Originally published on April 30, 2026
The weather here in Boston is getting nicer and it is giving me life. Last month I discussed my plans for Sad Land moving past the alpha build (playable but unpolished and somewhat unfinished) and aiming for a playable beta by the end of the summer/early fall.
Of the five areas left to polish, I started with the main hub area. I spent a good chunk of time coding, expanding features or cutscenes that weren’t fleshed out for the alpha build, and iterating through pixel art to bring it closer to its final form.
The last thing I worked on before putting the game down to work on this newsletter was coding the movement algorithm for this flopping fish. I’m not done futzing with it but happy that it is fairly close to how I want it to move around. This fish is a completely optional undertaking on my part (the demo does not NEED a flopping fish), but it’s small extra details like this that add some depth to an environment, making it feel more lived-in and kinetic.
Although there’s still a few more things on my to-do list for this hub area, I’m moving on to the next one on my list (the dream version of the castle) for the month of May. I figure it’s more important to build momentum than to 100% polish every area before moving on to the next. I’d rather have an expansive list of stuff to go back to than risk stagnation, especially as I try to hold myself to the deadlines I set for myself.
And now, as promised last month, the rest of this newsletter will be dedicated to the second half of my recent trip to GDC in San Francisco.
Although there’s still a few more things on my to-do list for this hub area, I’m moving on to the next one on my list (the dream version of the castle) for the month of May. I figure it’s more important to build momentum than to 100% polish every area before moving on to the next. I’d rather have an expansive list of stuff to go back to than risk stagnation, especially as I try to hold myself to the deadlines I set for myself.
And now, as promised last month, the rest of this newsletter will be dedicated to the second half of my recent trip to GDC in San Francisco.
Tuesday, March 10th
I started Tuesday off with a presentation from Chris Zimmerman of Sucker Punch Studios called Making Sure Your Game Finds an Audience: Lessons from 28 Years of Sucker Punch. Sucker Punch Studios in their three decades of game development have put out three successful franchises: Sly Cooper, Infamous, and Ghost of Tsushima/Ghost of Yōtei. Although the talk was less marketing focused than I anticipated based on the title, it had a lot to offer by way of game history and actionable advice. His core thesis, as I understood it, was that if you want to build an audience, you first need to make sure the game you release is quality. I guess the idea is that a great product will have an easier time selling itself. What goes into making a great product? According to Zimmerman: iteration, recognizing when you’ve found the game’s “spark,” and playtesting early and often.
I did end up getting the marketing talk I wanted later that day from Dana Trebella (Spoke & Wheel Strategy) and Derek Lieu (Derek Lieu Creative). I was already familiar with Derek Lieu from his helpful and insightful YouTube channel where he dissects game trailers and offers actionable marketing advice. Their talk Back to Basics: Translating Your Invisible Marketing Foundation into Visibility is packed with a ton of great information and is already available online for free in the GDC Vault, which is a delight to me as I’m sure I’ll be going back to it when I need to form a marketing plan.
The last talk of the day, and my absolute favorite of the show, was 'despelote': Capturing the Feeling of 2001 Quito, Ecaudor by Julián Cordero. despelote is a 2025 experimental narrative game developed by Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena. Based on Cordero’s childhood, in despelote you play as soccer-obsessed 8-year-old Julián Cordero as he navigates his daily life as he follows Ecuador’s path to qualifying for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
The look and sound of despelote is unlike anything I’ve seen in a video game before. The developers traveled to Cordero’s childhood hometown in Quito and 3D scanned actual environments to use as assets in the game. As you kick around the football in the game, you can overhear adults chattering in the background. Much of the dialogue is improvised by non-actors, giving the sound design a naturalistic feel that matches the rough yet realistic backgrounds. He even scanned his childhood home to include in the game.
One anecdote Cordero gave during his talk was that during his trip back to Quito to gather assets for the game, he had forgotten that when you walk around the city after sunset, you can always hear the sound of dogs barking in the distance. He recorded the sound of these dogs at night and added them to the game when little 8-year-old Julián Cordero is out after dark.
Ferdinando Scianna, Spain, 1984 (top left). Alex Webb, Panama, 1999 (top right). Abbas, Iran, 1998 (bottom left). Henri Cartier-Bresson, Spain, 1933 (bottom right).
Cordero cited a book of photos as inspiration for the game. He received it as a gift from his grandmother when he was a kid. I believe the book he mentioned was Magnum Football: Magnum Soccer, which includes photos from around the world and spanning decades depicting people playing football. A synopsis I found on the book claims “Magnum Football is not a book about super-rich professionals; it uses football to illuminate the human condition.” Based on what I know about despelote, I can see what Cordero saw in this book.
I had some time to kill before dinner, so I wandered over to the Nintendo Store to see if they had any interesting merch. I didn’t realize until I got there that it was Mario Day (March 10th > Mar10 > Mario) so the store was decked out with balloons and Mario Day signage.
Before long a voice on the loudspeaker announced Mario’s arrival, followed by applause, and a spotting of the man himself. After fifteen or so minutes of perusing the store, I went to pay for my stuff (a Togepi plush and K.K. Slider mug) and headed to the hotel to take a shower before walking back to the Moscone Center.
Tuesday night’s event was the Developer's Concert, a celebration of video game music of the past and present hosted by composer Austin Wintory leading the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and co-hosted by Troy Baker, voice actor known for The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Uncharted 4, among many other credits. The concert was a great show with some deep cuts and a broad range of video games represented (from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to And Roger), but most of all I was just happy to sit back and relax after two days of industry talks and socializing. After the concert, my wife and our friends went out for some excellent sushi and cocktails.
Wednesday, March 11th
My last day of GDC started with Rebekah Saltsman’s talk Inside Indie (Self) Publishing. Saltsman is the CEO and cofounder of Finji, a collaborative game studio and publisher based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her studio has put out several games I’ve loved (Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Night in the Woods, and Tunic), and their mission to “practice inclusive team policies that support good quality of life (no crunch), and provide significant revenue shares for all team members” is a philosophy I wish was reflected more in the industry as a whole. The talk was full of practical advice about finding a publisher that suits your vision as well as encouraging smaller teams to publish their own work so they can understand what goes into publishing a game and where they might need outside help.
I met up with my friend Brandon and we headed to the already in-progress Play with the Designers session. The session, as you may have already guessed, allowed attendees to learn/play board games with the designers of those games, shedding light on design decisions and mechanics. I joined Jon Perry’s table to play his game Hot Streak. Perry was one of the developers of UFO 50 (a game I wrote about last September) and I’d heard Hot Streak shares a lot of DNA with the UFO 50 game Quibble Race so I was excited to pick it up. Perry was incredibly generous with his time and offered a lot of insights into the game and its development.
There’s so much other stuff I experienced during GDC that I just don’t have time to dive into. There was a live event on the expo hall floor where I watched developers pitch their games with a panel of industry professionals offering critique. I attended the Games about Games microtalks which I found endlessly fascinating (this may be a topic of a future newsletter). And among everything else, I found the time to squeeze in a guided meditation sound bath and a The Secret Lives of Games podcast meetup.
That night, and my last evening in San Francisco, I attended the 2026 Independent Games Festival Awards. The highlight of the night for me was Jenny Jiao Hsia presenting the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. The award is roughly the equivalent of the Palme d'Or for video games. Jiao Hsia’s game Consume Me won the award last year, and this year it went to Titanium Court by developer AP Thompson. Thompson also co-created Consume Me, making him the first developer to win the award two years in a row. I just finished Consume Me (highly recommend although definitely check out the trigger warnings before making the purchase) and just started the curious and colorful Titanium Court (released just last week).
After the IGF awards I met up with my friends Brandon and Teppi, both educators chaperoning some students from their respective institutions, and went to In-N-Out for a late dinner. Counting both groups of students, our group of twelve or so GDC attendees took the cable car uphill to the northern point of San Francisco over by Fisherman’s Wharf. After spending most of my time in the proximity of the Moscone Center, it was nice to venture a little farther out and see a different part of the city. After burgers and fries, we meandered down Jefferson Street, and before I knew it, we were over by Pier 39 looking out at a huddled mass of sea lions. Teppi and I took an uber back to the hotel and I met up with my wife and a few of her co-workers for last call. The next morning, I packed my bags and flew back to Boston.
I hope you enjoyed this two-part travelogue. Many thanks to Brandon and Teppi for being such great pals, and, of course, my lovely and beautiful wife Jordan. Until next month!
Sincerely,
Neil