#snackodev

[snackodev]

caprese salad

#lowpoly #pixel art #pixel food #3d art #snacko #snackodev

[enralis]

Hi! I've been following Snacko for a long while! Your gamedev journey is inspiring

I've been thinking over very carefully how I should plan the jump to fulltime dev myself. When did you decide you were ready to take the leap of faith, and how much of the game was done at that point? How have you been supporting yourself regarding funds during development since then?

first, thank you so much! i'm glad my girldisaster journey was at least helpful for somebody out there!

this is gonna be a bit long so i'll just put a break here;;

when did we go fulltime?

about a year after working on the project purely for fun

we were going to release it as a tiny game for any amount of money just to say we released something

well that didn't happen, obviously lol

when we realized people were legitimately interested in it and got publisher meetings, we decided to scale it up

but then found out it's way too difficult (mentally) to work on a game while working full-time

we had some money saved up, and i just finished college. what better time to absolutely ruin our lives give fulltime dev a try?

our plan was: if our savings dip below about 70% of the total saved, we quit

luckily, we never had to worry about hitting that point because we finalized with a publisher soon after (but we no longer have any savings now so ? lol)

if you don't think you'll need outside help it will be easier on your wallet, but remember that means more time on your end taken away to do things you will be less comfortable with

how much of the game was done at that point?

not a lot. it had basic features: farming, walking, talking to people, placing objects, fishing, etc.

this is what the game looked like around that time (2019 summer/fall)

the problem? they were all not that great or they didn't scale well. since then, the game has evolved and changed a lot that it's almost unrecognizable from a systems standpoint

best examples is schedule system to handle NPC actions, dialogue trees, and cutscenes

i would say only maybe 10% code/asset-wise, but 90% of the concepts and plans were already in place

this is what the game looks like now!

how have we been supporting ourselves?

barely hahahaha.

we got a set amount from our publisher each month. this can vary depending on your contract or if you decide to forgo a publisher

most of it goes towards paying for contract work (vfx, sfx, music, additional programming, etc.)

another portion gets sucked into admin (yearly accountant, lawyer, business operating expenses like licenses)

the rest goes into our living expenses. mortgage, bills, etc.

patreon was anywhere from $300-$600 at our peak, but some of that went back into merch for the higher tiers, so we can just say $400 avg

we got a $10k USD grant from epic games (megagrant, free to apply) in october 2019

our kickstarter was around $40k USD. most of it went to paying composer! (it's worth it trust me)

now that our publisher funding has ended (it's been...5 years wow), we have some personal debt as i made the choice to keep some business cash on hand just in case

paying our contractors > paying ourselves

#enraliask #gamedev #snackodev

[thspod]

While you are waiting for our Wholesome Snack episode, here's a throwback to our interview from January 2020 with @snackodev in celebration of the game entering Early Access today!

#snacko #farming games #wholesome snack

[snackodev2]

#snacko #snackodev #indie game #gamedev

[desertmile]

Momo

Mikan

Two cats owned by @snackodev 

#desertmile #cats #irl cats to characters #Snacko game #Snackodev #fanart #2020

[gaming]

Indie Game Spotlight: Snacko ( @snackodev​ )

This week’s Indie Game Spotlight is the cat’s meow. Snacko is a farming adventure game about two kitties starting a new life on a (seemingly) deserted island with a meow-sterious past! 

We chatted with husband and wife duo, Erisa and Jordan, who are making it out of their home studio in Canada, with the main cast based on their cats. Erisa does most of the art and community stuff like blog posts and social media, and Jordan is the lead (and only) programmer on the project. Read on!

What were some major influences in making the game?

Erisa: I grew up on almost exclusively Nintendo handheld games, so a lot of Story of Seasons and Rune Factory for the gameplay, and some Pokémon games for art. For particular features like the interior decorating, I draw a lot on my experiences playing The Sims.

Jordan: Unlike Erisa, I grew up playing games on console and PC, so, while we do share some common ground (namely in the farming sim department), my tastes are quite different! I bring most of my inspiration from action-adventure games such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, early 2000s MMORPGs such as Ragnarok Online and Phantasy Star Online, and platformers such as Super Mario 64.

Aside from farming, what other activities can you do?

We have some of the more common features found in other farming games, like fishing, cooking, and taking care of farm animals. But we’ve also added some extra activities to fill your days, like part-time jobs at the local diner, exploring procedurally-generated mazes in the mines, and decorating and growing your own island community. We have some more surprises we’re excited to reveal in the coming months!

How does customization work?

There are many ways to make your Snacko experience unique to you! Your farm, the town, and your home can all be decorated using crafting recipes and building blueprints you collect during your journey. You can mix things up by dyeing your furniture, or the roofs of buildings, different colors crafted from flowers and other materials found in the wild.

Another aspect of customization in Snacko is the villagers that live on your island. As you start rebuilding the town, you’ll find yourself in need of shops or services. You can take this opportunity to post on the bulletin board for potential villagers to respond to. Depending on what you’re offering and what you’re looking for, you can have an interesting combination of villagers on your island, and place their houses at will.

We’ve spent extra care in making the controls and options for building as convenient as possible to create spaces as you imagine them in your mind. My personal favorite is the ability to rotate freely and toggle seamlessly between snap-to-grid and free placement!

What has been the biggest challenge in creating the game?

Erisa: Staying consistent. I haven’t worked on a project this big before, and once you add on the fact that I’m essentially the art director of the project, as well as my own boss, it’s been a challenge to make sure all my assets stay consistent. I’ve gotten into situations where I’ve had to redo assets because they looked fine on their own, but out of place once implemented into the game.

Jordan: Picking and choosing what ideas get to make it into the game. No matter how small and easy you think it will be to put a new idea into the game, every new idea adds complexity and needs to be polished, maintained, tested, and localized into all of our supported languages. As the game has progressed, our ideas haven’t slowed down—so having to continually fight the urge to add more can get a tad stressful!

If you could be friends with any of the game's villagers in real life, who would it be?

Erisa: Definitely Frits! He seems like a really chill guy to hang out with after work over some chicken skewers and drinks. I think so far, Frits is my favorite character I’ve designed.

Jordan: Outside of the characters that mirror our cats’ personalities, I’d have to go with Maru. He’s one of the more down-to-earth characters in our cast, and loves when he gets time to focus on his hobbies!

Snacko is currently available to wishlist on Steam! They’re currently developing for PC and will keep everyone updated for other platforms in the future. You can follow their Tumblr here!

#Snacko #Indie Game Spotlight

[unrealengine4y]

@AstralBode @TimSweeneyEpic @snackodev @ACS_Games 👋 (via Twitter http://twitter.com/UnrealEngine/status/1292179609111404552) #UnrealEngine #UnrealEngine4 #GameEngine

#UnrealEngine #UnrealEngine4 #GameEngine

[snackodev]

✨ Snacko Better Build Mode Updates

Reticle on gamepad makes aiming and picking out each item you've placed much easier!

Hide HUD and toggle grid visibility to take the perfect screenshot

Craftable and placeable bushes and flowers 🌸 Place them like the saplings.

Stackable fences 📐 Fences now have building areas on top, meaning you can put fences on top of fences. Or you can put a bed on top of your fence, I'm not your mom.

We're working on even more quality of life improvements and balance changes, so stay tuned for our upcoming updates~

🌱 Check out some of these ameowzing community builds!

#snacko #indie game #cozy games #farming sim #indie games #snackodev #game dev #gamedev #indiegame #steam deck #steam games #snacko builds #life sim

[snackodev]

welcome to the grassy plains 🌻

#snacko #snackodev #indie game #cozy games #game dev #farming sim #indiegame

[snackodev]

the amount of times i've been on the cusp of bursting into tears over the worlds wildest randomest fuck you bugs out of nowhere this past week has been extremely high

#snackodev #snacko #gamedev #indie game #game development #cozy games

[snackodev]

we've been cooking REAL HARD lately

new UI for crafting recipes includes: 🎨dye preview 📝look at your recipes anywhere, you can even change the quantity so you know how much you'll need for your goals 🪑mesh preview for anything that has one 📒more consistent styling

also features dynamic camera so both large objects and wee objects are viewable!

#snacko #snackodev #indie game #game dev #cozy games #gamedev #game development #farming sim

[snackodev]

you vs the guy she told u to not worry about

#snacko #snackodev #indie game #cozy games #game dev #game development #indiegame

[snackodev]

what kind of cursed bug is this

#snacko #snackodev #indie game #cozy games #game dev #gamedev #game development #indiegame #indiedev

[snackodev]

We've come a long way since the start of our project in 2018.

Thank you for all the support! Let's make 2023 a good one 🐾

#snacko #snackodev #indie game #gamedev #game development

[snackodev]

new icons~

#snacko #snackodev #indie game #cozy games #game dev #pixel art

[snackodev]

just a boy

#snacko #snackodev #lowpoly #pixel art #blahaj #its a fucking blahaj heheahah