Their Second Game Did Worse, Now What?

0:00 Intro 1:01 Building Without Marketability in Mind 2:04 Making “Detective” Readable at a Glance 3:33 The Market Shift: 2021 vs 2024 4:24 3D vs 2D: Cost, Detail, and Personality 6:20 Modernizing Point-and-Click 7:57 Growing Team and Scope (and Losing Creative Control) 12:23 Elegance Over Features 14:24 Lessons from Cheap Horror Hits: Nail the Hook, Skip the Fluff 15:11 The Essence of Detective Games 17:38 Solution Inputs That Resist Guessing 20:33 “Choices Matter” 24:16 Semi-Open World Detectives: Combinatorial Explosion 26:46 What Makes a Good Story in Games 28:00 Selling Story Games via Setting; Be Oddly Specific 34:05 Design by Committee vs Strong Vision 36:57 Studio History and Team Scaling 39:49 Becoming a Publisher 41:26 New Business Plan: Smaller, Cheaper, More Frequent Releases 42:18 Stepping into Survival Horror (and Why) 43:30 Survival Horror’s Proven Formula and Feel 45:20 Disempowerment and the Illusion of Scarcity 49:45 Next Detective Game 52:09 The Second-Game Slump: Causes and Fixes 56:45 Don’t Make Direct Sequels as an Indie (Most of the Time) 1:00:50 Steam Cross-Promotion: “From the Creators of…”, Bundles, Discounts 1:03:59 Writing Better Dialogue 1:10:27 Make the Story the Gameplay 1:14:57 Hidden Mysteries and Multiple Active Cases 1:17:53 Open-Ended Inputs vs Bespoke Reactions 1:21:48 Dialogue System: Custom Tool, Booleans, and Logs 1:29:40 Make It Obvious: Premise, Key Art, and Core Loop at a Glance 1:31:44 Descriptive Trailers and Demos That Filter Buyers 1:36:45 Screenshot Best Practices 1:39:22 Design for Trailer Moments 1:41:36 Budgets and Team Sizes: Why Mid-Size Struggles 1:44:53 Indie Math: Real Costs and Platform Cuts 1:49:29 Scope Discipline: Focus Saves Money and Quality 1:50:25 Team Composition: Be Selective 1:52:31 Work with Equals or Better; Pragmatic Dev Beats Over-Engineering 1:55:42 Know What’s Possible (and Where AI Helps) 1:59:21 Marketing in the For-You Era: Authenticity and Hooks 2:06:09 Creator Outreach That Works (and Tools to Do It) 2:11:30 Wrap-Up and Plugs: The Great Sassanelli, Socials, Unburied