Pesaresi recommends doing something similar,
if you have the means: “It’s a nice way to
connect with players, keep them engaged,
and get useful feedback.”
As for the future – the next ten years of
Neutronized – Pesaresi remains cautious but
keen. He notes the market
is saturated, making it tough
for even those with passion
and skills to survive. For
newcomers eager to make
their mark, he recommends
coming up with “sustainable game projects
that won’t absorb too much time before they’re
completed,” along with using other indies as
reference points regarding game quality and
business approaches.
For Neutronized, though, it seems the place
for simpler projects may remain those first
ten years. Keen to further cement the growing
community of Super Cat Tales, Pesaresi
enthuses about “putting more care into my
games” and taking on bigger challenges.
“It’s funny to think that when I started, a
browser game took a couple of months
to complete,” he says. “Now, Super
Cat Tales II has been going
on for two years – and I’m
still working on its finale!
But then that’s my goal: to
increase the popularity of
Super Cat Tales. I’d really love
to turn it into something big.”ART
ATTACKWhen first creating pixel
art, Pesaresi recommends
not biting off more than
you can chew: “Start
simple, keep it polished,
and improve little by little
while having work by pixel
artists you like to hand
as reference.” Another
good tip is to record and
play back footage of your
favourite pixel art games
at slower speeds: “Then
you can notice every detail,
frame by frame, and work
out how to achieve certain
things – for example,
particle effects, matching
animations with movement,
and playing with invisible
frames and screen shake.”“Super Cat Tales II
has been going on
for two years”According to Pesaresi, mobile players are so
used to playing games for free that “only a tiny
percentage” of those who installed Super Cat
Tales II have purchased the premium IAP, which
mostly exists to remove in-game advertising.
Even so, the game has a dedicated core
following. A Super Cat Tales Discord channel
thrives, as does the Neutronized YouTube
channel, which is – naturally – hosted by an
animated pixel-art Pesaresi.
Demand at one point was
such that a batch of Super Cat
Tales II figurines was released.
The game remains an ongoing
concern, and has expanded
greatly since its debut, with a range of new
levels, environments, and characters.
GETTING THE WORD OUT
For Pesaresi, this growing ecosystem is a vital
part of his work, but he says it grew organically
rather than being meticulously planned: “As I was
working on Super Cat Tales II, I noticed more and
more people were asking me for details about
it. I eventually decided to publish some devlogs
on YouTube, where I could update players about
the development of my game.” To his surprise,
views rapidly ramped up, in part simply from
people searching for the game on YouTube.
The channel was subsequently updated
weekly, in the hope of keeping new subscribers
on board, and snaring yet more people who
might be interested in Super Cat Tales II and
Neutronized’s wider body of work. At the time
of writing, the channel has over 30,000
subscribers – not bad for a solo indie developer.
Neutronized: the one-man indie studio at tenInterface
wfmag.cc \ 21 An arcade game on mobile, Drop
Wizard mixes up single-screen
platforming and auto-running.