In episode 2 of Who Made That, we sit down with Jake Birkett and Helen Carmichael of Grey Alien Games to talk about Forbidden Solitaire -- their first proper hit after 20+ years of indie dev and a famous GDC talk about surviving without one.

From marketing the game before it was made to shipping it on a 2004 codebase, this is a candid conversation about what it really takes to stay indie for two decades and come out with a hit.Forbidden Solitaire:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3414580/Forbidden_Solitaire/

0:00 Intro

0:40 What's your background?

4:16 What have you been playing recently?

14:19 How do you feel after the release?

19:14 Did the game meet your expectations?

25:31 Wishlist quality

30:38 Early demo reactions

33:41 Where did the idea for the game come from?

40:20 Did the trailer come before the game?

42:36 What if the trailer had failed?

44:09 Is your game honest?

49:06 Did you always know where the development was going?

55:32 Partners as developers

1:04:01 Would you promote a game before development again?

1:07:37 Do you still use your engine from 2004?

1:12:00 Jake's GDC talk

1:14:59 Does anything besides Steam work?

1:17:33 Why didn't you localize the game?

1:25:53 Where is the best place to be an indie developer?

1:29:12 How do indie developers survive today?

1:33:24 Indie marketing opportunities

1:41:27 Collaboration between indie studios

1:45:00 Why did you choose the casual genre?

1:49:47 Did players come for the horror or the solitaire?

1:51:23 Why do you track playtime?

1:55:38 What are your plans for your next project?

2:00:31 Monotasking vs. Multitasking

2:04:39 Outro

In the first episode of Who Made That, we sit down with Tom Eastman of Trinket Studios, to talk about the making of Battlesuit Aces, a narrative deck-builder with a fully voiced cast and a development story packed with hard-won lessons.

Tom takes us through Trinket's journey from their Adult Swim days to self-publishing with Outersloth, the chaos of recording 25+ SAG-AFTRA actors while the script was still being written, and how a studio without a dedicated designer iterated their way to something that works.Battle Suit Aces:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2870530/Battle_Suit_Aces/

00:00 Intro

02:45 What have you been playing?

14:21 What's your background?

30:35 How did you make the ports?

32:44 Team rotation technique

34:27 Did you work on Torque?

40:36 What is Battle Suit Aces about?

43:43 What came first: narrative or gameplay?

53:40 Voiceover changed the game

59:55 Recording sessions are amazing

01:06:29 How is voiceover implemented?

01:14:03 Japanese and Chinese localization

01:17:58 What kind of surprises did you receive after launch?

01:24:00 Publishing or funding?

01:36:10 Are you happy with self-publishing?

01:44:16 What are the results across platforms?

01:47:38 Reviews of Battle Suit Aces

01:50:11 Game pricing by region

01:52:05 Battle Suit Aces mechanics

01:54:04 Card deck game scalability

01:57:13 What are your future plans?

01:59:04 Ending