#indie-game-development

#indie-game-development

When Vampire Survivors won a BAFTA for Game of the Year back in 2023, it was a handful of Galante's colleagues at Poncle who took to the stage to accept it. At convention panels, Galante is known for using screens and decoys rather than addressing the audience himself. In the NoClip documentary chronicling the success of Vampire Survivors, Galante opted to have a Muppets-esque puppet resembling the game's iconic vampire mascot made so he wouldn't have to appear on camera himself.

These are the sort of things you see on the floor at the Portland Retro Game Expo, a yearly exhibition of video game culture and technology for vintage game collectors and dealers. Gamers are looking to relive their pasts and the pasts of others (who grew up with different systems or games), and, as with every gathering of ten or more people these days, Pokemon card collectors, hunting for the treasure their heart most desires.

I carry around a notebook that is now teeming with ideas to implement or test in the game, and thankfully I still consider this my hobby, but the prospect of rushing the work and going back into crunch mode to get it out this year just felt terrible. I am working slowly, but I like it that way. I love getting sucked into rabbit holes and I don't like trying to force things creatively.

"I've applied to so many jobs this year. But it's just, it's really tough."

"The indie game market is projected to reach $4.85bn in 2025 and $9.55bn by 2030, with mobile games accounting for half of all revenue."

"We recognize that there is an opportunity there if you get something new out of the gate or close to launch, and [if] you use some of the features, there's going to be a decent audience there that wants to try it," studio founder Matthew Annal told me in an interview.