from Hacker News

Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam

by newobj on 2/26/25, 6:19 PM with 356 comments

• by randfish on 2/27/25, 1:55 AM

  Incredible work, Brian! I'm in awe of what you've done in such a short amount of time. I started an indie game company (still working on our first title) and had a few related questions if that's OK?

  1) If you didn't need a salary or marketing help, would you still have signed a publishing deal? My sense is most of the publisher value lies in getting paid before the game launches, and with marketing around launch, but curious if those are wrong assumptions?

  2) Early Access vs. Straight Launch - any insights about why you chose to do a full launch vs. an early access beforehand? Was it something you and the publisher discussed in detail?

  3) Outside of Steam's ecosystem, how much marketing, promotion, social media, YouTube, Discord, etc. stuff did you (or the publisher) do? Do you think that pre-launch work had a sizable impact on the launch and post-launch success? Or would you say it's mostly the Steam algo making the game more visible to the right buyers as the positive reviews rolled in?

  Truly kind of you to share so openly here. Already sent some of your other replies to our game team

• by switz on 2/26/25, 10:34 PM

  200,000 units is a far cry from just a 'minor hit' - congratulations!

  During the project, what was the biggest instinct you had that was ultimately validated by its success, but still surprised you? What was a lesson you learned that you didn't expect? How was working with a publisher? What did they do right and what did they do wrong?

• by RheingoldRiver on 2/27/25, 12:50 AM

  We had someone request a wiki on wiki.gg for Ballionaire, and it's at https://ballionaire.wiki.gg/wiki/Ballionaire_Wiki. Assuming you have structured data easily accessible, you can pretty easily use the MediaWiki API to create some automated pages for each of the items and any other entities that should have pages. Example repo: https://github.com/RheingoldRiver/sorcerer-update That repo is assuming that some "infobox" templates already exist, which you can find documentation about here: https://support.wiki.gg/wiki/DRUID_infoboxes or feel free to email me (address in bio) if you'd want to create the pages assuming that the infobox template already exists and have me make said template for you!

• by guywithahat on 2/27/25, 1:39 AM

  Not to get too personal, but how did working on a video game affect your personal life? If you worked from home, do you have a wife/kids? Was anyone upset or disappointed you were working on a game and not getting another job at a big tech company?

  I don’t mean to be critical, but I’ve always faced pushback working on startups/side projects, and I’m wondering how that was for you?

• by zug_zug on 2/27/25, 12:19 PM

  Wow, I think you've just become iconic to dozens of us (self included). Congrats on taking life's lemons and turning them into sweet victory.

  I saw in another comment you were able to make yourself work with complete focus (8 hour+ days 7 days a week). I have two questions --

  In hindsight, if you had only worked 5 hour days for twice as many months do you think the project still could have succeeded? Or do you feel that there's some momentum or other factor at play here?

  Nextly, are there any discords or other networking resources that you found crucial to the process? I saw you mentioned a publisher. Personally I'm more motivated when I have people depending on me (or eager to see what I'm making for example).

• by billconan on 2/26/25, 7:47 PM

  Congratulations! The game looks amazing—its quality is truly impressive.

  I'm currently feeling burned out. I have an app idea and a prototype that I believe could turn into a viable project to support myself. However, I don't have the courage to quit my job—I’m afraid of the anxiety that comes with paying rent and insurance without a steady paycheck. I do have some savings to sustain me for a while, but I'm unsure if taking a break to recharge, learn new things, and build something I'm passionate about (which could potentially become profitable) is a good idea? I'm also worried about how a long gap on my resume might be perceived when I look for a job in the future.

  I'm also interested in making video games, but I often get discouraged by the sheer amount of artwork required—something I struggle to handle and afford. How did you manage the artwork side of your project?

• by tombert on 2/26/25, 10:52 PM

  Out of curiosity, what kind of margins do you get when you sell a game on Steam? Like, what percentage of a sale ends up in your bank account (pre-taxes). Also, how do Steam sales affect that?

  Congrats on making a game to completion, and doubly so for making something that gets fairly popular. Making a real game has been on my bucket list for about as long as I've known how to program, and I haven't completely given up on it, but I would need to make friends with someone who knows how to do art and music.

• by mattigames on 2/27/25, 12:35 AM

  What is your opinion about the top bad review on Steam? Have you addressed those issues or perhaps you disagree with them? Posted here for reference

  > Really fun game at first, and it has a lot of potential. Unfortunately you are very strongly incentivized to NOT UNLOCK ANYTHING (i.e. the meta-progression).... because after you unlock many additional items and get to the higher difficulties, the vast majority of runs become impossible since there are way, way too many items in the pool and way, way too few rerolls (and no ban feature for some reason), so you end up with random unrelated crap almost every run and auto-lose because of it, as strong synergies are mandatory to win on the higher difficulties. It feels really bad having to fish RNG over and over again just to get a run that's actually winnable. They could easily fix this with many solutions, like: stronger reroll tag affinities, more choices per round, item bans, 10x the amount of rerolls, builds/profiles with more limited pools, map-specific limited pools, etc. etc. If they fix this massive roadblock then this game has the potential to be a amazingly fun.

• by monideas on 2/26/25, 10:40 PM

  You should make a youtube series or a long series of blog posts explaining your journey from a personal perspective, the emotional ups and downs on working on this instead of getting a new job, from a technical perspective, and from a business perspective. What types of skills did you have to learn, what were the technical challenges, what pieces of code are you particularly proud of. What was your marketing strategy?

• by myl on 2/27/25, 7:42 AM

  I never felt more like a grandpa developer since having to google every word in the description of what this game is :)

• by throwme0827349 on 2/27/25, 3:07 PM

  I'm helping an enthusiastic young adult family member write an indie game in a similar space. I'm a professional software engineer in the full stack/security space but I don't have much experience in graphics or games. We would be thrilled just to get it implemented, and we're close, on steam, and get a couple real players. Currently it's running in the browser and on android.

  I think he has very good taste in games, and is learning to code very quickly, so I'm acting in a supporting technical role.

  -- What are the crucial skills, technical or otherwise, that I should learn to be effective in this space?

  -- We're currently using the Godot environment, which feels a bit limiting to me (easy to start but: IDE is just ok, config feels GUI dependent/doesn't facilitate committing atomic deployment or other project changes...) Is there a different stack, or other complimentary tools I could learn that might be a better fit for a more professional dev workflow?

  Thank you for the inspiration. :)

• by pfisch on 2/27/25, 2:59 AM

  Use every sale period available to you and not as weekly sales. Make custom 14 day sales.

  Add steam cards to the game asap. You should start doing this right after reading this comment really.

  Also you should lobby steam for a daily deal sometime next month. If they say yes you should set that daily deal for the day the summer sale ends if you can.

  Also you should push raw fury to do a publisher sale, those can really generate a lot of money.

  I've been managing games on Steam for a long time and doing stuff like what I said will have a very large impact on your long tail revenue. I'm the game director of Kingmakers.

  Also you should really have some kind of DLC asap, even if it is small or like an art book even. You are just leaving money on the table because there are gamers with lots of money on steam who just buy all the dlc when they buy games.

• by Buttons840 on 2/27/25, 5:15 AM

  Do you think "diamond in the rough" games exist?

  Some claim that there are games that are hidden gems that haven't received the recognition they deserve.

  Other claim they have never seen a generally good game that didn't have generally good success.

  What is your view?

  I think some games are good within their niche, but their niche sucks. Something like a hardcore roguelike with ASCII graphics. Within the hardcore roguelike niche, the ASCII game might be "good" and have some interesting new mechanics, good execution, etc; but within the entire gaming industry, classic roguelikes with ASCII graphics are outdated, they "suck". Some will say the ASCII roguelike is underappreciated, but only because they over-appreciate the niche.

  I'd like to believe that a generally good game guarantees at least some success.

• by keyle on 2/27/25, 1:42 AM

  Nice one! Looks like peggle on mushrooms instead of coke.

  I've done many games myself, including PS4 exclusive, and I haven't been able to afford anything else than 2 mins noodles for my effort. So I applaud you on "making it."

  I should really talk to publishers. I don't really know how, how did you approach them? How did that initial aspect go?

• by eftychis on 2/26/25, 11:21 PM

  Congratulations!

  This is a huge achievement and work -- although I do not know the space.

  What is the stack used? Did you end up substantially switching things in the stack during your journey?

  It would be great if you follow up later with experiences like the maintenance journey post-launch. Also, what do you feel the publisher provided besides the artist and guidance?

• by mips_avatar on 2/27/25, 12:32 AM

  How did you structure your work in the first year? Did you set specific goals or just follow what felt right? Where did your motivation and energy come from, and how did you keep momentum?

• by japhib on 2/26/25, 11:12 PM

  Amazing work! Questions:

  - How/why did you decide to talk to a publisher? When in the process did you feel like you had a good enough prototype to do that?

  - What have been the pros/cons of working with a publisher? When, in your opinion, should someone do that vs. self-publishing?

  - What was your confidence level throughout various stages of the project? Was there a point before releasing the game where you maybe got a glimpse of the success you were going to have? (I guess probably Steam wishlists?)

  - What's next?

  Congrats again on the hit!

• by vishalontheline on 2/26/25, 10:51 PM

  Very cool!

  - What choices did you make to give yourself more time to work on this project?

  - At what point did you begin getting feedback of some sort?

  - Were there clearly things you wished to include in the game but had to cut out in the interest of time? How did you decide what would be "good enough"?

• by smugma on 2/27/25, 3:19 PM

  Have you considered porting to mobile? Looks like it could do well, either independent or part of something like Apple Arcade or Netflix Games.

• by kbenson on 2/27/25, 1:21 AM

  Strong Peggle[1] vibes from the video on the store page, which is a good thing IMO, since I enjoyed Peggle quite a bit. Maybe I'll take a look at this.

  1: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3480/Peggle_Deluxe/

• by kleiba on 2/27/25, 9:15 AM

  What did you like/dislike about Godot?

  How did you find your graphics artist? Sound?

  In hindsight (or for your next game), what would you do differently?

• by fdlaks on 2/26/25, 10:40 PM

  Looks awesome, congrats on your success 200k sales is a huge achievement!

  What factors led you to seeking out a publisher, was it mostly getting art for the game or did the publisher bring more to the table that made you decide it was worth it?

  What advice would you have given yourself just starting out knowing what you do now?

  What did you get stuck on the most when making the game? I know a lot of people who have great ideas for games but a lot of the ideas don't translate well into being able to realistically do them in the game because of complexity. Did you ever have ideas that you thought would be really cool to do but it ended up being too hard / time consuming to do?

  How close was the functionality of the game when you released it to what you had envisioned at the start? Did you go through any major design changes while developing it?

• by winrid on 2/27/25, 1:36 AM

  One of the OG devs from Netpanzer in the late 90s went on to do AAA games and then compiler stuff at FAANG, is that you?

• by coderunner on 2/27/25, 3:36 AM

  First of all congrats on the success of your game. I've been mulling over taking a break from my corporate engineering job and making a game. Would it be possible to send you an email in about two weeks or so with some retrospective questions of your game dev journey? I'm currently in a crunch mode for a work trip then going to be with limited internet access while on the trip so wanted a chance to get my thoughts/questions together before asking.

  If you don't have time, totally understand and congrats on all your success.

• by jeffchien on 2/27/25, 1:07 AM

  Congratulations, that is a roaring success I daydream about all the time!

  I think you've already answered a lot about your development journey, so I want to ask about the post-release experience.

  - How were the weeks immediately after release? Hectically shipping out patches 3 times a day?

  - Now that we're months out after release, what are you doing now? Are you still spending a lot of time on this game (ports, updates), or are you thinking of another game or returning to office work?

  Frankly I bought it on release but couldn't get into it because the meta progression (unlocking triggers that dilute the trigger pool for little perceivable gain) didn't feel as good as Luck be a Landlord or Balatro. I hope later updates address that.

• by Benjamin_Dobell on 2/26/25, 11:08 PM

  Congratulations! Looks fantastic. I'm curious about marketing and your relationship with the publisher.

  There's a LOT of games launching on Steam all the time, some solid games go largely unnoticed. How did you get word out about your game? Did you build an audience during development? How much assistance did the publisher provide? Additionally, did you have contacts that introduced you to publishers? If not, what got their attention? Fanbase, demo, you personally?

• by Lucasoato on 2/27/25, 12:52 AM

  How did you reach publishers? Did you have any previous contact/connection to get to them?

• by burgerquizz on 2/27/25, 12:37 AM

  I love the animated stickman!

  building myself html games myself[1] with my own game engine. Getting players is really hard. I was betting on SEO, but results will take a long time. do you think getting a publisher worth it? I was reluctant putting the game on steam too since I think the target players wont be there

  Happy to hear recommendations!

  https://pixelbrawlgames.com/game/blast

• by coef2 on 2/27/25, 2:47 PM

  We should thank Meta for laying off a talented engineer.

• by jz10 on 2/27/25, 8:37 AM

  Can you get it out on Geforce NOW too please so us mac users can also partake? (Also curious on the process behind enabling it on Geforce NOW actually)

• by rrr_oh_man on 2/27/25, 5:50 AM

  Apologies for my ignorance, and I’m asking this because no one in this thread has done this:

  This looks basically like a slot machine

• by daedrdev on 2/26/25, 11:44 PM

  How much impact to you think internet influencers had on your sales? I recall seeing it being played there first.

• by toxaco on 3/3/25, 6:56 PM

  Man, what a wild ride! From getting laid off at Meta to pulling off a 200k-unit hit on Steam—talk about turning things around in style. That’s seriously inspiring.

  Ballionaire sounds like an absolute blast—roguelike pachinko? That’s a combo I didn’t know I needed! Must have been a crazy year grinding to get it out, but totally worth it. Any unexpected lessons or ‘oh crap’ moments along the way? Wishing you even bigger wins ahead!

• by mattfrommars on 2/27/25, 2:46 AM

  I'm been fascinated to make games but never truly jumped into it. I'd love to pick it as a hobby but quiet unable to balance this hobby when always worrying about to put time into 'doing certification' or doing 'LC'. To get an idea on your situation and compare it with mine,

  1) did you have any formal game development experience in the past? say in school? 2) since you made it into FAANG, did you LC before or time during FAANG to find another FAANG job? 3) does anyone in your personal circle does game development? 4) so instead of first developing the game, you already were in talking with publishers? what kind of background did you have for publisher to 'ok' you which i'm guessing supported you financially?

• by xetrics on 2/27/25, 12:13 AM

  I bought ballionaire a couple weeks back. So funny that I see the creator on HN. Congrats on your win!

• by compscistd on 2/26/25, 11:05 PM

  I had to stop playing for a while because the music really got stuck in my head. What a fantastic game though, it really is so fun. The "Woooow" at some upgrades always make me chuckle. I'll definitely come back to it soon.

• by posnet on 2/26/25, 10:42 PM

  I realise you can make games in any language/engine. But could you explain the language/system/engine you used?

  How did you go about validating the game is fun? Did you end up having an intuitive sense for it, or did you need external feedback to refine the mechanics?

  My steam deck might as well be a billionaire/balatro machine.

• by gentleman11 on 2/27/25, 12:14 PM

  My question is: how did you manage all that the refined art in such a small amount of time? I can see the coding but I always assume art takes forever unless you have a partner who handles the art

• by joez on 2/27/25, 3:35 AM

  Omg! the creator of Ballionaire is a laidoff metamate?! That's so inspirational. I'm sure this will make it on Meta blind sometime.

  I'm at Meta still and working on my own take on the roguelike game inspired by Balatro/Luck be a landlord and Ballionaire too. Any advice for myself and others on how to balance work/life/game?

  If you're interested, I bet people would love to have you back for a tech talk. I think we should at least link this to your badge post haha.

  How much time did you spend on tweaking the tutorial?

  Do you use analytics to balance your game? (So Meta right?)

• by uejfiweun on 2/27/25, 12:07 AM

  Congrats on your success! Making games is what got me into programming and while I'm currently doing the same big tech stuff you were, I would love to become an indie game dev after this phase of my career ends.

  The biggest challenge I've had in my various personal projects is the art, for sure. I may have programming skills but I certainly have no art or animation skills. How did you get over this hurdle? I've made so many cool prototypes for games that I end up having to shelve due to hitting a progress wall when it comes to art or 3d modeling.

• by kleiba on 2/27/25, 7:31 AM

  How hard was it to get in touch with publishers? I've always imagined that without prior contacts, cold calling a game publisher is as promising as sending your screenplay to Hollywood.

• by deadly_syn on 2/27/25, 12:52 PM

  I bought your game a few weeks ago; and out of everything I've fired up on my bravia...

  I had the biggest smile watching all those smooth vibrant animations roll around like a dopamine factory.

• by docmars on 2/27/25, 4:28 AM

  This is an amazing story, nice work, and congrats on the hit! Looks like a lot of fun. I've always wanted to buckle down and make the RPG of my dreams, but working full-time just doesn't make that feasible, and I care very deeply about balance (i.e. not "working" outside of work) unless I have an idea that's achievable in a short amount of time and won't burn me out.

  Looks like the hard work paid off for you! Maybe if I can retire early I'll finally realize a similar dream.

• by pineapple_sauce on 2/26/25, 11:06 PM

  Why did you go with a publisher rather than publishing it yourself?

• by saejox on 2/27/25, 7:44 AM

  Great work! My game has some features inspired by Ballionaire. I also used Godot, i need to dissect your pck file to see how you organized things. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3499470/Rogue_Bricks_Demo...

  Although i should caution poeple, most indie games fail. They fail hard. #1 tip: your game must be good looking to sell copies.

• by yapyap on 2/27/25, 1:16 AM

  My god, you’re the creator of Ballionaire!!

  I dont know what I was expecting clicking on this article but it wasn’t that.

  Magnificent game, I watched Northernlion play this after he beat Balatro.

• by namuol on 2/26/25, 11:49 PM

  Good lord that Steam page and the trailer have a ton of appeal. It’s no wonder you’ve got a hit on your hands! Reviews are very good too. Congratulations!

• by bb88 on 2/27/25, 12:02 AM

  Hi, I enjoyed playing Ballionaire. I do like this style of rogue-likes where things can maybe break the game itself (infinity, slow down the game completely when too many eggs are spawned).

  I was curious in your platform choice of windows only. Was this due to the framework/programming language you're using? Or was this more of a time savings of trying to support more than one system at a time? Or maybe both?

• by isaacremuant on 2/26/25, 11:07 PM

  Congratulations. Looks fun and one of those "omg, I've spent so much time on this" kind of game.

  Can you expand in the part of talking to publishers. How did you approach it, how much previous context did you have, how did you evaluate what was good vs not. I know what mobile game publishers ask for but not desktop/steam ones.

  Any advice? (Not that I'm making games but just curious what form it actually takes)

• by rochacon on 2/27/25, 7:38 PM

  Congrats on the launch and success so far!! The game seems really cool and I relate a lot to the desire of working with gamedev.

  I think local prices/discounts can get you another 200k+ purchases worldwide. In Brazil current prices shows as ~R$42, which is quite a lot for a game for a big chunk of brazilians. Thor from PirateSoftware has some good tips on this.

• by eigenvalue on 2/27/25, 10:33 AM

  I don’t really play any games but the game play demo video looked like something that might entertain my 4 and 1 year olds for a few minutes at least (just watching, I doubt they could really play it), so I bought it. Congrats on your success. Sometimes getting laid off can be a blessing, but only if you handle it constructively like you did.

• by MrDresden on 2/27/25, 6:53 AM

  Congratulations on both the launch and the success!

  Never having been in the video game industry, nor knowing anyone that has, I've never really understood what the role of a publisher is now that games are distributed digitally.

  What were the benefits for you of having a publisher, could you have gone without one and maybe finally how does one go about finding a publisher?

• by Clubber on 2/27/25, 12:39 PM

  Good for you. I've always thought one of the reasons the tech companies would hoard talent is so that talent won't become a disruptive competitor. Though there is a lot of pain involved, I hope the silver lining is that we get more tech innovation from people who aren't vested in the status quo, like the tech companies.

• by somenameforme on 2/27/25, 3:56 AM

  Beautiful and really appropriate artwork. You mentioned in another thread that the publisher connected you with an artist. Can you share, in vagaries if contractually necessary, the literal cost of this? Was it percent of revenue, fixed rate, a mix. Substantial (given you two would be the team), or more like a typical contracting affair?

• by leetrout on 2/26/25, 10:58 PM

  Oh neat! I wishlisted it when it came out but was heavy into balatro, slay the spire and the diceomancer demo but I will pick it up soon.

  Curious if you would be up for recording a podcast about the project? I love to pick people's brains about stuff like this. I recorded one with Ange the Great about his creation of Engine Simulator, for example.

• by AndrewKemendo on 2/26/25, 11:42 PM

  The amount of genius talent that is being wasted making addictive products for Meta is borderline criminal.

  Congrats on shipping a huge hit

• by onemandevteam on 2/27/25, 11:27 AM

  Congratulations! I've been working on a browser-based MMORPG inspired by OSRS (https://news.reconquer.online/)

  What method did you use to reach out to streamers for sponsorship? Was it through email or through some other platform?

• by gennarro on 2/27/25, 1:23 AM

  Oh yes, I've played that actually. The mechanics weren't my jam, but the art and level of polish are great.

• by 29athrowaway on 2/27/25, 2:00 AM

  You need to put this on the Nintendo Switch

• by mk89 on 2/27/25, 8:52 PM

  Absolutely not my type of game. But man, kudos to you! I wish you at least 2x the sales you got until now!

• by crazypyro on 2/27/25, 3:22 AM

  Love your game.

  Is there any plans for expansions? I find the different maps to be less interesting. I want some kind of harder progression, higher levels of difficulties and of course more of everything that exists.

  I found myself out of stuff to do at ~20 hours (which is awesome and beats a lot of games I've tried to buy.).

• by lynguist on 2/27/25, 9:57 AM

  Can you compile your game to target Mac? Why/why not? (Like is it a technical or business decision?)

• by deelowe on 2/27/25, 12:06 AM

  I bought it day one. The marketing was great and I had I ton of fun with the game! Congrats on the success.

• by ttt444 on 2/27/25, 2:22 AM

  How much is left after steam takes their cut, taxes, etc?

  Heard it's about 30-40% which is really demoralizing

• by xyst on 2/27/25, 3:59 AM

  Now that you have some reputation, and insight into what the publisher does to get your game out there.

  Do you think your next game will be managed completely on your own and reap all of the profits (—steam cut)? Do you still see value of using current or another publisher?

• by WickyNilliams on 2/27/25, 9:00 PM

  I've been eyeing up this game. Looks fantastic. The trailers are very well done, really capture the vibe. 200k units is a huge success. No questions, just want to say congrats. I'd love to try making a game one day!

• by tastyface on 2/27/25, 1:16 AM

  Congratulations! I saw Yahtzee playing this a few weeks ago — seems like a fun time. The market is notoriously saturated right now, any wisdom on how you broke through with marketing/outreach? (Or was that entirely on the publisher?)

• by alok-g on 2/27/25, 8:24 AM

  What would be good resources for me to learn about the (digital) gaming world from an entrepreneur's perspective? I am a general developer, otherwise am a complete newbie to gaming (played Mario once with my son). Thanks.

• by megamix on 2/27/25, 12:52 PM

  Hi

  Thanks for sharing this, I was first struck by the fact being laid off from Meta, I mean 10yrs of service and then laid off. I'm glad you did well and recovered after that.

  I'm curious to know about the technology behind, did you use a framework?

• by itzami on 2/27/25, 9:35 AM

  1. What are your plans now? 2. Your style seems unique, and even your mood board that you shared with the designer has a particular style; did you always gravitate towards that type of art? If not, how did you come upon it?

• by ViolentTurkey on 2/27/25, 8:14 AM

  Thank you so much! Me and my friend played your Beta, and we found it to be a really fun and a good lecture game: a game to play during boring lectures. I also love the animations and the satisfying feel of it, really cool!!

• by dylanz on 2/26/25, 10:58 PM

  I haven't played your game but I've watched a ton of Real Civil Engineer's videos on it. It looks like a blast and I love watching his videos. How did you get into game development? Congratulations on the success!

• by npinsker on 2/27/25, 12:41 AM

  No questions but congratulations on your game and success! It's a great idea.

• by knuppar on 2/26/25, 10:42 PM

  Congrats on the game! Did you ever do game jams at all with the original idea or was this a larger project from the start?

  And a more realistic-adult question lol: how did you handle not having insurance from your workplace after severance?

• by serial_dev on 2/27/25, 6:31 PM

  I’m sorry I don’t have any questions about the game. to me the most shocking part of your post is how you were let go after 10 years at the company.

  Do you know why Facebook let you and/or your team go?

• by kbar13 on 2/27/25, 7:13 AM

  congrats to the author!

  i haven't had (enough?) opportunities to say this but - being laid off from a company that i thought was probably the best place to work at was actually likely the best thing to happen to my career. while things were real cushy at this job, my career was not going anywhere, and there was no way i would have taken the opportunities that have presented themselves after i was ejected.

  so, while being laid off is never a good feeling, i hope that other folks affected by the tough market can find the silver lining and motivation that i did

• by bookbyter on 2/28/25, 2:21 AM

  Well , I think there is a big opportunity to make some marketing tools: develop marketing tools specifically for indie games to help developers promote their games more effectively

• by kevinmchugh on 2/27/25, 1:14 AM

  My friend Joe from the Anime Sickos podcast talked Ballionaire up a lot and I'm looking forward to playing it, which would happen sooner if it were available on switch. Congrats on your success!

• by helsinki on 2/27/25, 7:11 AM

  How much of a cut does the publisher and steam take from a $20 purchase?

• by prashp on 2/27/25, 12:45 AM

  Congrats, great to hear a success story. I wish I had the time to do this too. How did you pitch to the publisher so they would find you during development? How did you find a publisher?

• by parkerhiggins on 2/27/25, 7:05 AM

  Been following this game! Congrats! Please bring us an MacOS port!

• by bobsmooth on 2/26/25, 10:39 PM

  You do the art yourself or did you hire someone? How did that go?

• by Uptrenda on 2/27/25, 1:59 PM

  Your game reminds me of a ketamine trip. So many symbols, emoji things, spites. It's so colorful and creative. Maybe it was a good thing Meta laid you off.

• by jaydeegee on 2/27/25, 3:33 AM

  Myself and my 6yo son watch a youtube channel Real Civil Engineer as he plays cool games like this. We saw the Ballionaire video and instantly got it we play it a lot.

• by dominicrose on 2/27/25, 9:50 AM

  I guess Meta did you a service since you're a creator and the company stopped creating. I barely used FB at all since the beginning, but I like rogue games.

• by TomK32 on 2/27/25, 4:52 PM

  Oh god, I love watching RCE playing it. I'll steer clear off it though, pachinko games are a bad idea for my ADHD :-) Congratulations on the success.

• by somenameforme on 2/27/25, 4:09 AM

  How did you go about choosing a publisher? What stood out about Raw Fury? If you were making another game now do you think you would go with a publisher again?

• by iam_saurabh on 2/27/25, 5:46 AM

  You mentioned that 2024 was one of the hardest years of your life. What kept you going during the toughest moments? Were there times you felt like giving up?

• by kraig911 on 2/27/25, 4:08 PM

  Man I bought this game for me and my kids are we love it. I am also trying to make a game/app on the side for my kids. Your story is inspiring!

• by flunhat on 2/26/25, 10:51 PM

  Congratulations! How did you get the process started for distributing your game? Were there any early channels for marketing you found particularly effective?

• by igleria on 2/27/25, 9:24 AM

  Congratulations! Given the results, I'd say your time was well invested.

  Did the project start as a hobby or did you intend it to be a source of income eventually?

  Again, well done!

• by telcal on 2/27/25, 3:04 AM

  Congratulations! As a non-gamer I have absolutely zero idea what this game is about or how to play it, but you've got a big audience!

• by adastra22 on 2/26/25, 11:54 PM

  What does roguelike mean? I've played the original Rogue, but haven't been a gamer for decades now. I'm not seeing how this is connected?

  Sorry, but you said ask anything lol.

• by dartharva on 2/27/25, 2:37 AM

  I first saw it on Second Wind's "Bytesized" review and it looked so good I instantly wishlisted it. Will try it out soon.

  Congratulations!

• by cantSpellSober on 2/27/25, 7:34 PM

  > I even worked in AA(A?) back ca. ~2000

  Cool, can you say what titles? Just curious. (congrats! they clearly laid off the wrong person :)

• by dustbunny on 2/27/25, 5:05 AM

  How was the process of talking to a publisher? Did they find the development? How did they help? What was the pitch process like?

• by MrLeap on 2/26/25, 10:41 PM

  Damn nice. Love seeing indies make it! I hope for a small fraction of your level of success when I finally ship Tentacle Typer.

• by c0wb0yc0d3r on 2/27/25, 2:09 PM

  How did you determine the price of the game?

• by butler14 on 2/27/25, 9:00 AM

  Played the demo of this a few months back on our living room tv + controller and my u5 y/o kids were quite taken with it.

  Congrats!

• by cheshire137 on 2/27/25, 1:17 PM

  Looks like a fun game, I love the art style and that it’s Verified on Steam Deck. Just bought a copy to try it out!

• by ghfhghg on 2/26/25, 11:57 PM

  Wow congratulations. The game presentation is awesome.

  When working on this how long did it take before the game felt fun to you?

• by for1nner on 2/27/25, 1:56 PM

  from itchio to 200K+ on steam. Fantastic work. I have loved every minute of playing, and am astounded by the amount of work you've put into the game. Wild to see it a year+ ago vs today. But also still rage inducing when a drop misses every one of my triggers (gg). <3

• by thehodge on 2/27/25, 12:26 AM

  I've seen this game played on YouTube a LOT and really want to give it a go.. Any chance of a Mac port?

• by mmastrac on 2/27/25, 1:46 AM

  Hey Brian, so happy to see this! I always knew you'd knock it out of the park with one of your games!

• by stets on 2/27/25, 4:42 PM

  Great work! I picked Ballionaire up during the winter sale I think? Hope it keeps crushing

• by Tade0 on 2/27/25, 9:12 AM

  Is the music in the first clip on Steam inspired by I Love You So by Junko Ohashi?

• by rustyspacecadet on 2/26/25, 10:42 PM

  what engine did you use? anything you would you have done differently in hindsight?

• by cwiz on 2/27/25, 9:35 AM

  Animations and artworks is what make this game special. Thanks for inspiration.

• by Simon_O_Rourke on 2/27/25, 8:24 AM

  Well done Brian! What would you say to Zuck if you met him on the street now?

• by greenheadedduck on 2/27/25, 2:19 AM

  Did your work at meta help a lot with this project. Tell us about it if so!

• by ILikeCats321 on 2/27/25, 4:10 AM

  Congrats on the game! Saw the trailer and instantly brought it on steam :D

• by WCSTombs on 2/26/25, 11:04 PM

  Congratulations! That's a huge accomplishment, and not something I'd call "minor."

  When I think about game development, these are the skills and types of work that come to mind:

  - software development

  - game design

  - graphical art

  - musical composition

  - writing

  - marketing and promotion

  and I'm sure there's more that I'm missing. I'd be very curious to know how you navigated through all of that...like did you start on one end, like with a game engine, and then fill in the rest, or was it more of a holistic iterative process? I hope that's not too broad of a question, but frankly I'd appreciate any insights you can share.

• by drumhead on 2/27/25, 11:14 AM

  Congratulations, I've heard so many good things about your game.

• by hoten on 2/27/25, 12:42 AM

  This reminds me of the high quality, addicting PopCap games. Very nice!

• by mantovanidaniel on 2/27/25, 1:36 AM

  I just bought your game :)

• by mupuff1234 on 2/27/25, 1:30 AM

  I still don't really get the appeal of roguelike games, to me it always just comes off either repetitive/boring/frustrating/etc. Could someone explain why they prefer it over just a "normal" game progression?

• by jeffwass on 2/27/25, 7:12 AM

  What kind of up-skilling did you have to do when you started?

• by jmcgough on 2/27/25, 12:48 AM

  Congrats, I've seen a few people playing this lately :)

• by zer0zzz on 2/27/25, 3:01 AM

  I wonder if I worked with you. I was a compiler guy myself.

• by SeeManDo on 2/27/25, 5:15 PM

  Just put in a request for a cheat on WeMod :)

• by awilks on 2/27/25, 9:15 PM

  Very inspiring story! Thanks for posting.

• by msephton on 2/27/25, 6:07 AM

  How and when did you hook up with Raw Fury?

• by vjerancrnjak on 2/27/25, 1:06 PM

  rouguelike is such a fun genre, congratulations

  the only genre that made gaming fun for me after my childhood attachment faded.

• by delduca on 2/26/25, 11:18 PM

  Who did the art work? You?

  Which engine have you used?

  Also, congratulations!

• by danielhanchen on 2/27/25, 2:43 AM

  Love the red tomato and balloon faces :)

• by kurokawad on 2/27/25, 12:14 AM

  The trailer is hell good!! I love it!!

• by rustyspacecadet on 2/26/25, 10:43 PM

  what engine did you use? what's the best advice if someone wants to go down the same route?

• by bodegajed on 2/27/25, 12:15 AM

  So I'm here practicing writing small apps in 40 mins, leetcoding medium and hard. I think I should rethink my next plans.

• by pier25 on 2/26/25, 10:56 PM

  Congrats! This game looks amazing.

• by tanujsh979 on 2/27/25, 5:42 AM

  Wow, what an inspiring journey!

• by oscord on 2/27/25, 9:22 AM

  Congrats!

• by mrsofty on 2/27/25, 12:03 AM

  Outstanding!!! Spent some time in the valley in the 90's. Tom Perkins was our Chairman and Ceo so I learnt a LOT. One of the takeaways was that innovation starts with an itch you want to scratch, to KNOW that your idea is better than the others. Doesn't matter if you are delusional, the market will set you right either way. WELL DONE!!! taking this step and I wish you all the best for the future. I'll pass the message onto my chums.

• by Fokamul on 2/27/25, 3:08 PM

  Good trick is also sell steam keys in bulk. But you need a reason for steam support :)

• by davidczech on 2/27/25, 2:05 AM

  The main menu is awesome

• by davedx on 2/27/25, 11:29 AM

  How is it roguelike?

• by axus on 2/27/25, 12:29 AM

  Did you like Peglin?

• by napolux on 2/27/25, 11:54 AM

  woooo when is this coming to console?

• by pabna on 2/27/25, 5:16 PM

  inspiring story. thanks for sharing

• by ponderchan on 2/27/25, 4:11 AM

  keep it up brain! great game tho

• by yoeven on 2/27/25, 6:09 PM

  Cool stuff!

• by Conan_Kudo on 2/27/25, 1:24 AM

  Congratulations on the game! It looks great and I kinda want it. :)

  I'm going to be that guy... Native Linux build when? I assume your game stack supports exporting native Linux builds. :)

• by ozarkerD on 2/27/25, 2:41 PM

  Dude I love your game. Been playing it on steam deck, thanks for putting good controller support in!

• by mentos on 2/27/25, 3:35 AM

  Love the quality of the marketing videos did you produce those or work with another entity?

• by failrate on 2/27/25, 2:03 PM

  Billionaire is great.

• by napierzaza on 2/27/25, 12:42 AM

  I am also working on a project after being laid off, though I got hired elsewhere. Any suggestions on how to promote your work? I am fairly far away from that but it will be a harder thing for me I think