This is the game that changed my life.
Nearly 10 years ago, my best friend Riley announced that he was going to make a game. Not to Twitter, or any other widespread community, but to our small group at the high school lunch table. He's the most talented artist I've ever known, and I knew right then and there that he had the drive to make it happen. And I wanted in.
What followed was one of the strangest games I've ever seen before: A Fire Emblem-adjacent strategy title that took the genre's norms of fantasy and "noble families" and replaced them with nu-metal, grungy Dada-inspired art and an absurdist modern take on the typical mercenaries-at-war story. "The Guilty Gear of SRPGs," as one YouTuber called it.
We believed in the risks we took, no matter how questionable they were (a character that's a giant chess piece possessed by a human soul? Seriously?) and never compromised on our creative vision.
I talk a lot about the importance of "earnest" games. That the passion one puts into their work can be seen immediately. These qualities led to a bizarre, heartfelt, and fascinatingly weird strategy RPG that fans quickly funded on Kickstarter last October.
While Riley wrote compelling copy for our self-promo Reddit and Fire Emblem forum posts, I organized paid advertisement across social media with GIFs that targeted players of similar games and wrote to media outlets daily. Our combined approach netted us thousands of wishlists across our first 30 days, setting us up for success throughout the rollercoaster Kickstarter campaign.
I've managed media relations and influencer campaigns, produced our content calendar and post cadence, created marketing and advertising strategy, and have served as producer of the game and its fundraising efforts since the company's founding in 2024, alongside several other roles. I'm also proud that I've learned how to operate as a self-publishing developer.
All of those words mean one thing: I've done everything I possibly can to make my best friend's dream project a success.
So, how have we done so far?
- At Steam Next Fest Oct. '24, SL was rated in the top 15 of Strategy RPGs (150+ entries) and the top 75 of the Strategy and RPG categories (400+ and 500+ entries)
- We've gained over 4,000 wishlists within the first two months of the game's announcement
- We've built an organic audience of 1,400+ followers combined across Bluesky, X, IG, FB, and YouTube
- We achieved our funding goal to begin full-time development
- We shipped our first demo together
The outpouring of support we've received has been shocking, honestly. I'm also incredibly grateful for our dedicated Discord community, who have already sent us character and story analyses that break the server's character limit and lead to meme wars between fans of a character that's in the demo for all of two seconds and another who isn't even playable yet.
This project has taught both of us that sticking to our guns and creating what we believe we're meant to make is truly the way forward in this industry. It will not always be financially viable, but the love we share for this artform, its community, and the fulfillment that comes from the creative process is too great to not put everything we have into this journey.
This visual of "Oblivion" from our opening chapter has captivated players enough to request an animated wallpaper for their desktops!