“It Can Feel Like The Wild West at Times” – Katanaut Dev on Getting 52,000 Wishlists But Only 11 Players
Katanaut is the debut title of Voidmaw, aka Eugene, an engineer in the video game industry. After around four years of development, Katanaut was released on Sept. 10 this year under the recently-resurrected publisher Acclaim. However, despite getting added to 52,000 wishlists on Steam in the run-up to release, Eugene recently revealed on X that it only had a peak number of 11 players.
He then opened up an AMA on X on Oct. 21 and was soon inundated with comments, and has been candid in his replies. These include how the launch date on Steam can’t be changed within two weeks of release, which lead to Katanaut being buried by release news of big games like Silksong and Hades 2 – despite Katanaut already receiving some traction from gaming sites.
Eneba reached out to Eugene to ask additional questions, including the advantages of being an indie dev, and follow-up details on Katanaut. Answers have been edited for clarity.
Have you seen a sizable increase in sales/players since your AMA?
Yep. I have all the data here and would be happy to share, but it’s not quite as viral as you would think – at least maybe people are just waiting for the sale this weekend? I have sold 45 copies over the course of the ‘viral’ post. Nothing insane…however I have gained over 2,000 wishlists. So again, maybe people are just waiting for a sale.
How has Acclaim been as a publisher, in terms of support, given the disappointing gap between wishlist and player numbers?
Acclaim and I partnered up very, very late in the process – weeks before my launch. I’m looking for someone to help me port Katanaut to consoles, and that’s why I reached out to Acclaim. It also just fell at a perfect time because my launch was the same day as their comeback. So far so good, and they have attempted to provide help.
I can’t quite describe the issue though, but I think people are just very, very busy with a lot of the games that they’ve been waiting for five to eight years. It’s been hard trying to pierce the veil through all of the crazy big launches happening right now.
It could be the current state of big launches, or it could also just be the lack of virality with Katanaut – I don’t have enough data to come to an accurate conclusion yet. However, the first month’s sales were not what I was hoping for…but again, just so many big titles launching every one to two weeks.
I’ve seen that you made Katanaut in Godot – what drew you to using that over something like Unity or Unreal Engine?
When I was originally looking into which engines I wanted to use for a game, I naturally gravitated towards open source because I had a good amount of experience with helping out on open source projects. Overall when I was looking at what engine was best, I just approached them all via their strengths and weaknesses, and what they specialized in. I wouldn’t limit myself specifically to one engine, but rather pick the engine that’s best suited for the idea I have in mind.
Godot was a clear winner because it’s fantastic for 2D games, and extremely lightweight – even with a project size of 1GB, it takes seconds to compile and run…it’s absolutely insane. Fun fact: my initial engine was libGDX, but I eventually caved into Godot because of how much time you save via the editor features.
Aside from competition with the likes of Silksong, what have you found to be the hardest part of being an indie dev? What’s the best part of being one?
I think the hardest part of being an indie developer is simply letting people know your game exists. The internet and marketing can feel like the Wild West at times, unpredictable and paradoxical. You can spend countless hours creating the most polished content and get only a handful of views, or throw something together in 20 seconds and suddenly change your life overnight.
The best part of being an indie developer, for me, is seeing people play your game. It doesn’t matter if it’s family, friends, or content creators; it’s that feeling of knowing you made something that brings someone joy. That feeling is indescribable, but I love it. It’s what keeps me going. Seeing someone have fun with something I built from scratch reminds me why I started pursuing indie development in the first place.
Lastly, what kind of influences do you have as a game dev, not necessarily just for Katanaut, and not necessarily just regarding other games?
I pull influence from a mix of things. Obviously other games have shaped how I think about design, but a lot of it also comes from film, art, music, and life experiences. I like noticing how different mediums make you feel something and sometimes I like capitalizing on whatever it was you just felt.
It’s a bit hard to explain, but you know how sometimes you hear a song so good, it gives you goosebumps? Why did it give you goosebumps, what was it that made you feel that feeling, and could I somehow translate what I just felt into a tangible scene? It’s all very experimental, but I think that’s what makes everything so fun.
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