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Valley Forged: How One Man Made the Indie Video Game Sensation Stardew Valley
- eindiran 8y agoThis was a really nice read. In the past, I've read or seen pieces detailing the personal story of a particular indie game developer, and often I walk away feeling kind of grated by their personalities (See "Indie Game: The Movie" for a particularly high octane example). But after reading it I felt warmed by how much you could see the artist in his art.
- stevenwoo 8y agoWow, this is amazing and old school - doing the art, sound, music, programming. I think the only advantage he had was he could look up anything on the internet and possibly find an answer to technical road blocks, he still had to polish and rework for five years (and not feel pressure to get or work a regular 9-5 and keep his relationship going, though it sounds like it may have been a close call there towards the end with the three playtesters helping immensely).
- crooked-v 8y agoUndertale is another one-man-band project like that.
- a1369209993 8y agoThere's also Dwarf Fortress[0]. 0: http://bay12games.com/dwarves/ http://bay12games.com/dwarves/
- kej 8y agoThat one is technically a two-man band, but definitely still fits the pattern of someone dedicating their life to making a complex game.
- dmichulke 8y agoTo the credit of GP, in DF there occurs exactly the type of obsession (in dwarfs) that the original commenter talked about, so it's worth a mention even if its "single creator" is two brothers
- Splines 8y agoAnd also the venerable RollerCoaster Tycoon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon_(video_ga...
- disconcision 8y agosawyer contracted out for the art (Simon Foster) and music (Allister Brimble). still a heroic individual effort though
- volkl48 8y agoEspecially given that he wrote the whole thing in assembly.
- mislankanova 8y agoAnd Touhou.
- inawarminister 8y agoThe Windows series of games are 16 years old today It's still pretty successful worldwide, with major fan conventions and contents being released in PS4, Steam, etc. Quite an interesting phenomenon.
- romwell 8y agoOn that note, I highly recommend Papers, Please[1]. It's a one-person project as well, and a truly amazing work of art. Played it with my partner to get all the endings and achievements; it's been an amazing experience. [1]http://papersplea.se/ http://papersplea.se/
- sshagent 8y agoSeconded. This game is amazing, maybe a little miserable/funny. glory to arstotzka!
- mercer 8y agoWhat I loved about Papers, Please is that it was actually a proper, fun game. Depressing too, but fun. I rarely come across 'art project' style games that pull their weight game-wise.
- romwell 8y agoIt really does have excellent gameplay. Although I wouldn't call the game depressing - I found the satire funny as hell.
- AlphaWeaver 8y agoActually, interestingly enough: > But throughout the four and a half years, he never once reached out online by asking questions or speaking to another developer for advice. He hates asking for help. Perhaps he did some searches but it sounds like he never interacted with a site like StackOverflow.
- soneca 8y agoIt seems to me that he only read answers, documentation, etc. Do not actively ask questions
- stevenwoo 8y agoTrue, I think that is the way most people use StackOverflow, searching, finding answers and not very often contributing in the form of questions, answers. I either find the question I have or something close enough that I can work from there to a solution. Rarely if I have something pressing that is time sensitive enough I go to the git repo page and look at the source and try to figure it out from there or see if anyone has suggestions there, or do a fork and try things with that.
- cspags 8y agoAnother one-person project, still under development http://www.itlurksbelow.com/ http://www.itlurksbelow.com/. Granted this one person is David Brevik, of Diablo fame :)
- forgot-my-pw 8y agoIt's pretty impressive that he worked on it alone, including art and music.
- driverdan 8y agoEric is not only a genius who made a fantastic game but he's a nice, down-to-earth person. I met him once. He had a table at one of the PAX cons and was hanging out with fans, many whom had him sign stuff. This was after it had sold enough copies to make him a millionaire. He didn't have to be there, he choose to do it.
- foobarbazetc 8y agoI think I met him at the same PAX. Really nice guy. Happy for his success.
- stuxnet79 8y agoI found out about this from reading Blood, Sweat and Pixels [1]. What really struck me about this whole story is the fact that his partner was able to support him for the entire duration he was working on the game (close to half a decade). That's a tough sell for any relationship, and if you ask me the real hero of this story is his partner who believed in him enough to support him all the way to the end. I would love to be in that kind of relationship. [1] https://kotaku.com/i-wrote-a-book-about-the-making-of-uncharted-4-star-wa-1792635169 https://kotaku.com/i-wrote-a-book-about-the-making-of-unchar...
- NikolaNovak 8y ago1. Agreed - supporting your partner through weeks and months is one thing; but half a decade is a whole relationship in itself. It is a tremendous commitment on both sides. 2. Great book and I can wholeheartedly recommend it; on one hand it's stories on video game industry and its characters - on the other hand it's a primer on complex project management as well.
- kermittd 8y agoThat’s an incredible book. A bit off chapter but it’s a shame Obsidian can’t seem to catch a break.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- golemiprague 8y agoNo, she is not the "real hero", supporting is nice but it is just supporting. To be honest many men support their wives, I know countless families where the men is the provider and the women go to study for years or just shopping and sitting in cafes. There is nothing special about it and I don't understand why when a woman does it suddenly she is the "real hero".
- vtange 8y agoAgreed. The notion that "Wow, any woman would've left this man for a guy who makes more, so this is an extraordinary relationship" sorta reinforces the assumption that men must be the breadwinner in any normal relationship.
- fhood 8y agoWow, I didn't even like Stardew Valley very much, but there is a level of polish to that game that is unbelievable for a single person to have accomplished.
- grillvogel 8y agoIt's a lot easier when you can just blatantly copy another pre existing game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune_Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune_Factory
- butz 8y agoYou meant Harvest Moon, right?
- cde-v 8y agoWhich copied blatantly from Harvest Moon. But regardless, if it was so easy to blatantly copy from previous iterations, the new Harvest Moon wouldn't be significantly worse than Stardew Valley.
- grillvogel 8y agoIt didnt copy it, its an improved spinoff made by the original harvest moon devs.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoAnd you've already been told that the creator of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory thinks Stardew is great. Do you think no one but Wada Yasuhiro should make farm RPGs? That seems like a shabby thing to wish on a genre you claim to love.
- thoughtpalette 8y agoWhat a disingenuous comment. You could say this about almost every other work.
- Splines 8y agoIt's similar in concept but the execution is different. You could say the same thing about every side-scrolling fighting game.
- leisureforce 8y agoIIRC, the maker has said HM was his inspiration. The expansions left him less than happy and he decided to do what he wanted himself.
- l33tbro 8y agoGood read. But kind of underwhelmed how the author glosses over how the steps of how developer finally connected with the real world and got his creation out there. I think many of us can relate to the obsession with detail, but hearing how the publisher discovered him and their impressions of his work would have been a nice pay-off.
- koonsolo 8y agoThis piece is mostly about the emotional side of it, and kind of romances the whole thing. I don't think you can take away much practical advice with such articles. For example, when I read "working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 4 years", that's just impossible. And a Kotaku interview confirms this (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/03/21/the-past-present-and-future-of-stardew-valley http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/03/21/the-past-present-and-futu...): >> Kotaku: How did you avoid burning out? How did you avoid coming to hate Stardew Valley? Eric Barone: There were periods where I had an idea or something that I was really passionate about, and in that moment I would work like crazy. I actually just literally wanted to see that thing come to life as quick as possible because it was fresh in my mind. I had this fire to create that. Then there would be other periods where I just kind of didn’t feel like working, so while I would sit there and attempt to work I probably did a lot of alt tabbing and just browsing Reddit and stuff like that. I would waste time, and I would be a lot less productive. << So he's human like all of us, but it's still really impressive what he was able to pull of, no question about that. He's an inspiration for all lone game developers. I'm just saying, take all these articles with a grain of salt. It's journalists doing their journalist thing.
- kumarvvr 8y agoThis is a great point. The moment I read "12 hrs a day, 7 days a week" I felt very disappointed with my own style of working. I usually work at max around 1/2 to 1 hour a day, even though I spend 3 - 4 hours on the PC. But during binges of feverish thoughts, I lose track of time in work, and can easily not notice 4 - 5 hours consumed.
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- keithnz 8y agoI recently started playing it multiplayer with my son ( 7 ). I had watched him play it solo before but didn't think it was my type of game. But boy, the amount of detail in the game is fantastic.
- ansible 8y agoIt'll be interesting to see if switching to Rust will enhance the already remarkable productivity of this game studio. https://www.rust-lang.org/pdfs/Rust-Chucklefish-Whitepaper.pdf https://www.rust-lang.org/pdfs/Rust-Chucklefish-Whitepaper.p...
- thrower123 8y agoStardew Valley is built on Monogame. Also Chucklefish is the publisher, not the developer...
- steveklabnik 8y agoTheir new game is in Rust, not Stardew Valley. And you’re right that they were only the publishers for it.
- thrower123 8y agoIs there anything approaching the XNA/Monogame content pipeline in the Rust world? Something like Stardew Valley is hugely data-driven, and being able to leverage that tooling, not to mention solid cross-platform support, looks like a huge force multiplier.
- steveklabnik 8y agoI don’t think so, but it’s not an area I’m always the most up to date with. I’m guessing if it existed I’d have heard of it, though. “Amethyst” and “piston” are the two engine projects. I’m not sure if studios are using them or I’d they're building something in-house.
- steveklabnik 8y agoWe don’t have a white paper but Ready At Dawn is moving all new stuff to 100% Rust as well, excited to see where it goes.
- ReverseCold 8y ago
- NegativeLatency 8y agoI dont think it’s accurate to describe Auburn Washington as “semi-rural”
- ksenzee 8y agoYeah, Auburn itself within the city limits is Seattle/Tacoma suburbs, so that sounded weird. There are definitely semi-rural areas with an Auburn address, east of Highway 18, and maybe that's where he lived.
- subjectHarold 8y agoI know it isn't the point of the article but...damn, this guy couldn't get a job. Like the easiest thing was to spend thousands of hours developing this game? Hm, kind of sad.
- repomies6999 8y agoMore likely couldn't get a job he liked.
- peteforde 8y agoI feel like you are, indeed, missing the point: this guy wasn't successful despite his passion project. He was successful because of his passion project. For those of us who know exactly what they would do with the opportunity to spend thousands of hours on a calling, this guy is an inspiration.
- subjectHarold 8y agoIt wasn't a calling, it was something he did when nothing else worked. I am sure he enjoyed it, he wouldn't have done it otherwise...but that isn't my point. My point is that it isn't inspiring...at all. It would be interesting to know what he actually thinks but I know because I have actually been in that situation (unf, more than once). It isn't fun, it is soul-destroying to pour your being into something you love with no reward. Even if you are "successful", that initial experience of feeling trapped taints it (indeed, the whole point is that you are immune to notions of success/failure and the experience changes your notion of success...if you come into thinking about success then you will get washed out in a few months). And he was successful despite it. He would have done okay whatever he did. It is just a little unfortunate that he had go down that path, imo.
- peteforde 8y agoIs it possible that we read a completely different article? He was a huge fan of Harvest Moon and he wanted to make a spiritual successor. Paragraph 3: “I think it makes sense that I worked entirely alone,” Eric says. “I wanted to do all the music, the art.” The article does talk about how he was not getting hired for the jobs he wanted, and he knew he'd have to level up his skillset. However, it's also self-evident that within a year he'd secured a publisher and taken an advance... so his job search became an educational pursuit which became an opportunity to build something that by any sane definition is a labour of love. I'm not weirded out that you're not inspired, because it doesn't sound like you're the sort of person that would become inspired to create something like what's described. And that is fine, right? Many of us, however, are inspired by stories like this. It's not just video games, either... but Braid comes to mind as an example of something that could never have come from Electronic Arts. It's also the only game that Roger Ebert conceded constitutes art. For what it's worth, I'm sorry that your projects didn't work out. Arguably, if doing something you love isn't its own reward, then you might be doing the wrong thing.
- kumarvvr 8y agoWhat is the software he is using to create pixel art?
- thrower123 8y agoIn the photo in the article, about halfway down with the tree, it looks like Paint.net https://www.getpaint.net/ https://www.getpaint.net/
- ehnto 8y agoNot what he used, but I can highly recommend Aseprite as both an excellent piece of software and a really great example of software sold well. No hidden tricks, no freemium, no download manager or account logins. Just good software as an executable. Pay the money, download the standalone exe and enjoy.
- adriand 8y agoI really love stories about people who become totally, utterly absorbed in something, to the point where they obsessively spend time on it, in a kind of natural sense that does not require checklists, reminders, etc. It's just always their top priority, like an addiction, except with meaning and depth. I envy the absorption in a creative activity and also the growth they experience in terms of their skills. Think about it - at this point this guy isn't just a great programmer, he is also an accomplished designer, artist, writer and musician. A true renaissance person. I'm quite focused compared to many people and I don't waste a lot of time with social media, television, etc., but I'm nowhere near like this guy. About four years ago I decided I wanted to learn a second language and I poured a lot of effort into learning Spanish over a three year period. I got to the point where I could carry on a conversation with a Spanish-speaking person quite naturally, read the news in Spanish, etc., but I never felt entirely fluent. Then things got busy and my attention shifted and now, a year after I was last really actively learning, I know my skills have deteriorated. I want to get back into it but I'm struggling to find the motivation. It feels like work and I already work hard. And truthfully, it always felt like work, it's just that I really wanted the experience of understanding and being able to speak another language. I got to that point, but I don't feel like I took it far enough - and this seems true of so many things in my life. Pretty good programmer (at one point), decent enough entrepreneur, not a bad father, solid writer, crappy musician but having fun with it, kind of fit but not terribly so, etc. In short, jack of all trades, master of none. I realize I'm rambling a bit, but to tie it back to where I began, obsession seems like a bit of a cognitive shortcut to me, a path to excellence that feels less like work and more like addiction. Is that true or am I just intellectually lazy? I want to dive into something, to find something that holds my attention raptly for the long term and generates true personal growth along the way, but I don't know what that would be, and in four decades of living on this planet I don't think I've ever come across anything that fits that bill.
- dboon 8y agoWow. I understand what you mean completely, in my gut. The feeling of throwing yourself into something completely, not to better yourself or to prove anything, but simply because you must, is probably the greatest feeling in the world for me.
- forkLding 8y agoI love the game and loved Harvest Moon, I thank Eric for his work and his dedication.
- rootw0rm 8y agomy ex loved this game. i'm a sucker for gamer chicks.
- almostdeadguy 8y agoI wish nothing but the best for this guy, but I think it's kind of sick how we romanticize and valorize people who do nothing but obsessively work and neglect their relationship with their partners and magically pull off their project in the end to become rich. It's a gross fantasy. At least this doesn't have the "vindictive and abusive" genius aspect of these stories you typically hear like in the Steve Jobs archetypes or whatever. He seems like a nice person and I really like his game. I just think its incredibly sad that this is perceived to be something to aspire to.
- peteforde 8y agoI don't think that the developer could have possibly imagined that he would get rich. I'm sure that he was scared that he wouldn't break even with a living wage until it already in the market. While I agree that it's uncool to ignore your partner to an abusive degree, it sounds to me like they communicated about it and she was consciously and proactively supportive. (I would support her owning a significant cut of the profits, even if they ever split up. She sounds incredible to me.) The main reason that I hit reply, however, is that when it comes to having a passion project that consumes you, it doesn't feel like work. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been when I've been able to shut out the world and focus 100% of my energy on something I am deeply committed to. I think that it is pure, noble and for people like me, the way in which we are most fulfilled. It's not a job but a calling. I 100% get it. I also appreciate that it's not for everyone. However, just because you don't understand it does not mean that it's somehow less than the ways you choose to spend your time. What you see as sick, I see as privileged.
- cheunste 8y agoMan, I really wish there were some more detail on Eric's workflow. After all, one man creating all these assets and managing all this sounds like a nightmare without some sort of organizational system
- sireat 8y agoWhile it is great to admire the care and dedication that went into this game let's not draw conclusions that Eric's approach is a widely applicable recipe to long term wealth and healthy relationships. This is classic survivorship bias. There are countless stories of one person obsessing over some project, making progress, sometimes even shipping the project yet not getting the recognition/fame/money. Meanwhile they are losing relationships and health in the process. The great novel is a common culprit, but the great app is a fast rising contender. The main thing to remember is "building/shipping is not enough". In fact the one intriguing thing glossed over in the article is how he managed to get a distributorship deal.
- baud147258 8y agoSee that story: Did I just waste 3 years? [0] on a failed indie game. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18092108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18092108