His Dream Game Flopped... And Then Made $200,000+ In 2 Months (w/ Mateo Covic) — Ep 71

Imagine spending several years on your dream game and honestly, you're frustrated because it doesn't seem to be gaining any traction on social media. Whether it's your screenshots, your videos, or your Steam page, nobody seems to care about this dream project that's taking years to make. So, you take a break and you quickly just release a friend slop game that took you a couple months to make. And frankly, you're shocked. Suddenly, this friend slap game that took 2 months to make explodes. It goes viral and you make hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it wasn't your dream game. So, what should you do? Are these the kind of games you should make? Well, this is what happened to my buddy Matteo Chovic. Not only did his friend slop game, Paddle Paddle, go viral and bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a couple months, but Matteo was also nominated for 30 under 30. and he now makes indie games fulltime and he's just in his early 20s.

Matteo chats with me about exactly how he did this and why he still also wants to make larger games despite making small friendlop games as well. He talks about why some of his other games flopped and how you can avoid this and also how to get a publisher with just a demo. He also talks about how to get streamers to play your game. I was shocked by his advice here. I'm actually going to take it for my own game and why Friends slop and also polished bigger games all actually have a place on Steam and why you should potentially make both kinds of games. This conversation was absolutely amazing and I learned a ton from this young hypertalented developer. Matteo, you're fulltime now, right? You're full-time making indie games. How long was the journey to get there? like how long did it take you to go from like I started making games all the way to going full-time?
I think it was almost five years because I started in 2020, so 6 years ago. But

um I'm full-time now for almost a year. So, ever since Pediped came out like 10 months ago, I decided to take the full step and just go full-time because before Pedal, I had not many successful games. I think Maxis Adventure was my first game that was like a commercial game. Before that, I made like 14 different prototypes and mini games and game jams, but um after Ped came out, I decided to just take the risk and go full time.
Yeah. Is that was that much of a risk for you though? I mean, you know, you the game did pretty good, right?
Yeah. It's not a big risk, but I like to um have like a safety net, you know, so I'm really I'm really um afraid of being like uh poor when the game stops to do to that way, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. I I I totally agree. Um, in a weird way though, it's risky having a a job though cuz they can
I mean in the United States they can just fire you whenever and then it's then it's over, you know.
Yeah. I think in the in the games industry the job thing is really hard.

It's really difficult and there are many layoffs in AAA for example there are like um I think layoffs every day or every month. So, it's I think it's way way less of a risk to be full-time indie because you can you are your your own chef, you know, you your own boss and you cannot really fire yourself.
That's right. That's right. And you know what you put in you you generally get out, you know, and and I want to talk about that. you know, 5 years of putting in the grind and the effort and frankly it sounds like you didn't really get the results you were looking for until paddle paddle paddle, right?
Yeah.
Can you talk to me about that process and kind of like that 5-year journey? Like how what did you work on? What was your schedule like? How did you feel? What was the dream? Just take me through the whole journey. Yeah, it was um I started out by be making games like only because I love to make games because I just loved because of Maki Drench was developed. I just love to build this

world, you know, because Maki is like my um nickname. So my parents I'm Matio, so my parents gave me the nickname Maki and Maki is kind of like um because I love sharks and pixel art. Maki is kind of like a game about myself like in a weird way, but it's was a really personal project, you know. So um sharks are my favorite animals. I love Pixar. So, I decided to make a Pixar platformer with sharks. And this game was really something big for me. But I think back then my whole mindset was different because I was 17 years. I I was in school back then. I had like not not [clears throat] much um like pressure be like above me. So, I was just expected to bring home back grade like good grades in school, you know, and not like um money from working, you know what I mean?
But back then, I just made games because I love to make games. But now when I'm like 23 years old, I kind of have to either work or make it work out with game development because I kind of need to make money right now because I'm not in school anymore. So I had to like shift from making games out of fun to

still making games out of fun, of course, but now I have this like financial thing in my head all the time.
Yep. Yep. Now, did you feel was it upsetting? This is this is a this is a personal question. And I've been curious about it for you. Paddle, paddle, paddle. You you you made it's paddle paddle paddles. Three paddles, right? Yeah. Paddle paddle [laughter] paddle.
You made that game so fast, right?
Yeah.
And then Mackey's Adventure. How long was that? How long did that take?
From the game idea to the Steam launch, it was two years. So after that, I made one year of post-launch content, but three years overall.
So you made your dream game and it did okay. I mean, pretty good. pretty good for like I guess anybody making an indie game, but like paddle paddle paddle blew up and paddle paddle paddle was friend slop and it took very little time. So you've made your dream game and you've made friends slop. One of them performed

better than the other. So the first question I have for you, which one did you which one do you love more?
Um like um Maky's Adventure is out so I don't really feel anything with the game right now because I'm finished. Like of course the game was a really big part of me like um I was not sleeping well when I had like bugs in the game for example because back then my games were kind of my children and I really had this like a personal connection to my games but right now I really start to treat like a business because I pay taxes so half the money goes to the German government. So I really have to he more like I make products and my games you know. So um it's not like my children anymore but more like my I really want to make the customers the players happy you know. So I still really want to value the whole craft of the game, but I don't really feel that personal connected to my games anymore. So I think Maky's Adventure was still my favorite game.
Yeah.
But Ped is a game that I like I just love my life right now because I can live from game development. I don't have any pressure, don't have any like fear of not having money. I just love the

current time of my life.
Yeah, that's great, man. For me, um I'm in the opposite side. So, I have burned through all of my budget for my third game. I have no idea if it's going to launch and do well. I I I have no I have an idea if it's going to launch, but I don't have an idea if it's going to do well. And so I'm in this sort of like kind of in this like terrifying position where you're you're you're burning through savings or you already have and you're hoping that the game does something and this game took me five years to make. So my question for you is when you released and Macky's Adventure, Maky's Adventure was released before Paddle Paddle Paddle, right?
Yeah. when you released it and it did okay, was that disappointing to you? Was that hard for you?

Um, like the first I think I got really um it was not a really like tough time but it was a really um not satisfying time because the game get got great reviews like people loved the game but it didn't get the reach like it was a niche game. It was a platformer game of course and the steam is over saturated with platformers. Metroid vanias and like pixel is always also not the style that people want to see right now I think because people like to see realistic graphics like um high poly games and low poly games or like pix games are not really popular but um I was still happy because the game like people stream the game people made content for the game people enjoyed the game and my my job was done you know because people enjoyed it.
Yeah. So then you decided that you were going to make a friend slop game.
Was that not quite? Okay. What do you mean?
Uh like after Maky's adventure, of course, I spent one year to make a level editor. So I was still not done. But after this, I decided to make a rogike game. So be before Pedal Pedal, there

was a rogike game called Rogue Jungle, which is like my like big project for the next years because it's like a mix of Hades um and the dungeon and all my favorite rogike games. But um this game is still in development. So, I still plan to release it somewhere this year. Wow.
But it was in development for one year before Pedal came out or Pedal was developed.
Yeah, dude. So, you're just putting all of your your effort and your time into these bigger games and then you decide to make Paddle Paddle Paddle and it blows up, right?
Yeah.
Can you tell me like for for folks listening right now who might want to make a friend slop game, like how did you do that? like how do you it's I know it's kind of a weird question because everybody assumes making a friend slap game is easy and it's fast and you just do it but I'm sure there was some intention behind that maybe some prototyping like what what was that process like and and how did it compare to a bigger game um like your previous

two
yeah the whole development was really spontaneous so I didn't have any plan I was just taking a shower in the morning in March and then I thought about a ped trip that I had with my brother so it was kind of like a really spontaneous idea of turning a co-op game into a pedal pedal game, you know, and um I quickly made a prototype to just see how it feels like because I like to make a really quick prototype and
just make the bare mechanic in the game like the pedal mechanic. One player press space and the other maybe A on the controller to pedal, you know, so a really really simple um logo co-op mechanic back then. And I decided to make like only Unity default cubes and make the characters out of like miximo rigs I think it was still back then. So, I really slammed together like a really barebone prototype which like represents the game mechanic. But then I posted this because I wanted to share it and with my community and this post blew up back then for me it I think it had had 70,000 views on Twitter which were great numbers for me. The Tik Toks got 200,000 views. So people really enjoyed this

mechanic and um I got many ideas from them. So I think you once said that a good idea spawns many other ideas on top of it. It
does. Yeah.
And this game definitely did that. So people said make it a co co-op game online multiplayer add this mechanic and that is this mechanic. So people really had many ideas for this ped game and I decided to spend like two weeks to make a demo because I like to of course people were hooked by the game play but now I have to look if the game itself is interesting. So if people enjoy the petting mechanic and not only the trailer you know so I decided to make the demo quickly. I recycled assets from Maky's Adventure. Like the water shader that I made is from Maky's Adventure. Like the stones, like every 3D model in the environment is from Adventure. I only made the like pedal guides, the pedals, and the boat myself. And uh the other things I made, I think two years ago for Adventure back then because I really wanted to fast up the development cycle for the demo. And then I made like um there's a thing called Unity Foden. And Foden is like a like a multiplayer

network solution for Unity games. and they make a really good job at giving you a kind of like a sandbox to play around with. So I got the multiplayer done in I think one or two days for the game and the game ran ran perfectly. No big delays like the game felt smooth and I was like I can release a demo already after one week of development. It was crazy.
What?
Yeah. It's
Did you?
Yeah. The game came out, [laughter] the demo came out two weeks after, but the demo was ready one week after because I had to wait for the Steam page approvement and stuff like that.
I feel so old and stupid, man. Like, I do I feel like the older I get, the more I'm feeling like I don't understand this new way of making games. It's not the only It's not the It's not the only way to make a game. like you could still make a game and I'm sure you will make a a long long game and release it like a bigger game, right?

Um but seeing seeing or hearing you say it took you a week to make a demo and just it blowing up like that, it certainly makes me jealous, but I I I know I just know how valuable those ideas are. like you and and you're not lucky because you you had that life experience with your brother and then you realize that you could capitalize on that life experience and turn it into a game.
Yeah.
Um but in a way, I've talked about this in the past. It's like that idea, it came in like the weather and it it came over your head and you're like, "Oh, there it is. There's the idea." And you took it and you did something with it. Imagine if that idea had never come, you know, when you were taking the shower.
Yeah. If I have not taken a shower this morning, I maybe [laughter] have never made P.
And I think a lot of friend slop games come about that way. You know, they're just really quick um strange ideas and you just put them down into a prototype

and you see if it works.
Um
yeah,
let's talk about prototyping. Mhm.
Can you give can you give folks listening right now an idea about the value of prototyping and maybe how you're going to approach making games in the future as it pertains to to prototyping? Yeah, I think it all starts with the game idea, but if you have a game idea like pedal pedal with the two pedal guys, you really need to make like a play playable version like a really small level or like um maybe for pedal it was a really small level I think of 1 hour of gameplay but people played it in 20 minutes. So it was like 40 I think a good prototype or demo should have something like 30 minutes of gameplay because they don't want to give too much but you also want to like to experience maybe like a quarter of the experience. you know what I mean? So, um you really should evaluate how much you want to give to the player because in the end they need to buy the full game too. So, you cannot really give them everything

but only like a good um taste of the full project product, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Um do you have to do you have do you have to put artwork in and music and and sounds in a prototype?
I think you don't need to. I think it's okay if you kind of have like the game mechanic in like but it depends on your game because ped pedal was like a game gameplay based game. People don't care about the graphics there. The graphics are more like supporting the game play. So if you have a silly idea like pedal pedal, then it it's worth it to make like a silly graphic style, you know, outline characters, big eyes, um maybe no mouth, like big noses. The characters should look silly because the game is silly, you know. But if you have a more serious game, then maybe the is definitely more important like to have like better graphics in the prototype because it should definitely like make players um give them attention, you know, on social medias because if they scroll past your like like prototype footage, then they should be hooked in

some way. For pedal, it was kind of a mechanic, I think, because this ped mechanic like I think there was not many indie games or games in general on Steam with a ped mechanic and pedal boat. So kind of the mechanic I think was the twist of the game and adding this because I I think back then carry the glass chain together this co-op games are really trending on Steam. So I decided to make like my own co-op game out of this out of this mechanic but make it a pedal mechanic you know. So it was more like a trending trending game genre right now and I decided to make my own twist on top of it.
So you felt did you feel like the multiplayer wasn't hard to incorporate? Not really like with FON like FONT gives you a lot of functions. They they host the servers like in different regions and you kind of like I think I had to write maybe 10,000 lines of code additionally like for the for the like server rooms for matchmaking and stuff like that for kicking players for inviting players for joining but it's it took me like less than a week to make the full demo. So I think for my new game right now it took me two hours to

make the multiplayer in. Have you have you seen a lot of indie games that are multiplayer games fail on Steam?
Um, right now indie multiplayer games are really trending. So, right now they are definitely winning on Steam. I don't see many games that fail, but right now the I think the most successful games on our multiplayer games like Peak for example, Repo, there's like a new game which is kind of like repo but with pirates, they are all multiplayer because people just enjoy a fun game, a fun cheap game to play with their friends. Well, okay. So, the reason I ask is because sometimes I'm not going to say which games, but I've seen a few Friend slop games
and a few of them just tank, like absolutely tank on Steam. And I'm not saying I'm not saying that friend slop games tank. I'm saying there are a few that do. And so, my question for you, because I'm I'm terrified of making a multiplayer game
because I've seen like the horror stories. Um, I think it's okay to say it

at this point, but like, um, Cuffbust really had a hard time, you know? Um, and I'm sitting here going, how do you avoid that?
And so, I'm curious for you, like,
if you're making a friend slop game, you you you want to spend as little time on it as possible, or at least you want to you want to you want to have fun with it. You don't want to have too many, you know, realistic assets. Um, you don't want to go crazy with the art. But there are some things that you don't want to screw up and that you you you don't want to be lazy with. So I'm curious in your mind for the people listening if if I was to make a friend slap game, what what's absolutely necessary and really important to put into those games and what's not that important that you can be quote unquote lazy with? Mhm. Like um my game my previous game story bro was also like a multiplayer friends of game made in one month but it also failed. So I can say that my games also fail with multiplayer. So it's not really [laughter] about winning every time but

it's about I only lost one month and the game made out the one month. So it was sold about about 5,000 times already and it made my development cost in. I think it got me $20,000 in net revenue. So I'm really happy about that. But the game did way worse than ped pedal because I just made it in four weeks and didn't really care about marketing. I released with 2,000 wish lists overall. But I kind of really converted. I don't know why, but I I also like I made an email email outreach with 2,000 emails to content creators I think one week one week before launch. So I kind of decided to save public. Yeah. Yeah. 2,000.
I'm writing that down. That's crazy. I I have a goal of 500 uh for my game. But you how did you get 2,000 email addresses?
Yeah, I have a long email list and I really decided to because I searched for pedip creators because pedip petted is kind of the same like um energy, you know, because they are both silly games. C story bro is more like about writing cool and short stories about four random words. So it's more like an
maybe something like um how is it called

again? Liaspar mixed with like an story writing twist. But this game was more for like party party game enjoyers for example. So, I decided to just email every big content creator who played Ped Pedal and my maybe my other games too. But I have like a long list and I have I think I I think I have four lists but I I combined them all and send out like a big email outreach with it's called Yam or Jam YM. It's like an email outreach tool by Gmail. So, it was really easy to send out 2,000 emails.
What is it called again? What is it called?
YM. So, Yam I think it's called.
Okay, I am going to get on that. Let's hang tight. I want to talk marketing strategy. I really do because you have a you have a brilliant head on your shoulders
and I wanna I want to steal your knowledge. So this phone this this uh call this podcast is actually a a consulting call for free for me. So thank you. Um
welcome. [laughter]
I uh I I wanted to know though what you said cool story bro is the one that didn't do as well, right?

Yeah.
Okay. Why? Like what what what did paddle paddle do that cool story bro did not?
No one knows I don't know like maybe maybe cool story is too niche because it's about writing stories. Ped pedal is more like you press have to press a button to pedal. So pedal pedal is more like more casual in that terms because maybe bigger streamers don't like to have like because maybe for bigger streamers writing stories is an thing. So their audience is more like action based. They want just a pedal mechanic, just a pedal boat, you know. I don't know because ped pedal and custo are quite different because they like story bro is more for like a party game enjoyers, maybe people who like Mario Party but also like to write stories. So I had like um I bro through like um I think writers forums and there were many forums where people enjoyed to play story bro because I like to write stories. So the whole target group is different for Christo bro

but P is more more for like the broader audience like you can play it when you are like five years seven years 20 years 40 years 80 years you know so it's kind of for everyone because you just have to press a button it's [clears throat] really simple
and you only need two players right
as opposed to with cool story bro it looks like there's four you need
yeah you can play with two up to four players so it's like I always love to have like every player option possible in the game Yeah, it it might be just the um I'm looking at it now and I'm trying to figure out maybe what the what the issue was. It looks really cool, by the way, man. Like I I'm really
I'm impressed by how creative you are. Even with uh I think I I played Maki's Adventure on my stream.
Yeah.
Um I was even impressed with that game even though I I gave you some criticism about it. I I felt like it was so interesting that you could go from 2D to 3D. It was so It was so bizarre. like in a in a really cool way. So, you're definitely way more creative than I am

and you come up with really cool ideas, but I wonder if Cool Story Bro, it's too complex on on the front end, like on the marketing side. Like, when you see it, it's not you don't instantly understand.
When you see paddle paddle paddle, it's like it takes one second
for you to realize what that game is, right? Um, so it's I think it's it's definitely just that two seconds that where whereas cool cool story bro is like a 10 it takes 10 seconds to realize what the game is you know do you think maybe that's what it is
I think the biggest part is also like the release of the game because petty had eight or like it it got popular upcoming and training featuring on launch so it had both a front page featuring slots but custo had two like two few wish list to be featured you know, so um Ped was I think on popular upcoming for 4 days and we had like 1,000 wishes per day in the four days,

but the game launched with 11,000 wishes overall. So, it was not a big number,
but the conversion rate is crazy for Pedal. Like, the game still sells great. I think the game sold like over 30,000 copies this month, like last month already, and it's like still going going good with this game. I don't know why, but it has like a bit a better lifetime than many other games right now.
But, um Maybe it's the price, too. Like maybe a friend slop game that's $6. No, it's $8. No, no, no, no. They're the same price. Yeah.
Yeah. $4.99.
Okay. Yeah, man. I don't know, dude. I don't know.
Flop is tough. Tough for me to understand. It really is.
What were you going to say? Sorry.
I think it's mainly the launch because maybe if front page featuring, maybe it would have been better. But also Petty Petty had a demo. So the demo did great already. The game was like the demo was downloaded 100,000 times. People know that know the demo. There was like over 400 reviews on the demo page. So people

enjoyed it. People know knew the demo. Streamers played it already. And the game had millions of views on YouTube before the game came out, you know. So I thinked a way better marketing cycle for the development. Ki Bro had like almost zero marketing. I just reached out to my influencer friends like Jack Lucky for example Dexato and they made a post about the game but it was not enough to make like a big splash on the launch day you know.
H Did you have a different marketing strategy for Paddle Paddle Paddle versus Cool Story Bro? I know you had different wish list numbers.
Yeah,
but did you have a different strategy for the marketing?
Yeah, with Petty Petty I just wanted to make the game and my publisher assembly made most of the marketing. Like they reached out to streamers. They made the Steam store page look good. They hired an illustrator to make a better cover art before back like before I I hire like I got in contract with them. I had like a screenshot of the game as a cover art and after we signed then they made like an cool illustration and then I directly saw the like like the um on the Steam page [clears throat] made way

better. Okay, let's talk about how you got that publisher cuz people listening right now and maybe you felt this way six years ago or like four years ago when you were working on your first game.
Did you ever dream like how do I get a publisher? Like how do I do that?
Um and I think people listening right now are thinking that too. So how did you do that? How did you get a publisher? And what was that process like?
It was really um not planned because Ped got a publisher when I think it was two months or one month before launch. So it was the demo came out already. The demo was successful like people knew the game. But then Stefan from the publisher, the CEO reached out via LinkedIn and we we knew each other from like years ago because we are in the same like we are in Germany. So we kind of know each other and the German industry is really like connected. We go to events. They also host the German dev day. So I went to their events already and we we met already and we knew each other. But then they offered me to publish Patty Petty because I the game did great but the marketing was really

hard for me because I also had to make the game. So I decided to just take the risk because I spent only two months on the development. So I was like what could happen? Even in the worst case I lost two months but but I'm still going to sell because I have a publisher on my side and the game does great already. So I decided to just decide to take it and take the risk.
Yeah. Did you have to pitch anything to them or did they just play the demo and they were good? I think it was only like one meeting then they because they played the demo already because it was out back then and they I think they reached out after they played the demo so they had like the pitch already.
Okay. Yeah. So the demo did the work for you basically.
Yeah. I would say that.
Let's talk about this another part of the marketing strategy which is you said earlier you said you reached out to 2,000 people streamers via email.
Yeah.
Is that true? Okay. Was that you or was that Assemble?
Like for I think for ped it was like um mostly Assemble who reached out like I made them we have a discord chat so I

got them the email that I want them to reach out to and they have like email to so they reach out to them but I also have like a connection to German streamers who can who I can reach out via Twitter DMs because I hate to write emails. I think emails are not personal, but I really want to be like the personal developer and talk to the streamer himself and not to like the management, you know. So, I decided to reach out to them via Twitter DMs, Instagram DMs and try to contact them personally and not via email, for example, because I think emails are only sent to managers and managements. And I don't like that. I really want because I think they they look for the dollar sign, they look for the money in the email, and they only look for placements. So, I wanted to try and reach out to like that the streamer sees my game and not the develop, not the management.
So, it's a it's a very personal DM that you send. It's not like it's not like my game is called Paddle Paddle and it's coming out this date. You're you're much more personal than that in in how you

email them or or message them.
Yeah. Really short. It was something like, "Hey, bro. I released the game. I I love your dreams. Can you try it out?" Something like that. And one big thing that many people didn't knew, but um for the like one of the biggest streamers in Germany called Par Plat, he played Ped Pedal the demo back then. And I just sent him like an um like I donated to him like €2 and sent him the game trailer. I didn't said it was my game. I just said it's a cool game. Check it out. And that way he checked out the game and made the game on his wish list, you know. So I like because I don't like self promotion. You kind of have to be creative and be Oh, I I saw this cool game. Can you check it out? Some people think it's shady and weird, but I don't I don't care. I just want people to see the game, you know?
I don't care, man. You know, I I'm sitting here looking at at Paddle Paddle Paddle, and to me, it's obvious. It's obvious why this game did well. It's not necessarily obvious why Cool Story Bro didn't do well. I don't know. Paddle

Paddle Paddle. When I see it, like, as a YouTuber, my brain goes into YouTube mode and I'm like, "This game would be really, really good." content. It's hilarious. There's a destination, right? There's there's a rage aspect to it, right?
Yeah.
Um, it's perfect for streaming. And so, I think that that I don't I don't know about Cool Story, Bro, but I just feel like if I was a streamer and I saw Paddle Paddle, like a clip of it, I would go that's perfect content. I'm going to play it, you know?
Yeah. What's the plan? Mhm. So, it's it's almost just really good streamer bait. I I I really do think that's what what made it blow up, you know. Okay. So, 2,000 emails. I gotta send 2,000 emails for my game. That's
I don't need to, but it's it's like um I just had to send out an email to everyone I knew. Every streamer that I knew could be interesting for the game. And there are a lot of streamers in Germany. I also know a lot of streamers in the international side. So, I just

like I I it took me one week to like make the email list overall. one week. Wow. You're fast, dude. Um, okay. So, did you reach out? Did you have a strategy in in the way that you reached out? So, for example,
the way that I do it is I start with small streamers and I get them to confirm that they're going to play. Then, what I do is I tell the mid-tier streamers that the small streamers are going to play. And then when the mid-tier streamers confirm, then I use the midst tier streamers their names. I name drop their names to the bigger streamers and say this streamer is going to play. So I sort of climb that ladder and get confirmation from streamers going small to big. Um did you have any strategy in mind with like reaching out to big streamers versus small streamers or did you just shoot across the board?
Yeah, my strategy is more like for press. So when I pitch a trailer to IGN,

I used like the streamers who played the game, the bigger ones in Germany to pitch a trailer to them and then one day later they they made the trailer on the IGN YouTube channel. But for um the streamers only, I I didn't had any any like plan or any idea. I just collected emails and sent out like a really short email with a gift of the game play. Um not not it shouldn't like read something like a really um like um it should really feel personal. So I try to write one personal template in German and in English because I like to have like an German email for the German site and one like one English email of course because I think reading like a German email as if you are a German streamer then it feels more personal because the stream like the developers are from Germany you know so I had only two email templates and sent like I had two different email lists like one German list and one like international list and just send it out. So I had no idea. I just collected many Steam keys from Steam and I just tried my luck and I also didn't track it. Like in YM you can track if they open it, if

they like um click it, if they
if they even answer URS but
I don't have any time for that. I just want to make games and [laughter] it it feels kind of like an a task to do, you know, like I have to do it but not something that I want to do and that I want to think about more than just clicking on the send button. More times than not, I found that there's no reason to send a follow follow-up email. Um,
yeah,
if they don't answer it to begin with, they're probably not going to. An example of this is I reached out to Jack Septic Eye to play one of my games and he immediately said yes. First email, yep, I'll do it. It was crazy. Then I sent him the demo for Twisted Tower and I think I reached out six times. nothing, you know,
and so I found that if they don't respond, they're not going to. Um, so I I kind of like your approach, which which is just fire it off and then get back to working on your game. I think that's a great idea.

It needs to be done. Just get it done and hope it it works out. But if not, then maybe it works out later on because I had like I I sent out an email to Smitty. He's like a big streamer. I think maybe you you know him, Smitty, and he's like really big. I think he had 8 million followers. and the video of him playing ped pedal had 2.3 3.2 2 million views on YouTube. So, it did great. But, um, I sent him an email on launch day with my email, but he played it seven months after I sent the email. So, I think he kind of found it by watching a video by his friend playing it, you know.
So, often times people who like your game will not make a video if you send them email because they just didn't find the email. So,
I wouldn't take it too harsh if they don't answer. I just would like I don't I just ignore it. I just maybe I will send like a follow-up email one like six months later, but if not then maybe the next game.
Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask really quickly about um now that I kind of have a good idea of your marketing strategy.

I want to talk and and shift gears here about friend slop.
Mhm.
First off, is the does the phrase friend slop offend you?
No, I I don't care. [laughter] It's a cool name. I I use it myself. Like I I I like to say I make a friend sub game about writing stories, you know, to market a quick story, bro.
Yeah. I Every time I say friends slop on Twitter, I get in trouble. I don't understand why. It's like I didn't come up with this. This is this is what everybody calls it, right?
People take it too too personal. People take it too harsh. It's like make fun games. I don't care. You can call it friend friend uh trash. I don't I wouldn't care too.
Well, okay. So, let's talk about the quality level. Okay, this I'm I'm I'm really interested in this conversation because I got in a little bit of an argument with Chris Sakowski in one of my podcasts where I said friend slop was like snacks. It's like it's like Doritos.

uh versus like uh a a a story game or a or a much more polished game, a single player experience that has narrative and you know uh custom orchestrated music. That's more like a a full meal. And he was like, that's not true. And so I'm not I don't I don't know if I agree or disagree with him right now, but I'm curious what your thoughts are there. Is is it okay to think of friends slop as quick snacks, quick bite-siz snacks that are made cheaply and and purposefully? So,
I wouldn't compare to food, but I would say it's a valuable argument. Like, it's a it's a good thing, but um I would just say it's a small game and a bigger game, you know, because when I was like when I was younger, I loved Wind Waker from the Zelda series. I played it like many times in my life and was really inspired by it. It was like a bigger game for me, really big adventure game. But right now I love to play smaller games. But um I

think they are both games but they like the price like maybe the price is like the thing to compare because like the smaller like cheaper games like Friends of Games cost€5 and the bigger games like maybe it's good to compare to a steak and maybe like a cheeseburger, you know? So smaller
and
yeah, maybe something like that.
I've never thought about food that way.
Well, that No, but that one works for me. That and I I wonder about that because I'm sitting here going, why are they cheaper? Like, why is a friend slop game cheaper even though people are probably going to play Paddle Paddle Paddle longer than they play my game? And my game's only My game is five hours long, but it's not going to be five bucks. is going to be much more than that.
Yeah.
And I'm sitting here going, why? What? Why? So, it's not necessarily the length of time that makes a game valuable like like valuable in terms of dollars. So, what is that?
It's the market. If you compare the

games to each other, like um you cannot like people expect like a high quality AAA like game if you sell it for €30, €40, €20. Like many indie games had negative reviews only because the price was too high. So people like people in general think indie game should be should be really cheap. Like gamers don't want to pay more than 50 to 20 bucks like for an indie game, you know. So maybe like I think the quality is a different thing. So people expect a different quality. Like if you buy a game for€5, 1,2 somewhere like that, then you don't expect like Resident Evil, Zelda, you know, you just expect a small game like for example, um maybe it's a bad example from my side, but I like the game a short hike. It's a beautiful game in my opinion. I loved it. And this game is also really cheap. I think I got it on on HIO back then because there wasn't a Steam page when I got it. And this game is like is perfect. Like it's my favorite indie game of all time. I think. And it was really cheap, but

like it really blew my mind because the game was so deep. Like the the like the quality was amazing. The graphics were awesome. And I really enjoyed it because I really like this like pixelized look of the game.
But I would say people expect a different game from the price. So I would say you cannot like make a serious game like Twist the Tower, like Wind Waker, like Resident Evil and sell set it for 5 because people will think it's like a
Yeah. like a prank maybe or something [laughter] like like
or you don't Yeah. or like a a trick like it looks really pretty but it's actually terrible. Um yeah, I I I'm interested in this because I'm starting to wonder what you mean by polished or like quality. What is that? What is quality? Because you're right. I'm I'm looking at a short hike right now. It has this it meets a quality bar that makes it look like it could sell for

what 20 bucks. What is it now? It's it's eight bucks.
Yeah.
I feel like they could have released it maybe for 15.
Um is is it is it the graphics quality? Is that all it is? I think it's more like if you play the game like having like maybe [clears throat] you can cut the grass like features in my opinion like makes a whole difference because like in pedal pedal the graphics are more like they are slammed together like the assets are like kind of slammed together in Unity it's not really polished but the gameplay makes it for pedal pedal of course but when you play something like Mr. tower for example, then you can pop the balloons, you can walk around, you have you have all awesome sound design, you have a soundtrack, you have like the whole atmosphere is different in the games I think and it's it feels like an movie for example and pedip feels more like a short like Tik Tok clip because it it makes fun to watch but the like it's not like high quality made you know.
Yeah. Yeah. It it it Frlop in a way

confirms that people want to pay for art like they a short hike. It has a lowfidelity look but it's artfully done and it it suddenly feels like it's worth more money just by the way it looks. And I kind of was worried that because of things like Tik Tok or like AI slop or whatever that people were slowly going to get dumbed down and stop caring about polish and stop caring about narrative um and depth, right? Um but I think I think that that's I think that Friend slop has just filled a gap that was always there. It's not like it's replacing uh higher fidelity, higher polished games, right?
Um and and Tik Tok hasn't somehow made

Well, it's debatable, but it hasn't somehow made films irrelevant, right? It's just filling a gap that was always there.
Yeah, it's both fun. It's both fun to watch. Tik Tok clips and movies are fun to watch. Like but I think the whole um like the whole behind like the background of the whole recording for example when you compare to films and Tik Tok when I make a Tik Tok video about my development I just pick my smartphone hold it in front of my face and talk to the camera like my Tik Toks are made in one minute people enjoy to watch them but it's really short content like short form content because you watch it and then you go to the next game and if you play a friends up game like pedip pedio for example you play it for an evening maybe two evenings then you will play a story game for the next weeks or maybe months and then you will maybe come back to pedal in half a year a few months maybe they there for short fun like small fun and bigger games are more there for like weekl long grinds you know what I mean so I think the way

you consume the both games like if you play pip petty you want to have a small short casual fun but if you play to the towers you are here for a deep story like for a beautiful atmosphere for games here and I think that's the difference of the both games Yeah, I think you're right. Um, how do you think AI fits into all this? Um,
I hate [laughter] AI.
I'm so against AI. I don't I I
uh Are you So, uh, you don't use AI art in your games?
No. No. I just use Chachibility for research. So, when I made the email list, I just, um, said, "Chibility, here's my game pedal, the Steam page. Um, tell me some streamers who could like it." In that way, it helped me to research for streamers that I didn't know myself.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that uh it I I do think AI is going to make friends slop more and more prevalent because [sighs and gasps] it's it's uh

it's real easy. It's real easy with AI to to make incoherent graphics.
Yeah.
Or in congruent graphics and just throw them into Unity and be done. And Friend slop seems to get away with that. It gets away with inongruent artwork. And so I worry that friend slop is going to become not synonymous but like um infused with AI more uh easily than an artful game like a short hike or something you know what do you think? Like like I saw a big hype like a big jump in a like friends of games, smaller games because when I open Twitter I see a new game every day. There's a channel called Indie Game Joe. He's a friend of mine and he shares game trailers and every day I see maybe five more different friends of games. So I definitely see people see there there's big money in there. There's big commercial success in there and many

people try to make friends up right now or smaller games, smaller fun based games. But I don't see any deeper games right now on my Twitter feed. So I I miss that time where I saw games like um
yeah I don't I don't have any example right now to be honest but later like um earlier maybe two or three years ago it was more with like deeper games like Mary's adventure where people pure years into of development you know but right now there's like a new friends game every hour it it feels like that and I don't see I I cannot really feel AI in the whole project because I'm bad at it so maybe there's like AI games every day but Um, it just feels like people want to try to make more more friends of games and myself like I got copied
dozens of times. People make pedal in Fortnite. People make pedal in Roblox. People make pedal on Steam. Like people copy my game everywhere. And people try to make a different like a new pedal pedal everywhere right now.
And it feels really crazy, but people just want to make commercial games right

now and stop games. Well, you're capable and you are currently uh making a a deeper, more polished game. And so when I say all this stuff about Friends Swap, I I'm not saying that that's all you do, cuz that's not all you do. Um, tell me a little bit about what you're currently working on. Do you have a project you're working on right now?
Friends love.
Okay. What is it?
Um, it's not announced.
Are you allowed to tell me? is not announced but I also have a publisher with the game so I cannot really leak it because there will be an announcement in 5 days it will be planned and there will be a demo in next phase but it will be I can say it's a voice- based game so you have your to use your voice it's a co-op game and yeah it's a friends up game
man those voice games are tough because um Indie Game Joe released one like that didn't he
yeah don't scream together and don't scream
and it didn't and he admitted this on Twitter he was very public about it He

said it was it was a hard launch.
It it was a a big money launch. It it did it did crazy good. Like the game I think he he he may have sold already a million copies, but it's crazy. Of course, the game had a rough start, but the game sold incredibly well.
Tell me about that. Does a do do you think that review scores have anything to do with monetary success?
I think his strength is connecting. Like his network is crazy. like we chatted a lot of times and his game was shared by the biggest Twitter channels I know like um discussing films Jack Lucky he's got millions of views on on Twitter alone and he is connected to big streamers too and I think his strength is the connection like of course the game is good the game is great I I play the game myself but the game had bucks on it start so it was a really rough start but the g he still had such a like big marketing power I think he got over 200,000 wish list and only a week of

marketing. It's crazy.
Yeah. [gasps] Yeah, dude. I'm fascinated by these developers who who who turn the ship around when they have a bad launch. I love seeing that. Like I'm looking at the the the um Steam page right now. He's he's he's digital cyber cherries. Is that him?
Yeah, I think it's a publisher. It's like the company he's working at.
Let's see here. Don't scream together. Okay, so he ah yes. Okay. I was looking at two different games. He he released Don't Scream, and that one has has mixed reviews, but the recent reviews are very positive. So, he turned that one around. This one, Don't Scream Together, is still at mixed. It's at 52%.
But he has 2,000 reviews. So, you're right. He did very, very well.
Uh, in terms of numbers, right? Yeah. And that's just so interesting to me because I lay awake at night thinking about bad reviews. I don't lay awake thinking lay awake at night thinking about not selling enough copies. And

that's not to say I don't care about money. I obviously care about money a lot. Everybody does. But I care a lot about the review score, but I'm starting to wonder if that doesn't really matter,
you know.
I I would say no, not really because in the end in the end it's unit which which which fills the table, you know, which fills the plate. And we developers like we don't have a company. We don't have funding big funding like Nintendo. We have to care for for making the money to live from development and bad reviews can be turned around, you know. So P is start with mixed reviews at all and right now it's very positive. Yeah. Yeah. It it started with mixed. It had six reviews and like six positive and four negative on on launch day
because there were many bugs. Market Adventure had negative reviews on launch day. Now it's very positive. Like I turned the games around because um I took play testing way too like I didn't make any play testing for Adventure at all. So there are many many like game breaking bugs in market adventure on launch day but people still enjoyed it. So it it got very positive really fast

on the game but
that's crazy dude.
Yeah I think indie game Joe also really really had like one week of just fixing bugs in the team and just like fixing the game and I think he said that he had really sleepless night and stuff like that but he decided to take the grind to make the players happy and now his game is successful and the players are happy. So, he cut both and that's an important part, I think, of the story.
It really is. Well, let's open up um let's open up your games in Unity. You want to do that?
Yeah, sure.
I'm excited.
Okay. So, I like to have like for the marketing people here, I like to make banners in the home menu where I can link to my other games like Story Bro and also I have like a like a devlog for the game with day one to day seven of the demo here where people can watch the whole game of game development site. And
brilliant idea. I'm taking notes, by the way.
This is awesome because do you know why this is awesome for people? I'm so sorry to interrupt you.
Yeah,
this helps
in the age of AI and thousands of games

20,000 games released a year. When you add your personal flare to it and say, "Hey, this is me." Like, "This game is me and and I'm this game."
People are number one going to be more interested. They're going to stick around longer in the game because now they like you. And number three, they'll be more forgiving with the reviews.
Um, [laughter] that's great. So, what I also like because we are at this um area right now, maybe I can show you the about me section because I like to I like to like highlight that I'm only one developer because that way people can have a different expectation
because people always expect a big company behind an in behind a scheme game and they often said it's only developed by one person like one dude on like 23 years developer and that way I have like a whole new different like um expectation rate, you know what I mean? So, I try to always have like um let me quickly skip it here to have this about me section where I can also share my other games of trailers here. I I have a

picture of myself here in my games that people can have a more connection to the developer and see that it's made by an actual human, not by an AI.
Absolutely. Let's try and get your camera to stop flickering really quick.
Oh, yeah. I don't know why it's um flickering. What what I took away from this this podcast was you don't follow rules or like advice maybe even given by me if like you watch some of my videos or something. You just kind of go with your your gut on things about how you do marketing or how you do social media or even putting putting yourself personally in your game on the main menu. I think that's just a very it's unorthodox and I think that's why you got 30 under 30. Congratulations, by the way.
Thank you.
It's incredible. That's just so cool. Um,
crazy morning.
Yeah. Yeah, man. So, super huge congratulations for that. Um, but yeah, we've we've gone over an hour here, so I think I think we're good to wrap up,

dude. Um, did you want to leave anything in the in the description? You want to leave uh one of your games in the description?
Uh, maybe Pip Pam link would be cool.
Sweet, man. Let's do that. Paddle paddle paddle is in the link in the description. you click the link support Matteo. All right, dude. Thanks for coming on the podcast. That was great.
Thank you, man. I had a great time and
I'm always back. Love to go back.
Sweet, man. Cheers.
Cheers.
And by the way, if you want to make 2D games or maybe even 3D games like I'm doing, and potentially turn them into an actual full-time gig, I have a course called Full-Time GameDev and it's 50% off with a summer sale. I've gone full-time with just a demo on three separate occasions. And by the way, look here. These are some students who went full-time with the help of what I teach. In this course, you're going to learn just that. How to land publishing deals with just a demo. How to get funded on Kickstarter with just a demo. Make a 2D or a 3D game in Unity, GDO or Unreal.

You're going to learn how to market your game, get press coverage like I have, hit the Steamfront page, and so much more. Everything that I teach in this course is stuff I've done. So, you're learning from an actual indie game developer, not somebody who's just wanting [music] to make games. I'll also throw in my 2D and 3D art courses, completely free. And as a bonus, I'll also throw in a private 1-hour mastermind meeting with me and a handful of other developers [music] where I'm going to answer any questions you have in a private setting. This summer sale ends soon, and I don't do many of these during the year, so be sure to click below to enroll and join 4,500 [music] other students.