How This Game Dev Got 150,000 Wishlists In A Month — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 021

if there's one Game Dev in the industry that has inspired me to keep making games despite feeling burnt out and insecure it's David wayy David wayy is a really good friend of mine and also the creator of the Indie gem the first tree although the game was wildly successful David proceeded to spend the last couple years in secret building his new horror farming Sim we Harvest Shadows like most game devs David ultimately found himself making a game that burned through his savings leaving him with an unfinished game and barely enough motivation or money to keep going but I want you to stick around for the entire conversation because David's story is surprising and it's the perfect example of why having courage and sticking with your project despite everyone telling you that it sucks can pay off big time by the way if you're like me and you always dreamt of making an indie game as a full-time job I have a free webinar below that goes into exactly how to make six figures with just a demo I

was just like you for years I thought I had to make a game in its entirety before getting a paycheck but there's actually three ways to make six figures before even finishing your game I've done this multiple times so check it out below if you do want to go full-time Indie and thanks for watching my name is David wayy I'm a full-time game developer I started I went to school for film making but even before then I was making mods and custom levels for old games like Star Wars Jedi Knight and uh Far Cry and Quake 3 I I've just I've always been obsessed with games and storytelling so yeah I worked man I worked at a design studio where that's where I found Unity for the first time um and that's where we're doing a lot of film type work using motion like doing a lot of Motion Graphics work and sometimes game engines and that's how I found out about Unity through a friend cooworker and then a lot of those friends from that Design Studio they formed a company called the void which was a VR location based company um we did it was like a small startup in Utah and it grew to

this giant thing and we used Unity there and unreal and um we got to deal with star war with Disney with Lucas film we did Disney animations and Sony Pictures I was a technical artist there and I did video editing stuff there too so it was fun I wore a lot of hats that's what I've always liked doing I just love learning and learning all these things about digital creation and it was during my time at the void where I at night I would work for fun on these projects just cuz you know you take a lot of orders from a creative director and from producers and I was like I want to make something for me so my first game came out in 2015 called home is where one starts and you know I think a lot of Indie devs they're like I was back in the time of Steam Greenlight and I was like oh I just saw indie game the movie I actually went to Sundance and saw it there because I'm in Utah and Jonathan Blow was there in the audience taking questions and answers it was fun nice and I like when I saw that

movie you know I think a lot of people have seen indie game the movie and that was so inspiring and I was like I'm going to release my first game and I'm going to make a million dollars um it was a bit inspired by like more artistic games cuz you know like in film school you're you're seeing more challenging films more slowburn films and I was like when I first played deer Esther in 2010 I was like oh my gosh like these games can be so like beautiful and artistic and experimental so I love dear eser I loved gone home so I made my first game in that same type of sub genre some people call them walking Sim games I like calling them exploration games um and then I made it I was like I'm going to make a million dollars and it like sold a hundred copies maybe a thousand at the end of the month and it it was fun cuz it was like oh I got some Taco Bell money I got some new pc money and it felt good but I was like a little disappointed I was like iwi I thought this would be easier so I I took a break uh I was focusing on my job um we

had our first child our daughter and then while I was at the void I was like I want to do it again I had this idea about a fox uh inspired by Journey while I was doing the dishes and I wanted to do it for me um and I made I learned M I had there was mistakes I made right like there was mistakes I made with marketing my first game so I was like I'm going to try to fix that I'm going to try to go for a hook and something people want so it was like Journey plus Fox and it it did great like it just immediately news outlets were like Journey plus Fox check out this indie game it was just that hook alone like it changed everything it was the hook it was the graphics it was I don't know I would post a gif of it on Reddit and people would say just this just looking at this GIF is making me well up in tears and that surprised me I didn't get any kind of reaction like that from my first game so I was like okay this is something cool so I kept working on it you know on the side I was Moonlighting as an IND

Dev and that did great like it it it made man the first year it made 150,000 150,000 on Steam um this is like where my problems with Publishers start to happen is I was burnt out I self-published it on Steam and I was like I'm tired but I would love it to be on Console like that's like the dream come true for an indie Dev but I didn't want to do it myself I'm not I'm not much of a programmer anyway so I definitely needed help to pass certification um so I started talking to Publishers and I'm like hey I have this successful game you help me put it on switch PlayStation 4 Xbox Xbox One and they were like they' be like yeah this is great and they just ghost me it happened with multiple people um yep it's kind of the norm I think yeah I just I was like I need help and I'm like I want to give you a percentage and it just didn't happen so I don't want to call it spite but like out of like self like out of defiance

for people who weren't going to help me I was like fine I'll just do it myself we'll do it live we'll do it live I don't care um and so you helped me out which I owe you big time Thomas you helped me out by introducing me to Matt Tai at do games and he helped me pass certification um I self-published the first tree on all three consoles and that's where it got really crazy is cuz the game did decent on Xbox it did a it did okay on PlayStation 4 but on Nintendo switch it was near the end of a gold rush of 2018 the end of 2018 was the end of the Indie Gold Rush yep and you know it's been discounted a lot but um I wonder if I can even say the number it sold hundreds of thousands of units on switch which was great and then I was like I can quit my job I can be full-time Indie yep and so after that it was like such a whirlwind um I spoke at GDC about what I learned and then I just got this massive influx of people

wanting to talk and ask questions and I was like I love teaching I'll do an online course cuz so many people are asking me questions why don't I make a video resource so everyone can learn what I did right and that worked that was really hard and I can't even like get into it all in this talk but it it taught me a lot like I've turned my passion into a full-time job it wasn't as simple as I thought um I had turned like you know me being this relatable personal connection into like a product everyone was like oh there's a there's the parasocial relationships on YouTube where people are like that guy he's a nice guy he's going to help me out and you know when it's so many things like suicidal teenagers or children like 12-year-olds in war torn countries whose cities have just been bombed and you're just getting every single email like an impossible amount of people to talk to and that that was hard I I learned a lot about myself it

was I I I went I had to it was during CO as well it was such such a horrible dark time in my life to be honest and it's like oh you have the dream job and that's what the voice in the back of your head's saying and then yeah I don't know have have you've gone through something like that of like turning this fulltime and trying to keep your sanity at the same time it's um man I don't know how to explain it so you know you and I both were we're we make games and then we also do YouTube content and I saw you started doing more YouTube content um and then we also sell resources to people right so it's like three completely different business models that are also linked depending on the financial situation you're in right so for example if you make a ton of money from your games you can just sort of side hustle with YouTube or selling resources or whatever and you can make a

lot of money from both right and you're you're running multiple businesses but then when the economy tanks or things suck in the game industry then you start sort of relying on one thing over the other and so I'm a big fan of having multiple uh streams of income and you and I have talked about this for years and how how much I value having multiple streams of income but my dude my problem is like I'm so I always feel like I'm on thin ice yeah like I always dude I always feel like everything's going to collapse underneath me and that's a terrible way to build a business right if you're going to build a game Studio you cannot like you you and I are friends with Julian and Julian was on the the previous podcast and he's making a game called lens Island his mindset is totally different than mine yeah his mindset is like I'm just going to put everything into this game and it's going to do great and I'm good granted he he carried a lot of

that stress internally which led to his heart attack heart attack so crazy yeah dude so for me for me I'm always I've got like three four backup plans at all times and what that means is I give so much of myself to YouTube to my subscribers to my students to my Publishers to my team and then by the end of the day when I go downstairs and I've got three kids running after me well two and then one of them's sitting in her bouncer cuz she's an infant but and then and a wife as well and a dog and it's like I've got nothing left and did you ever I I'm not sure if you felt that way but did you ever feel like this isn't worth it like the constantly being stretched you know when Bilbo in uh is it Bilbo yeah Bilbo says in Fellowship of the Ring he says he's like butter uh scraped over too much bread yep yeah you ever feel that way yes 100%

And I've talked to other business owners small business owners and it seems like it's pretty common it's we are we're adults now and it's funny because I still feel like that teenager making mods for video games but like you know there's there's a crushing responsibility to provide that's why like that's what kind of like I when I spoke at GDC I had this one guy come up to me and he was like the senior engineer at Samsung really probably making a ton of money really smart and he had a different problem than me he was like I hate my day job I just can't do this anymore my my life is like running out in front of my eyes and I don't want to do this anymore I want to make indie games and he said he's like he got a phone out his phone out he's like David if you tell me right now to quit my job and make games I will call my boss literally in front of you

and I'll quit my job and make games that's so funny and this was my honest answer I said don't do that do not do that I think I don't know I I don't know if it was I think it was the right answer but I don't think it was what he was expecting cuz I I think I've been full-time for now five six years my my course helped supplement my bills but it didn't help as much as I thought it would and so it's been kind of like you know I've been worried about paying the bills and stuff but yeah it's it's a hard it's it's I think now that I look back I I might have been happier when I was working on the first tree and I had a day job to pay the bills and that was just me like I know like your material is like get a publishing deal and do a Kickstarter and quit your job and some people that is like the happiest day of their life when they're like I'm making games full-time but like to do it for a decade or two it might it might be the

hardest thing you ever do and it might tear you apart in some ways and so that's that's kind of what I'm learning I've tried to be wise financially I I read the book I think it's called rebound it's a business book I think by the base camp devs or something in San Francisco and you know they're they said like one of their tips they give everybody is like diversify revenue and like and they said look at this book like we're we're web developers but we made this book and it's a bestseller and it's it's we're diversifying our revenue and creating a safety net for our company yeah that's really encouraging to hear man because like I I always sorry to interrupt but like I always feel kind of guilty even though like my games have always provided just enough for me and my team um things are getting tight right now in the economy yeah H the game industry is really tough and so

uh having a diversified income s stream for me has been a godsend sign specifically in the last two weeks wow um and uh and I can't get into the details you and I have talked about it in private but I needed I needed significant uh well it's significant to to the people listening right now probably a significant amount of money to to pay my my team during a difficult time and I'm glad I'm just really really glad that I had a YouTube channel and and I'm probably going to do a whole video on this of Why YouTube is so valuable to game devs um but yeah dude it's been so helpful but all that said you mentioned something earlier I wanted to comment on which is you said if you think you might have been happier when you had a day job I I don't think I've ever been this is so sad but I don't think I've ever been like truly happy um I we like from the day I was born until now

I'm just not like a happy person uh I'm a I'm a motivated person you're ambitious and you don't want to sit you don't want to sit still you want to keep going yeah and so like working for a boss it's it's there's more peace I guess on one side of your body maybe the financial side but there's another part of my body that's just burning if I can't do what I want to do you know what I mean and so it's not Joy it's not happiness it's it's satiation is that a word say being satiated yeah but that doesn't mean I'm happy and so it's kind of like really frustrating cuz like last night I was up at like 3:00 a.m. no like M it was like midnight to 4:00 just like anxious yeah about Twisted Tower which is the game I'm working on and I I had to get up and like I took like a 30 minute shower trying to like calm down and I'm sitting here thinking why do I why am I putting myself through this and it's it's all it is is just wanting

to be wanting to be satisfied creatively it's like a drug it's literally like a drug I'm unhappier when I'm doing drugs right the drug of Game Dev I'm unhappy but I I'm addicted to it and I it's it's just the creative control it's such a weird thing so I don't even know like you said like I don't know if I would recommend this to to somebody to quit their full-time job to do this I would say make sure you have plenty of money before you start doing this yeah and in these creative fields that are very competitive I think it's a Common Thread uh you know I come from a film background and I I know some visual effects artists which is the most brutal industry 100h hour weeks constant overtime no benefits there was like this huge article on how these Oscar winning visual effects artists were living out of their car

um and a lot of visual effects artists are like oh you want to go into the into the movie industry and and make special effects and get money and they're like no don't do that if you want to make money do something else but do something else if you have to make visual effects like you were born to do it you just you have to then that's the only reason you should do it yeah yeah and I I love telling stories I I love I I I kind of have to I don't know like I it it is hard it's it's hard doing that balance right of you want to do a successful business but you want to make the games you want to make but oh those games aren't selling well um it's a balance but what drives you know and I see this with you too is it's like you know I I don't know if I consider it like you know I'm getting high off of it but it's this ambition and that's why like when people ask me like oh do you regret going full-time Indy

uh because you know my thing I we'll talk about the new game soon which has been in this amazing surprise in my life but um right now like if this new game didn't exist I am broke I spent all the money on this new game which it it's paying off we'll talk about that later I guess people ask like oh was it worth the risk like was has it been worth it cuz like my my family has needed has needed to sacrifice and I've sacrificed all my savings and I've sacrificed my mental health I've I've had to talk to therapists I've had to I'm I'm on medication now which has been a huge blessing in my life just trying to figure this out like to to do this and be happy I don't know I don't know you know I don't know if happiness is the right word I don't know if it's happiness I'm very like I'm proud of my work I'm satisfied with it uh but I think I had to do it and those are the people I feel like succeed

in indie games and in all artistic Fields like they have to do it they just it's it's in their blood and yeah you know and you either you know you can quit your job or you don't quit your job in Moonlight I think all of that's irrelevant oh do I pick Unity or unreal it doesn't it doesn't really matter I think because in the long run those people that they make a project they stick with it which is incredibly hard they release it and then they pivot they they learn from it that that's all it is you just you do these games and you take you learn something from it you're like okay I'm going to do something different this time and the next game is a bit more of a success you climb a ladder and those are the people I see have been successful and that's what I'm seeing in my career is it started so small with you know with hate mail and poor sales and I just kept going and I I take I just anal the data the output from

this exp experience of releasing a game and I pivot I I change things and I do more research and if people do that that's usually the people that make millions of dollars and then they get to the the they beat the game they beat the Indie Dev challenge where they're like oh I can make whatever I want now because I'm a millionaire and that's that's my feeling on it people that don't give up sure exactly and uh I think you and I were talking I think it was last week or maybe it was earlier this week but uh we were just saying wouldn't it be wonderful to release because I'm working on Twisted Tower you're working on WE Harvest Shadows we'll talk about it in a sec and I was like wouldn't it be awesome if we just had this both of our games just went Gang Busters oh yeah made four four million bucks a pop four four four million bucks per game and we could I'm getting chills and I know I shouldn't because it's like that's not why you make a game but it it would be

nice to just release a game that goes Gang Busters and all of a sudden you're like I can make whatever I want and I don't have to worry about funding and I don't have to worry about uh YouTube because I'll be honest with everybody YouTube is it can be a grind huge grind I love I love everybody listening right now but it's rough sometimes and yes I do YouTube because number one I help you guys who are listening but it does provide an income uh spoiler alert it it it it it brings in income and that's a good thing and it helps me in my studio that's okay don't feel guilty about that but it's tough you know it's like always seeking funding always seeking a way to keep this train moving and chugging along it would be nice to finally hit that big break and to your point it's kind of and it's also that to um Julian's Point Julian the creator of

lens Island he said this last week he he said it's kind of basically inevitable that you'll eventually have a gang busters game yeah because I don't know the way I see it is kind of like something like playing uh Animal Crossing you just pull in the weeds uhhuh and then before you know it all of a sudden you've got a mansion on this island with like a pristine lawn um that's not what game dev's about but it's the inevitable outcome of being obsessive and well let's try to change that word cuz I don't like Obsession uh passionate and almost you can't stop doing it you have to do it I love that you what you said about it's almost a requirement there's people where it's just built into their DNA and I don't know what that is but it's in me and I don't know where it came from you know yeah and that's I I bring it up because it's okay for this to be a hobby like it's okay to like you don't have to kill yourself if you just want to make games for fun and that's like such like a pure honest Pursuit and I really admire that

now and it get but it gets more complicated when it's like oh this has got to provide my salary it's got to feed my children um I I have to work on it even though I'm so sick of it like there's so much freedom of doing it for fun and being like I'm going to work on this oh I'm done working on it I don't need to work on it anymore and that's like that is what makes people happy like that I think is why I say I was happiest when I had the day job where the money was taken care of and then I could work my game and it was such like this it was such like a pure thing it was so I was yeah I just really enjoyed that time the variable is freedom I think Freedom now you're not free when you're obsessed with your game and everything hinges on it and it has to make you a certain amount of money that's that's slavery to your game yeah if if I might say so I'd rather so freedom is a I think freedom is a great way to be happy if you're looking for happiness in Game Dev try and figure out how to do it while

being free from the anxiety and the misery of constantly worrying about the game's performance you know yeah absolutely and yeah I yeah I'm learning a lot and I'm I'm proud of what I've learned and I'm like I'm applying it to my business it's kind of like what what Julian said he said like my body is a machine to make games so let's take care of it let's optimize it take out take out the pressure a little bit and you know I also I spiral like I catastrophize where I'm like oh no my my course sales no one is buying it we're going to die going to have to sell the house that's not true like it will work out um but that's how my brain gets when it's like the pressure it's just it's just so much all the time and I think it's true with almost all business owners it's not just a video game thing it's not just a tech thing it is the sacrifice you make as an entrepreneur and I don't have an answer for it I

think that's why it's so hard and that's why like I've kind of I'm close to the to the end of like what I can handle I I just have you watched the bear that Hulu show no we watched an episode and it hit really close to home for just that it's a family show right it's all about family uh yeah and a restaurant and and it hit really close to home for someone in my my family and we had to turn it off cuz it was really hard oh yeah it's a it's a very very emotional show right it is and it's um it's a show about passion and burnout and that's why it appeals to me is cuz there's a part where one of the new chefs her name's Sydney and Sydney's talking to her dad cuz she's opening up this restaurant but she's also like already so burnt out and then Sydney keeps saying like they're going to do it one more time for this restaurant called the bear and the dad's asking like why why do you

feel like this is like the last chance you have like don't you have so many more chances to follow your dreams and be open up many restaurants and Sydney says like this has to be the last one CU it's the only one I got left in me and that's that's how it felt after like I was I was burnt out 5 years ago I was burnt out six to like in 20 I was working on the first tree 2016 and then I released it on Steam 2017 and then I was burnt out but I was like o I made 100,000 off steam that's pretty cool um I wanted on consoles so I spent like a huge chunk of money to get it on consoles and it paid off like I did get lucky with the Nintendo switch launch and but by that point like I work I worked a year with my porting partner Matt I worked a year on it and again I was burnt out then and I just I just keep doing it and it's because of fear it's because of anxiety but but I was like I don't know I have not I I'm

afraid I have fried my brain like I literally I've pushed myself so hard but there was a there was a time yeah after the course I was especially burnt out and depressed um and then I took a break we had savings because we did have savings from the switch switching the switch launch and the course and I was like I was like Sydney from the bear I was like I think I got one more left in me one more and I was like I think I can do it for real I have this budget I can hire a programmer to help me which is my weak weak spot and I could make this game that I truly believe would do well and it's a game that I was really excited about and that led me to my two years in like seclusion pretty much just me and my family working on this new game well let's hear about it I want to hear all about this game and I played the demo it's freaking awesome awesome I'm so excited for you but let's hear about man so yeah just

two years ago two and a half years ago I had this idea I look I study steam charts like every day I'm one of the I I one of the I was talking to one of the pal World devs recently and he's like oh you're one of those I'm like yeah I love it I I check I check the steam charts every day because I find it very interesting I'm like what is like appealing to Gamers like what do Gamers want and you know I have my own taste like I'm wearing my Silent Hill 2 shirt cuz I freaking love it and I've been playing the Remake it's one of my favorite games ever um but I'm curious about you know we talked about this our last talk I think uh the Zeitgeist like what what is like the world of Gamers what are they drawn to and you see it like there's Trends there's cozy games there's uh there's a the Battle Royale games there's games as a service that got so popular for a while mhm yep um and so I like that's the fun part of my job is I'm like what's going to

what's going to go big and what's going to like what is something I want to make in that type of genre um I love cozy games like I played a ton of Animal Crossing during the pandemic yeah stardew Valley is a masterpiece um I was just thinking um like what can I do that will do well and that's something I want to make so it can help my family and also be something I'm really proud of and I had this thought of an anti- cozy game and I would make my first horror game cuz I love horror games my my last two games maybe had horror adjacent elements where it was kind of scary at times but they weren't horror games so I was like I want to make and I was like watching a lot of like the a24 horror films like they're almost like Neo horror there's like this new genre taken off in film and usually games are behind film by quite a bit so I was like Wow people really love films like the witch and hereditary oh yeah

the Boba is so good I love that movie yeah I I don't think that was a24 was no that that one's not a24 that was Australia it it was some Australian company but yeah really quick what's your favorite a24 horror film oh man I don't know hereditary was filmed in Utah so I'm quite partial to that one was it really I did not know that my friend worked on the visual effects in it it's like down the street did he work on that wonderful scene where she smacks her head exactly what he worked on yeah that's exactly what he worked on and that was yeah I know exactly where that road is near Park City in Utah I did not know that man yeah that's that's my favorite one for sure and then obviously Midsummer right below yeah I love Midsummer and I also this is unpopular but I am obsessed with M night shamalan cuz his his movies are so thrilling but they have so much heart and they're so beautiful and you got to give him credit man he at least he tries oh yeah you know to be to be unique and come up with something like if he's make a horror movie about a a woman who comes out of a

pool more power to you for trying buddy because nobody else is really trying except him and Ari Aster so he that's so funny you bring that up those two directors are they are my favorite directors they're so good and like I think about how the The Village which got kind of got a lot of hate I think that's one of the most beautiful films ever made and it's so like it's scary but it's also like a tearjerker and it's so poignant it's so so Melancholy the music's like the best soundtrack I've ever heard ever do you still listen to it yeah I listen I listen to The Village soundtrack the whole time I was making we Harvest Shadows pretty much oh man dude I feel like you're like my brother cuz I have three older brothers and all we we all love the same things and so the village we all felt so excommunicated from all of our other friends cuz we loved the village when I saw it when I saw it we walked out of the theater and everyone was like that is so stupid and I was like that was the best thing ever and it's not a horror movie but it was marketed as one and that was the big

that was the big problem it should not have been yeah exactly it should have been marketed as this is like a dramatic old school sort of Vintage Film oh yeah and that's what it is you know imagine if it was released in present day under the a24 label and it had no twist just take out the twist it's like a historical drama it it's a historical drama it would have been a masterpiece well how do you get rid of the twist though how do you get rid of the twist cuz like the twist is the whole theme of the film yeah but it's like they could have done that where it's like present day I mean present day for them like in the 1800s or something I don't know I just feel like it distracted people so everyone's thinking about the twist at the end they're like that was stupid it's like no just did you forget all those moments those perfect moments in the film but you know who the the wasted opportunity in that film was um it was actually Wen Phoenix I feel like he wasn't given enough Direction yeah um in who to be and cuz the character he played I felt like that it was the

the the least has the had the least depth yeah um so that could have been I think his character was kind of weak but that's just me yeah he's like supposed to be like the Moody quiet guy which I kind of liked yeah um yeah I I love that movie I that's what I that that's kind of the thoughts where like I wanted this idea of we Harvest Shadows popped in my head and it was based on all those things I love but and this is important cuz I think a lot of developers they don't do this step um I looked at what was popular and what people were buying what people were excited for I I saw you know Silent Hill 2 re the Remake it had a ton of wish list people were so pumped for it and I saw all the farming games the Cozy farming games were super popular and I'm like how can we combine those two things in an interesting way and tell a new story and so I was hoping people would come for the the weird genre mashup but

then they would stay for the characters and for the emotion behind it and the music and everything so I I got to work two and a half years ago um I stopped doing YouTube and stuff which man it was kind of hard because making a game is such an iterative process so it would have been nice I think to have like feedback along the way um but I I I had an idea and this is kind of where my my marketing ideas come into play I I had a following from the first tree um I noticed that a lot of the games that did well were in these announcements these big uh Live Events like the PC gaming show Opening Night Live the game awards summer game Fest and I noticed that some Indies like bigger Indies like yeah I I I just noticed that in were getting spots in these shows and I thought that was really cool and I

found out later it's because people like Jeff Keeley and his team they want to support smaller games and because they you know they love smaller games they they love unique games that only Indies can make and I thought that was really cool so I had this I had this Theory I was like if I work in secret then that gives me more marketing leverage to be like hey I'm the maker of the first tree here's my new neverbe seen trailer that I've worked really hard and I did I worked my butt off on that trailer I had a friend who had like this uh motion capture stage in his basement um and so I asked for his help to do the trailer to make it like seem more than just a small Indie title I wanted it to feel really high like professional and high production quality yeah um I worked so hard on that trailer I think I worked on the trailer for like 3 to four months by itself um holy crap and the trailer was done

like a year before um my announcement cuz I kept I was I was trying to pitch it to people I I worked really hard on a pitch document and I had the trailer and during all that time I'd also realized that the people that get so many wish lists it's because they have a demo they have a f they have a fantastic demo and it's harder with a narrative game but also it gives you different kind of strength you can end on a cliff you can have all these previews of the characters and be like oh I want to know what happens next and so it it is it's a lot of work I basically have made two games I've made the we Harvest Shadows demo and now I'm working on the full version which you know they share of course they share the systems and stuff that we work so hard on but it was a lot of work to make the demo uh I did the same thing the demo took man we spent all summer yeah fine-tuning just the demo yeah uh we haven't released it yet but yeah go ahead sorry yeah it is it's it's a huge

time commitment and here's where you start to get into that territory of like is this fun anymore is this like fulfilling me it's like well no this is your business and you you got to get the demo good or else it's all for nothing so I do have help but I'm like burning through all my cash reserves cuz this is the funny thing I mentioned how on the first tree I was kind of ghosted by Publishers and I was like screw it I'll do it myself um I was like okay I got I got a cool game idea it's unannounced because you know sometimes Publishers like devolver they'll do uh their own type of live event to announce their new games I was like okay this is great I have I have something they might want and I think it's a cool idea so I work really hard on the pitch deck um at that point I didn't have a demo ready I just had like a sandbox mode and I'm like all right let's let's I'm I'm not going to be burnt out anymore I'm going to get help I'm going to get a publisher to help me for the first time cuz I'm tired I've been burnt out for 5 years uh I pitched to the big

Publishers the big the big ones that everyone knows and it was super unenthusiastic and super lukewarm um I got ghosted sometimes they would respond and be like it's an interesting idea but we don't think it's going to work that was what I heard a lot um I I pitched to my I had relationships with my account managers at Nintendo and PlayStation and Xbox um and I talk to them and they're like yeah we're not We're not gonna do that I just don't think we just don't think it's the right idea for the market so that's literally I'm by myself and seclusion working on this game that I believe in like I just I love this game I want to play this game idea and I love the characters in this game and everyone's telling me that it's not going to work no one's going to buy it I even hired I even hired some Consultants who were like Biz Dev Indie experts and they said yeah it might it might sell

20,000 units Lifetime and I was like oh that is that's so harsh how much money is that I don't know maybe like it was a $15 game what is that like $300,000 make $400,000 and remember like I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this oh dude David that's so discouraging man and I don't know why it's like that thing we talked about earlier like I just had to I just this was the last thing I had in me and I was like now now there's like a little bit of again not spite but like I wanted to prove people wrong I was like no I I love this game idea like I'm a gamer like I play all these games and I want to play this game that was really important um I keep going no positive feedback whatsoever and I'm working hard and then man I I I'm sending the trailer to these Live Events like to participate possibly and sure enough through some

miracle how did it happen anyway I got turned down for the game awards I got turned down for summer game Fest and then I was like wait like I was so tired in fact I had decided I was going to announce without a big event cuz I was so burnt out I was like I I can't like keep living this is like where a lot of the depression comes from too was like I didn't know if it was going to be success and that I was spending all of our money and sacrificing my mental health for a game that probably won't do well and I had no idea I just had no idea so I needed to to announce so I was planning to announce probably you know last August regardless of if I didn't get into my last chance because I couldn't take it anymore so I decided I was going to do one last thing and that was I was going to uh apply for Gamescom in Germany one of it's the biggest gaming show in the world yeah and I was going to apply for the Indies of America Booth which was expensive like it's thousands of dollars and it was risk cuz we know we're running out of money but they did say in

their little info pamphlet for Indies of America oh if you uh if you apply for the show then you get a chance to pitch to The Opening Night Live team and Opening Night Live is huge game announcement with AAA games but they sometimes feature Indies and I was like okay let's do it this is my last chance and sure enough uh my account my uh manager of the booth said here's Jeff Key's email why don't you show him your game I was like wow I finally got his email and he did it he he liked it I showed him the trailer and he was like you know it's really he's really busy man but it's like a one- sentence thing like David I saw your trailer this is great uh maybe we can he said he wasn't committed he just said maybe we can put it in the show but I can't confirm anything so again like this was like in March or April coming up to August when Gamescom is I was like oh I got to wait and that was killer I was like is this going to happen or not but sure enough

like really soon before the show Jeff Key's like hey great news we'd love to have you in the pre-show for free as an editorial placement normally these shows cost I don't know I think the pre-show spots like 80 grand or something like that but it begin again like talking to the crew with Jeff Keeley they just they just love small developers and they want to support games they believe in so to get that validation was such oh that was such a relief cuz did he even play the game uh no he just saw the trailer I he might have played the demo I sent him the demo so maybe he did okay I don't know though um and they said hey can we interview you too during the pre-show of Opening Night Live I was like yeah I'd love to talk about it because it was a really interesting human aspect story that's like one of our greatest strengths as Indies is that we had be like we're not like a faceless triaa company it's like it's a guy it's a guy like Thomas or there's a guy like David and it's like oh look at this guy's story and stuff and putting those feelings those very personal feelings into a

game so they interviewed me which was kind of fun and stressful and uh they invited me to Gamescom to The Opening Night Live show and that was a whole other thing and by this point I still don't know like oh I'm like I I knew the game would probably get 10,000 wish list in a day just from being an opening Night Live pre-show uh cuz the game had never been announced it was top secret um but then I I was like okay I have the Dem almost ready and I think launching with a demo will be will be great publicity so yeah I worked so hard on the demo and then I had uh a lot of friends um I had some gdu students I had some acquaintances play the demo for we Harvest shadows as a play test CU that's important you can't you can't just launch a demo and no one's tried it before you need to fix all the bugs or else you're going to get raked over the coals um my play testers they did not like my game what the heck some people some people

did I want to be fair some people were like I love this game but I would say the majority of it was like I don't play games like this I get I don't really like it I think it's pointless it's boring I give it a four out of 10 that was that was one of the reviews I just got a five out of 10 from one of my play test Twisted Tower yeah and I was like I was thinking in a way I was just thinking I think you're just a mean person cuz like a five I mean give it a six at least but a five my goodness but we've you and I have been talking for the last two weeks and you've been so encouraging to me David because I've been doing play testing and it's hard yeah because you're essentially just sending it out to random people that aren't necessarily in your genre right whereas steam know the algorithm knows how to push the demo to the right people right exactly so it's totally different the feedback you get from a play and I learned this from

you a couple days ago the just just because you're getting negative feedback in play testing has almost no correlation to what steam players are going to feel yes and also they got a free demo so there's a there's a feeling of it's well it's free so uh you know it's it's they're going to be a little bit maybe more generous I they're more forgiving with a demo um I I first of all I play the tower and I seriously loved it you're so talented with art you know and I've been a fan of your game since since since uh pinstripe beat that game so you you know what you're doing you are so talented with art and execution and I had so much fun with it I appreciate it thank I'm really excited for your demo and I think I I'm usually not wrong about these things I think your game's going to be successful with like seeing all my students you're not wrong I've seen like my students uh and game I've unlocked and I've seen some of them where I'm like this game is going to pop off and I'm almost always right which is cool and I I feel like

Twisted Tower is going to pop off but yeah get the demo polish it it's it's so important I just got a um I just got an email from Jay Armstrong the creator of C yeah I saw that uh pod podcast you had with him yeah he side note here just so I can Flex a little bit on this podcast he emailed me and he played the demo yesterday Twisted Tower and it was so encouraging because I had just got he's a game game designed God oh for sure and he he gave it a 10 out of 10 he was like H he said holy crap dude but he used a different word and I was like I was like yes like thank you but uh it's so hard for everybody listening if you do a play test if you get feedback that's negative like David and I have gotten for our games it's almost meaningless like I don't know you just kind of just have to ignore it and look at the aggregate yeah cuz like right now I'm I'm sitting at an 8.2 out of 10 with

25 testers and these are like handpicked half of them are Game Dev Legends so I'm feeling really good today feeling really really good but did you get an aggregate when you were sampling data or or play testing with I guess I could I actually didn't average it out but it it hovered around six to seven out of 10 um there were that's discouraging man and you know like yeah I just I don't know what to say I I have a couple theories like you mentioned it like steam's algorithm is so good at finding the right player base and like if someone were to make me play like I don't really like uh Deck Builder games that much and so if someone were to make me play a deck builder game that was like a rough demo I think I'd be like oh it's it's fine like I give it a seven out of 10 I but that's not your goal your goal like for Twisted Tower like your goal Thomas is to find the people who love Bioshock and are itching to play a new Bioshock like that is your Golden Goose and like think of er Eric Baron with stard valy he was like

Harvest Moon fans like that's who he was targeting not someone who was like I want to play Call of Duty like no he wants to Harvest Moon fans and that's what he did or for you it's like you want to C Maybe I'm Wrong here but I think yes you want to get the farming Sim people kind of yeah but really really you want to get the people who like a sense of place yeah and a feeling and a mood right yeah and those are those are the people that I'm trying to find it's like okay yeah combat's fun but like me personally for Twisted Tower I'll be honest combat is not my priority yeah my priority is a sense of place atmosphere and feeling atmosphere and if it oozes atmosphere the goal is to find the people who love atmosphere M those are that's my player base right and your player base I feel like is kind of the same thing you want the people who are going to be invested in the story and the mood and the feeling more than anything else yeah right and that was like when I told you about the BISD consultants and the people that like

rejected the game a year ago that was usually their reasoning where they're like oh it's it's a genre mashup and you're going to you're going to you know push away the farming fans and the horror fans cuz you're not doing both very well it's not that you're not doing it well it's that you're just it's like you're not like amping it up it's not like super horror or super farming sin it's light on both those things yeah and so they're they're they're probably like rightfully at least from like an initial thought maybe you thought maybe they're correct yeah because you know and it scared me it's like oh these are really smart people like they've been doing this decades like maybe this game won't do super well but that was the thing and this is the thing like I can't quantify but like my gut my gut was telling me like like I saw all the power Sim the power washing Simulator games I I saw all the popular horror games on itch where you like you know you're working at the convenience store and you got to put take the trash out like all

these task oriented horror games I saw the mortuary assistant sold like 200 300,000 copies where you're just doing a job while you get haunted and then I saw how we have been inundated with these soulless Arena Shooters and soulless mobas and like people were sick of these games as a service they want they want more personal single player games and all the business people would say no no we got to do fortnite bro that's the only way we're going to make money we got to do we got to do these game we got to do Diablo on phones and stuff and it's like like no like I'm a gamer like I want more games like Silent Hill I want more games like what remains of Edith Finch and I think there was a drought there was a gap in the market and that's why I I believed in my game that's why I believes in my game I was like this has to to resonate and it sucks to work in secret and everybody except maybe your wife is telling you this game is not going to

work yep um but I kept going I just you you got again like you have to you just have to keep going and this is like I had this one last game left of me I was like I'm going to do it good so I knew the demo needed to be good I did have a brilliant programmer helping me Connor from Smash button games and he helped me a ton fix all the issues but yeah it was a lot of asset packs it was a lot of um customizing textures it was it was a lot of shortcuts it was a really Scrappy indie project and even though it was so Scrappy it still cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars it was a huge risk it was a giant Gamble and that's what you kind of got to do I guess nowadays how did that affect your we can cut this out if you want but how did that affect your marriage and your family um being a I have a super supportive wife and she was like supportive of like yeah do game Dove unlocked that's a good idea diversify I think course yeah my course

I think she hated seeing me suffering so much and so she was like like yeah get to announcement day then we'll then we'll know like that's all I wanted to know like I didn't even I didn't even need it to be successful by August I was like I just need to know if the game will flop or or uh succeed and then she told me she's like I'm tired of seeing you like stressed and hurting and having insomnia like like let's like let's figure out a plan a different plan so you're not doing it all because at the end of the day and this is a truth I think is totally relevant I think making a game is kind of impossible like I just think it's this impossible task and we do it anyway cuz we're kind of crazy but it's every game released is a miracle like every single game it's it's so it's so hard I don't think people realize like to do a full game much work it actually is and to do it by yourself is kind of close to

insane but we do it anyway we we do it I think I can't remember what I said I said it in a previous podcast but making a game is something like uh it's kind of like building a house in during a hurricane yeah that's how it feels because it's collapsing all around you at all times uh the first reason is because you're not perfect so like your code sucks or your assets aren correct or they're not sized properly or blah blah blah blah there's a million reasons why you're just not your your hands are not building it perfectly but the other reason why it collapses while you're building it is cuz you're collapsing it yeah you're the hurricane y your future self My Future Self I promise you this next week will collapse my certain parts of my game that I built this week oh man and that's just because you grow that the whole concept of a game design document is a wonderful thing but we should all know that your

gdd that you have at the beginning is completely irrelevant to the final game yeah you change everything and it is it is like I feel it's it's it's definitely unhealthy but it's like like some people have a really unhealthy relationship with like food right they feel guilt about food I feel guilt about breaking my project yeah and I feel I like I'll lay awake at night and feel like such an idiot for how like Thomas how could you do this and how could you do this to your team because we've we've we've reworked every single level in Twisted Tower a minimum of three times and by rework I mean delete it and start over yeah and that's 10 levels so that's 30 levels total just completely sabotaged and destroyed and my my team member Felipe he's the 3D artist um and I'm the art director uh just so

people know kind of how we work together I'll tell him what I'm thinking and he'll build it and then a month later I'll say yeah I was wrong yeah and it's so much guilt and and anxiety and pressure but I'm learning and it's because of conversations like this where I talk to top tier devs who have created something magical and they're like yep we were there did the same thing I'll go through it you know all of them I I I might yeah my heart goes out to you it's it's part of the creative process it's it's iterative and I I have a quote actually while you were speaking it's very uh relevant for Twisted Tower I read I read uh interview with Ken Levine a long time ago who did you know the director of Bioshock and it was right before it came out and before it went won all those Game of the Year Awards and he said he's like like we have remade this game five times and wow you know and he's made games a long time and said he's like I am convinced now at this point in my career that the more

stuff you throw out the more likely your game is to be a masterpiece and that's what happened they they it was it sucks it sucks to throw away your work and there was things I discovered weren't working in my demo and you're like oh I'm sorry cuz I had Connor and yeah be like sorry Connor that was for nothing I'm so sorry it is hard it's a uh you're burning cash I mean yeah it's essentially like you put like I I'll say for me this game has cost over a half a million dollars woo yeah and um with me and then also just investors and all that so I would say maybe half of that was just burned ouch yeah that's that sucks yeah it's hard burn to the altar of what what is this altar the altar of creativity creativ you're figuring it out and uh I you know my hope my hope hope is that for you and me our next game we know what works and what doesn't

and that's true to a degree you know we'll we'll learn and and figure out yeah we we don't we're not going to make the same mistakes we made the last couple years but then again the next game you make is probably going to be bigger and the next game I make I don't want it to be want I'll tell you this the limit I I know I know you say that cuz I'm thinking the same thing I'm I'm sitting here going cuz I I watched your video and you said I'm do small projects from now on after this one that's that's my goal yeah I've said the same thing but David I'll speak for me I know myself I know what's going to happen oh no I'll do a small game and then it's going to be so much fun and it's gonna I'm going to go okay this game could make 500k and then I'll say but if I invest two more years it could be 10 million it's a dangerous it's a dangerous road to go down but I totally get it yeah I know it's it's hard and it's like for me I just I really just want to make enough to not feel so like

pressured of not having cash um I have a family uh to go with the Lord of the Rings theme I was like talking to my wife and we're like it's like when they're about to get they Sam's asking froto like well are we going to have enough bread for the trip home it's like yeah like it's such like in denial as they realize like their resources are only going to get them to the to Mount Doom and then they'll just have to die like there's no there's no backup plan they're like we're out of food and that we were spending so much money getting the demo done and I hired I did hire like an environment designer for a month uh I had my programmer I told you about um I'm buying like $2,000 worth of assets which is nothing compared to how much hired help is people cost it's costed me six figures just in people just my program pretty much who has helped so much he works fulltime on it and unfortunately that's

what that's what sucks is I was like we're not going to have money to finish the full game so I was just like I just got to get to launch to announcement day not launch day it it is the launch of the demo so we're working so hard we're fixing these critical bugs I have my play testers who are just like this kind of sucks like there's no one's like a couple people liked it um but I was like that is not the response I wanted um um the day comes where I'm like okay I think we fixed most of the bugs it's not perfect but it really gives a good feel it's like a vertical slice of what the full game will be um I I get all my ducks in a row for the big announcement we fly out to Germany which is a lot of fun me and my wife and then my best friend Matt Stokes he's the voice of Garrett so his W him and his wife come we got to share that with them and it was so much fun uh I'm just like this such a small little fish in a huge Pond of these gaming triaa Legends and everything um

man it's such a crazy story I don't even know if I can tell it all but to sum it up I get to go to The Opening Night Live you know first of all my show is not in Opening Night Live it's in the live stream only so I'm like they're on my phone while I'm sitting next to like the blizzard president and Peter malanu and I'm just looking at my interview on my phone while they get ready for the real show in live in the theater and it's cool just being there it's honestly like a highlight of my career like I'm just there but I still don't know if like people like the game there's a lot of like trash talk in the chat for the game cuz that's what people do there's there's haters on the internet but that's okay I fig I knew like people would be hating it on the live chat or whatever wait so the the trailer was premiering live and the chat was being negative oh yeah and they always are um maybe there's a few people are like hey this looks cool um but my brain is like I only see the negative um but I'm getting better at that I'm getting better at that and seeing the reality of things for what they are and

the reality is that Jeff key saw something in the game he was my supporter he wanted to support it for free because he liked it and it was such a win I was so grateful for that um we go to this VIP Afterparty and that's where I'm like I know these people are staying in like five star hotels and my hotel is literally full of spiders literally like no AC just we're sweating our butts off every night cuz it's like 90 Dees in the room spiders all over us and I'm like I do not belong in this VIP party and sure enough like I see Indie Superstars walk past me who are very rich I'm I'm talk I'm sitting I'm standing next to Phil Spencer president of Xbox my wife just starts chatting with the blizzard president about being a mom and working in games was kind of cool that's great and they're passing around little like waffle cones full of

caviar and I had it I was like that was not good I like I just it was such a weird world I was I was not it was like looking being an outsider and looking in for a bit I'm like man this is such a big business full of millionaires and billionaires and I was invited in just because of Jeff Keeley cuz he he wanted to support small game developers so I I owe a lot to him the team was so amazing the team like loves Indies they loved hearing a personal story about how games can be art and have these stories yeah cuz I don't know if I've said yet we Harvest Shadows is a firstperson farming horror allegory is what I'm calling it and it's about this man Garrett who wants to run away from the world forever because of his past and so he does all these tasks during the day to build up his farm and forget about his life and you learn about his life through flashbacks and voice over and journal entries but then at night these inner demons come to life

and they kind of haunt him and so there's this tension between working during the day and surviving the night and that's what the game is about and it's personal story about self-hatred about am I good enough like do I keep going things like that I I should have said that in the beginning of the video but that's what my game is we Harvest Shadows um man I don't even know where to go from there I'm just doing my boo I'm just doing my booth like a normal game developer in the Indie section I mean I love talking to the Indie developers there it's so much fun um and then I'm checking my wish list and I'm like okay I was right I got 10,000 in one day awesome huge boost it took me a year to get 10,000 wish lists for the first tree yeah um so I get that in a day which is a huge deal and I expected it to taper off I was like okay it will taper off and I'll probably end cuz i' had done a ton of research on other games that launched during that

announced during Opening Night Live and they would probably get 20 to 30 grand and then it would taper off to like you know 10 to 50 a day after that so that's pretty normal in fact I found another developer who announced their indie game at Opening Night Live and I was like hey let's let's compare wish list numbers and his did theirs it was a team theirs did way better like I had about it was it was like on day like 3 or four of the convention so I had about 20,000 wish lists at this point and then he had about 35,000 and announced exactly at the same time very similar game so I thought that was really interesting but then something happens I don't expect um I get a splatter cat video the YouTuber and he says this is one of the most inventive farming RPG horror games games he just calls it a farming RPG which I was like oh it's not really an RPG but that's cool and he loves it he

tells his audience this is a great demo you got to play it I get a spike I get a spike in wish list I then start getting a bunch of I get an YouTuber named insim who has a million subscribers he's like this is Horror Game of the Year wow didn't expect that he plays it over and over again cuz he loves it so much to find every little secret and again he's like guys this game is so good please wish listed huge Spike after that um and then it leads to gab smolders who she loves farming games and she loves horror games and this is the first of its kind where it's combined and she's like oh that was such a good Deo I love this game uh gab smolders her boyfriend is Jack sepai or Sean oh jeez and so Jack sepai he's like I couldn't get my girlfriend to shut up about this game so I'm playing it he has 30 million subscribers he's like what a great game I love the message about mental health he DMS me

we're talking I'm like oh my gosh I can't believe this is all happening it's so such this Whirlwind it's just this exponential increase all more YouTubers smaller YouTubers like they are always covering it I I've had there's hundreds or thousands of videos of We Harvest Shadows demo and at this point I'm at 197,000 wish list and I'm almost in the top I'm in like number 140 in the world of top most wishlisted and it's only been it's been less than two months it's been unbelievable it's I had no idea like I knew the Jeff Keeley thing was huge but comparing my game to all the other games at Opening Night Live I think the only games that were beating it were like Indiana Jones and like Starfield and stuff like that like it was unbelievable and it's just because people resonated with the story and the music they want to see more so they wish list it cuz they want to they want to see the story

continue they see like the future items they can buy and they're like oh I want that so bad I can't wait to play this game yep yep dude it's been the most insane event of my life and I have been I have every publisher begging me to fly out to them they want to whine and dine me the Publishers that did not believe in the game are like hey how's it going hey man how yeah you you did you're doing good and they just have I hate that it pisses me off so bad man I told you this last week it pisses me off money signs in their eyes it's it suck well it doesn't suck they don't know what a good game is clearly they don't know like I I've just been getting more and more frustrated with Publishers these days because you're right it's it's you you said I think you said this last week we were on a call and you said they you said they're you said something like they're higher than me or something or

they're like better than me or they know more clearly they don't no one here's the truth and this is what I've learned I've talked to the smartest people in the business I've talked to the best Publishers in the world no one knows what the hell is going to do well no one knows like no one knows they just they take guesses um but I was sure of it like I just I'm like I have a lot of confidence issues and I'm like sometimes embarrassed by my work but I knew that my idea was a good idea I just knew it that's the only reason I killed my mental health and spent all my savings to do it and I just believed in it that hard and it paid off I I took a giant risk I did and I'm one of I'm probably going to make millions of dollars from this new game if if I do it right it's I got to pull I got to I can't trip at the finish line and there's so many bugs I have so many horrible critical bugs where like save progress gets deleted and they can't

even start up the game and that's what that's what keeps me up now man dude bugs bugs in my opinion bugs are the last thing you need to worry about yeah like bugs what I mean is you need to solve them yes but like the real the real struggle and you're past this is that does the game have a hook does it have a USP yeah does it does it capture people yeah is it streamable yes that's a big thing like I built the like it wasn't like the only reason but I was like oh I bet streamers might laugh if you throw the tomatoes in the trailer and then they fall over like I don't know I was just thinking about that where I'm like cuz I'm a YouTuber I'm like I know what people want to watch now a little bit better than most and I'm like they streamers they have an audience and they they want a game will help them get views that's that's honestly helped me a lot to know like what they want to what people want to

watch I'd uh I'd rather get a thousand bugs than one comment from a tester that says I don't get it yeah you know and I dude that's where I was in the beginning of this summer in in June I was really proud of Twisted Tower me and my team were feeling really good about it and so we started getting people to play it and and nine times out of 10 not even joking people were like I don't know where I am I don't know what this is I don't know what this Tower even is I don't get the point and they and by the way they were right because we had to go in and bring in so much um instruction and cutcenes and dialogue and set dressing to tell them oh yeah to tell them hey this is what this game is and you you you you actually gave the perfect tagline to Twisted Tower last

week you just instantly knew what the tagline was which is uh what did you say you said um demented Disney and that was I when you said that to me I was like thank you he's got it he figured out it's a great game but also like I think I'm your target audience I love Bioshock I want to play another BioShock game and that's why it's like play testing is important but I it's it's I don't know I don't have an answer for it because it was really painful getting the play testing info and it did help but I had to boil it down not to like anecdotes or one person's opinion I had to boil it down to data be like okay 63% of people get uh they screw up at this part that was really helpful and that helped me find tun the demo so that it was just fun it was it was uh it was easy it wasn't hard to play the game and it just you just got to focus for me I love looting so I'm just like I'm popping every balloon and breaking every trash can and I just love it and that that just made me be like I'm having a good time this is fun

and that's it takes play testing to figure out what is working I think so you did you did the right thing you did the right thing man I I appreciate it I really do and I appreciate your feedback it was really helpful last week it was a hard week because we got some negativity but you were very very helpful and you know was there a a time in your game when it was when the game wasn't communicating itself very well to players oh where it didn't quite make sense what it was yeah like and it is it's a weird genre genre Bender so it is like what is this game and some stuff you run into by accident like I kind of thought it would be mostly scary the whole game day and it was a day night cycle um it's kind of open world game in that sense um but what I learned was just through making the game through experimenting through being creative is that during the day it can be more Melancholy and the story can

be delivered to the player and you can learn these things and you can have fun and at nighttime and this is true in real life like if you're camping in the woods nighttime is very different than being in your campsite during the day um exactly and that was that feeling I went where it's like man when you feel most alone when you're quiet with your thoughts laying in bed and you have these horrible thoughts thoughts like could we put that into the game somehow and so that was kind of by accident really is that and then it was this huge benefit because during the day it if it's just constantly scary like a flat line no dips or like no valleys or mountains in the graph uh then it it's not as scary your brain gets desensitized to the horror but if it's a little calm every morning and then it gets terrifying at night it makes it more effective actually yeah and you had to figure that out slowly like this is what this game is know the painting the painting which shows you

your sanity your mental state that was added that was such a last minute addition like and I just thought I just was like oh that'd be cool like I really was like oh that'd be cool that might be fun that to add more tension to be like oh like is there something something going to jump out at me or something and it was something like we just did in like a day it was like okay it's done it's been by far the most thing like that has helped the game with streamers so much because it they're always checking the painting and it freaks them out and it UPS the tension and it's just a painting you know like I didn't know that would be so effective you just find out through play testing do you know I was thinking David how you were talking about the zeist and you like to think about what's what's culturally moving right now yeah um do you know I I I think there's one Zeitgeist that you haven't mentioned maybe you know what it is but what I immediately when you sent me that trailer you know what my first thought was acreage oh yeah uh the I people are

really craving like Americana is on the rise in America like this sense of I want to be country I want to be alone I want to learn how to Homestead uh I want land I want privacy it's I think I think that is a cultural Z guys that's happening right now it's it happened for me and my family we went and got some acreage down the road because we just we want to we want us build a kind of little mini Homestead yeah and when I was playing it I got chills with that feeling of I'm alone finally right oh yeah and that's like kind of that that's another theory I have is successful games they need some form of wish fulfillment and even if it's like a wish fulfillment like in Silent Hill 2 where it's like oh this is terrifying but it's like I want that emotional satisfaction of like finding my lost dead wife and saying sorry to her like that could be a form of like satisfying wish fulfillment and like the first tree was like I want to play a

beautiful game as a fox and people wanted to play as a fox that was wish fulfillment like there's some in these that there's these beautiful artsy games and I love the beautiful experimental story driven games um I I haven't played it but I I watched a postmortem of a game called the car wreck and against it's like these flashbacks of this person's life right at the moment of a car wreck and I've been in a car wreck it's horrifying terrifying it's loud it's scary you feel like you're going to die um I just had that feeling I was like the guy was like we we have made great successful games before but the car wreck did hor I think it's called the wreck sorry the wreck did Horrible No One bought it and I just kind of had a thought where I was like even with the sad serious games like the first tree and we Harvest Shadows I think there needs to be an element of the wish fulfillment and that was me like I was like I want to get away from all of you I don't want to see any of you ever again and then the truth kind of unfolds

where it's like this is horrifying and I'm being haunted by my past it's not what I thought but still like that initial wish fulfillment that's even what I said to the Jeff Keeley and the team where I was like like I truly believe this game will resonate with people because just a few weeks ago there was a video that went viral of a doctor he was a 29-year-old brain surgeon I don't know if you saw this video um he said like he was trying to like he like goes out to the middle of the mountains and he says I'm leaving it all behind I don't want to be a doctor anymore and he just talks about for an hour it's just him talking to this uh camera in the middle of nowhere and he's saying how he wants he doesn't believe in modern society anymore and he wants to leave it all behind because of Health Care and the human body and what modern society does to stress and how that makes us sick this is a doctor a brain surgeon telling us that and he says I'm and he says he's no longer a doctor and he's going to find happiness in The Quiet Moments and that like hourlong video of just this guy talking to the

camera it had like 20 million views and everyone's like preach oh I needed to hear this it was like cathartic you know what I mean and that's what I really want my game to be cathartic I want it to be emotional I I feel like horror can be this great delivery because it breaks down your defenses and you like it like lets you relinquish some I don't know some control and that allows you to have like this mental Clarity of like oh like I don't know that's a theory too as like an emotional story can be best served by horror because it's like cathartic oh it sure can yeah catharsis yeah and Ari asra talks a lot about that the director of um hereditary her both hereditary and midsr both rely on a buildup to a to catharsis oh I love it it's so genius yeah especially with Midsummer man Midsummer is like dude you're just cheering for you're cheering for that girl as her boyfriend burns alive I love that movie and again

it was so emotional I think horror games should be emotional yeah horror stories can be emotional and that's that's what I want to try to do you know I love what you said David about games being wish fulfillment um I've I've been getting in little spats on Twitter about what a game like what A Game's primary uh driver should be and and I don't have an opinion but sometimes I just I troll a little bit and I say fun fun is the most important aspect of a game but hearing so I've said that before but I think I might change my opinion based on what you've said I think wish fulfillment is probably a better metric and the reason I say that is because like you you mentioned the the rag another game that did really really well in as a streaming game but did not sell was that Dragon cancer oh yes yeah there is no wish fulfillment there at all nothing brutal oh I don't think I could like I admire the

game um I've even talked to the main developer once uh amazing guy uh amazingly well done won so many accolades like it's so revered as an artistic you know game but yeah no one that was that's actually something I thought of too or like even me like as a parent I don't think I could play the game I just couldn't bring myself to do it really but it's important like I'm glad it exists but yeah when you're talking about trying to move copies and sell enough to support your family it's hard like you need a little bit of that wish fulfillment and you know like horror games are scary but like we are drawn to them still so it doesn't have to be like oh this game makes me happy like sometimes the wish fulfillment could be like I need catharsis and you know and I'm sure that Dragon cancer does that catharsis of losing a child but oh that's such a dark place that is the dark think that is so dark I'd rather I would rather be I would rather be tortured and alive

in the setting of Outlast than ever go through that Dragon cancer yeah I'm with you and it makes me think about it makes me think about the difference between a film and a game yeah I think that Dragon cancer it made it was essentially doing what a film should do um because it was streamable like people streamed it all over you know but you don't want to play that um and so films and games are completely different in their aim um and their goal unless someone else can figure out a good example in the comments of a game that isn't a wish fulfillment of some to some degree I think it's good to just sort of land on wish fulfillment is a good rule of thumb yeah for games yeah and like sometimes you just want to go to a place like that's what's so great about games is like I'm there like dear dear Esther is like you know a controversial game and the wish people would be like what's

the wish fulfillment you don't you just walk but like I love it cuz you go to this beautiful island the music plays there is like some gameplay things where like the dialogue is randomized which makes the story a little different each time yeah and you're looking for ghosts and Dear Esther but it is like I just want sometimes I just want to go to a place and you know like with Twisted Tower too I was I think the wish wish fulfillment not only is there like I want to play Bioshock again that's wish fulfillment but the wish fulfillment is like the wish fulfillment is what if Disneyland was like super effed up and everyone was getting murdered that's kind of that's kind of what I would describe it as well I one of the additional wish fulfillments and sorry my dog is barking if everyone can hear that but uh but um one of the wish fulfillments that I want to get your opinion on cuz I've had some negativity about it is in Twisted power you play as kind of like I don't know the best word for this but you kind of play as like a beta male um who's been friend zoned by

this really cute girl and I've been there I mean I think a lot of people listening have been there as well when you just get friendzoned and you're just not cool enough and you're not strong enough and big enough and so the character's name is Tiny and his his nickname is Tiny because a bully in high school named him tiny and so the wish fulfillment is what if I could prove my worth to a girl and show her who boss yeah now people have said that's a really crappy motivation and I agree with them however there is something there's more to the story by the way it's not like you just you just become awesome and you prove your worth by killing monsters but do you feel like that's there's some wish fulfillment there oh for sure I I think that's a interesting round character character round being like not so easy to put into one compartment you know like uh maybe you know it could be

just everybody's different and to me like I played the demo and I immediately liked tiny I was like oh Tiny's interesting and that's cuz I don't know if like I'm a beta male but you know I'm mild I'm more mild mannered I'm shy I've been friend zoned countless times it's just what you it's just what happens um and so immediately I took a liking the tiny but also we were about the village Thomas and like I immediately liked Lucius uh Wen Phoenix's character and it sounds like you didn't like him as much so maybe it's not that Wakee Phoenix was the problem maybe it's that they miscast him yeah um you know I I I'm trying to think of a better actor who could do it maybe Andrew Garfield you know like Peter Parker is that we we all feel this way um whether we want to or not as men which is especially when you're in high school you feel I'm just not big in in an emo sense in a sense I'm

just not cool enough I'm not the football player you know I'm not the quarterback star and Spider-Man the wish fulfillment of Spider-Man is what if you had superpowers and you proved everybody wrong you know what if you got bit by a spider in Germany in Gamescom in your hotel and all and that sounds exactly what happened to you by the way you became a superhero in one night and maybe you got bit by a spider I don't know probably did probably ate them like that myth myth says you eat all these spiders in your sleep that's right yeah but you know at the end of the day I think I to sort of wrap this discussion up I love what you said about wish fulfillment and I want to encourage everyone listening to try and find some kind of wish fulfillment for their games because I have never thought about that and I think that that's that is exactly what a game should do that's brilliant dude

good no I'm glad I you've done so good with your game it you exactly like the that feeling of putting this is a weird example but that feeling of putting the the the work of my hands in a trailer and getting paid for it uhhuh on land yeah that is my dude that's my dream like I you can ask my wife we talk about this all the time of like I want to get goats I want to have an orchard I want a trailer for my truck on my land and I want everyone else to shut up and let me do what I want to do that sounds so nice I think a lot of people especially programmers and people in Tech that's what I've learned is that they all kind of like oh I just want land and the garden and so I I put myself into the game and as you would know it like a lot of people feel the same way and I think that's why it's being received so well it's oh yeah I you know I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Virginia um and we lived we lived we had 10 acres like we walked it's like a huge like amount of land and

we had Creeks running through everything we had animals oh I love it now now I have a quarter acre but that's okay maybe maybe one day everyone I know who's gr grown up on land resents it really um yeah I know several people who they grew up as kids on a farm and they they just want to the suburb life um is that true for you or do you miss I don't know you know I have kids and I I love how they run around the neighborhood and they're friends with everybody and we have great neighbors so I you know you just try to bloom where you're planted which is a good farming metaphor for we Harvest shadows and stuff I yeah I I'm just trying to be present and just that's like my hyperactive brain is like I've learned that I'm always thinking 20 steps ahead so sometimes I'm like oh will we move one day and I'm like we're happy here trying to focus on the

present uh my brother is in the hospital waiting to get a heart transplant so I visit him all the time trying to you know just think about him and pray for him so no it's I'm really fortunate and you know like we go through hard times as adults as parents as game developers as business owners um but what I'm learning too is that there's there's so much to be grateful for as well and that's kind of the lessons I've learned and I'm trying to put again those feelings into we Harvest shadows and I think people want to hear that they they want the cathares like they said and they want the wish fulfillment but then they want to my hope is that they'll get the wish fulfillment of like oh I'm alone I have a thousand acres and then they'll be like maybe this isn't what it cracked up to what what it's cracked up to be and they'll uh they'll learn something about themselves because that's what I think the great stories do out they they teach us about ourselves most of all and then we become better people for it absolutely well dude that is a really

really good line to end on for this podcast it's been fun I love talking to you man I'm excited for all your future projects and I'll be buying Twisted Tower day one I I love it it's truly I it's that kind of game I would love so people if people like Bioshock they should try the demo out which I hope comes out soon right yeah soon soon we we missed October for a variety of reasons um that I can't get into maybe one day I'll tell the story uh but it was painful because we really wanted to launch the demo it's a Halloween game so I mean gosh it would have been awesome but I I hear you man just hang in there you're good you're good at what you do you learn from all these things and that means like what Julian said it'll it'll you will eventually make that Mega hit and you know you've already had hits you're like a huge success in so many ways so you just keep going and keep improving um I had like a favor to ask

your audience if that's okay sure sure sure um I'm really fortunate because there are Publishers that are interested in my game but I'm literally out of uh savings like completely um so I did put game Dove unlocked on sale so it's it's basically everything I've learned over three years um it has every lesson it's a toz of game development and I made some new videos about we Harvest shadows and why it made so many wish lists uh and like what I did exactly step by step so I hope it helps my students we'd love for you to join um that would help me pay the bills and you know I'm not it's not like a super huge emergency cuz I'm really fortunate that the game has been received so well and I'll probably get a publishing deal which will pay my cost of living which yeah that's been a whole thing learning about Publishers and talking to them and everything maybe we could do that another time Thomas well I want to encourage

everybody to to to check out the course below uh your course actually inspired my course that's no surprise to you or to me um but I uh I ended up making a course too because I saw that you know you you did an incredible job teaching in your course I took your course it's very good but I want to encourage everybody to check it out below um mainly for for my selfish reasons I want people to check it out so that you can maybe Stave off getting a publisher for a while that's my opinion yeah uh and try and try and survive for a little bit longer because you got lightning in a bottle but um I've I've talked let's let's maybe do another podcast soon because like I've learned so much talking about the Publishers I've talked to like a dozen successful devs about their publishing experiences and now I have like a really good overview of like what the industry looks like now in 2024 so you know there's there's there's nightmare Publishers yeah there are I've

had some bad publisher deals in the past that have been brutal and then I've had some that are like amazing and it's like working with angels yeah and it's and you never really know it's like the contract we could talk all about this in another podcast but a contract can be Rock Solid and you still have a night situation because the publisher just sucks yes that's another conversation yeah I've learned so much and I still by the way I'm undecided I've still talking to a bunch of people and I don't know what path I'm going to take I'm still doing research but like yeah you you've helped me you've given me some advice on calls and stuff so I appreciate it I'll let you know how it goes but I'm still like this has been such a huge learning experience it's crazy when you get to this this level of of attention everyone comes running to you with money signs in their eyeballs and yeah it's a hard it's scary it's a

hard decision and well it's it's a worse situation to have than the alternative yes the alternative is you have a publisher and you have no wish lists and a publisher is like hey we believe in the game that is a good situation the situation you're in if I'm going to be honest is a potentially devastating situation oh no because you well just because you sign a de I know you sign a deal with a publisher who shooes you because they want your freaking wish list that you earned and it infuriates me it's hard uh be you know you want to get the publisher who has no idea about the wish list and they just believe in you you not your game you that's the best situation yeah um but let's dude let's let's save that for another conversation another podcast and we'll wrap up here mainly because I have to pee um but uh and I think I heard my wife knocking at my

door so um I will uh leave it Link in the description for your course also to wish list we Harvest Shadows I've played it it's awesome highly recommend to everybody listening to go play that game and obviously buy it when it launches and thank you so much thanks for having me on I love talking to you and hopefully we talk again soon Thomas we will appreciate it d d cheers man see you by the way if you're like me and you always dreamt of making an indie game as a full-time job I have a free webinar below that goes into exactly how to make six figures with just a demo I was just like you for years I thought I had to make a game in its entirety before getting a paycheck but there's actually three ways to make six figures before even finishing your game I've done this multiple times so check it out below if you do want to go full-time Indie and thanks for watching