, I had to change it. And so then I went ahead and tried to change it this way, which was not accepted because it still looked very much like the original. Well, I did try my best to give it a different head, a different weapon, shield, and stuff like that. That was not enough. This is the second version I tried out. This was entirely done by me. You could argue that the feet look a little similar and the pose is still the same. It was not accepted essentially, which sucked a lot. And always this you have to keep in mind that whenever I do make these changes, I can do them relatively fast. Takes me about a day to do so to get everything in the game done. But then I have to wait on Steam because obviously they have other things to do. They don't just work with me. And so it takes like a couple of days, two to three days, maybe 4 days. If there's a weekend, you don't get an answer at all. And so,

yeah, this was not accepted. But finally, this version right here was accepted. I redrrew the entire goblin, made it bigger, a bit thinner, gave it a hunchback. I still kept the head. I like it a lot. And I still give it a club. And to make sure that I don't get strike again, I also gave it a sword. And that's currently in the game. But I think they are okay with me using a club, too, because it's essentially just a basic weapon. You can't really DMCA strike that. Anyways, yeah, that's essentially how it went down. And again, thank you very much, Thomas, for letting me shout this out here. I really appreciate that. And thank you again for inviting me. I appreciate it a lot. And I wish you good luck with your own