With INDIE INTERVIEWS, I talk to the game developers hanging here on Cohost to learn more about new games you might love.
Something that doesn't get covered enough is the very vast world of narrative-focused indie games. Visual novels, text adventures, linear RPGMaker stories, branching Twine games, and more make up a huge chunk of the incredible and personal indie games that are released every year. If you've ever found yourself feeling any sort of fatigue from high-octane action, I recommend checking out what's going on in that scene! One great creator you'll find is @npckc , who I most recognize from their A YEAR OF SPRINGS visual novel trilogy. I talked to them to learn more about their work, and the bridge between the English and Japanese indie communities.
You can find A YEAR OF SPRINGS on Steam, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch. You can find all of @npckc 's work on itch.io.
1. Introduce yourself for everyone here on Cohost! Who are you?
Hi! I’m npckc, or just kc for short. I like to create little story games, among other things, and I also do Japanese-English translation work. My most recently released “big” game is a pet shop after dark, a point-and-click horror adventure game.
2. How did you find yourself first getting into game development?
I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but a few years ago, I stumbled upon http://itch.io and found out that people - just regular people like me! - were making games and releasing them online. I never really thought of this as something you could just do so easily, and it made me think that maybe I could make a game too! I found out about the browser-based web engine called bitsy [https://bitsy.org] (which I highly recommend to absolutely anybody with even an inkling of interest in making games and telling their own stories in game form) and everything kept rolling from there.
3. I want to ask a question that is outside the context of selling indie games commercially for a second. You've made a number of video games. You're an artist and a writer. On top of that, you also keep a great blog on your website. How do you decide what form an idea, thought, or emotion will take? Making a video game to express, for example, the "feeling of being stuck in an airport", takes a lot of effort and time. When does an idea become a game instead of becoming a drawing or a blogpost?
I make games when I want to share an experience. I think when you play a game, it’s always very personal, because what you do directly affects how the game plays out, even if you’re just clicking next to advance dialogue. Everyone has their own experience with a game and it’s always going to be theirs alone. When I write a blog post, I’m just talking about things I want to talk about, and people can choose to listen or not by reading the post or not. When I make a game, I feel like it only really becomes a game when somebody plays it and experiences it in their own way, so that tends to influence what I make games out of. (I do think the same could be said about blog posts and drawings and all art in a way, but it feels more tangible with games to me.)
4. I'm sorry that this might be the heaviest question a person could ask, but what is on your mind when you weigh the options of going "full-time" as an indie versus staying with a day-job? I think the fears and anxieties are probably obvious, but what excites you or brings you hope when you weigh that discussion with yourself? What would you do differently if, or when, you have more time to work indie?
I really appreciate this question, so thank you! It’s something I’ve been mulling over for years. I made the decision to become fully indie in autumn of last year, because I was, to be honest, just not very happy with my day job, and I’ll be leaving my day job this year March to become solely an indie game dev and freelance translator this April.
I know that I am very fortunate to be even able to consider making this decision at all. While my games aren’t big hits or anything, they sell enough that I felt comfortable to think about trying being fully indie. I also have supplemental income from freelance translation, though it is not as steady as a day job. On top of that, I live with my partner who has encouraged and supported me as I juggled game dev and my day job. He also helped me realise that I was overworking myself doing both, and I was going to have to either cut down on game dev or cut down on my day job - and last autumn, I chose game dev.
The reason I’m doing it is that I want to at least try it. I feel like I’d regret it forever if I didn’t. I don’t mind if I try, “fail” and then return to a day job, but I don’t want to always have the “What if?” at the back of my mind.
Currently, my goal is to test the waters for one year and then I’ll look back and reevaluate if I feel like I can continue being indie.
5. What should English speakers know about the world of Japanese doujin games that they might not know already? It feels like in 2023 we are still only now breaking down the barriers between the English and Japanese indie scenes.
[Note for readers: the "doujin scene" refers to the broad community in Japan revolving around self-publishing, independent works, fanworks, and "like-minded people making things for like-minded audiences" .....that's my attempt at an explanation, but the GDC talk below explains it thoroughly!]
I think sometimes people have a very specific image of what they believe games from Japan should look like (I specifically say both doujin and indie because a lot of devs here might use one label for their games but not the other. Alvin Phu of Tokyo Indies talks about doujin culture a bit in his GDC talk here [https://gdcvault.com/play/1027343/Independent-Games-Summit-Indie], starting around 5:15, for those of you who are interested!)
Your comment about breaking down the barriers between the English and Japanese indie scenes is very poignant because I feel like even in Japan, there’s a big divide between devs that speak English (often solely) and devs that speak Japanese (again, often solely). I’ll be at an event like Bitsummit (indie game event in Kyoto) and all the devs visiting from overseas along with English-speaking devs in Japan will have their own parties while Japanese-speaking devs will hang out elsewhere, and there is surprisingly little intermingling for an event that’s based in Japan. I’m lucky to be fluent in both Japanese and English so I can go between these scenes and chat with devs in either language, but it can be tough to make connections across the language barrier.
Similarly, it can be hard for Japanese game devs to get their work “abroad”. I feel like I link this talk a lot, but Anne, the previous community manager of asobu, an indie game community space in Shibuya, gave a talk at GDC [https://gdcvault.com/play/1027565/Independent-Games-Summit-Big-in] about all the barriers devs have in trying to reach an audience outside of Japan, with a big part of that being the language barrier. It’s not just about being able to reach a non-Japanese audience though - so many “global” game dev resources, applications for game events, &c. are only available in English, and that’s a huge hurdle for a lot of devs. Even http://itch.io, my personal game platform of choice, is not really great for Japanese devs and players for various reasons including the inability to set prices in Japanese yen and the lack of multi-language support for store pages. Meanwhile, the main platforms that smaller devs are using here such as freem and DLsite have very little international reach.
I can only speak from my experiences as somebody who joined the game dev scene here fairly recently and didn't grow up here though!
6. Any advice for aspiring gamedevs out there?
If you want to make something, just do it! I started with a small bitsy game over five years ago now with no real game dev-related education or experience. If you told past me that I would have games released on consoles in the future, I would have laughed in my own face!
Really though, you can release your games so easily on http://itch.io and there are so many game jams that you can just browse the jam pages to find something that interests you. (Keep scope small though so that you can actually release the game you want to make!)
Also, I just want to share a talk that was really inspirational to me. (Sorry I’m linking to so many talks… I’ve been watching a lot of game dev-related videos ever since making the decision to go indie!) Grey Alien Games talks about how to survive long-term in game dev without a hit [https://youtube.com/watch?v=JmwbYl6f11c&themeRefresh=1] and it helped me frame my expectations better. Hoping for a million-selling hit will probably just set you up for disappointment, but aiming to keep making games that will continuously sell is much more viable. That said, if you want to just make games as a hobby, that’s also completely valid! I’d love to see more people just making the games they want to make and finding what they consider “success” in their own ways.
7. Is there a project you're working on currently? Tell us what's next for you.
I’m working on a small GB Studio game right now about going on a date at a family restaurant and wanting to treat your date to the meal, only to notice that you only have 2000 yen on you! It’ll use the Gameboy Printer to print out receipts so that you can check how much money you’ve spent at the restaurant throughout the game. I’m putting together a demo for Tokyo Game Dungeon [https://tokyogamedungeon.com] next week for anybody who is in the area. [Note for readers: TGD ended already as of the time of this posting, but you can read about it from kc over here]

8. Lastly, are there any indie games out there you've been playing recently? Any favorites to shout-out?
It’s not a digital game, but I’ve been really loving OLDHOME: Trip to Turtle City [https://noroadhome.itch.io/oldhome-trip-to-turtle-city] by Takuma Okada. It’s a TTRPG about returning to a childhood home that’s changed, or maybe it’s you who’s changed? It resonated a lot with me as somebody who was born in one country, grew up in another and is living as an adult in yet another. It can be played with friends or alone and is an incredible emotional game.
I also played sleep cycle [https://achenesense.itch.io/sleep-cycle] by Isobel Bess recently and it was not what I expected, in a very good way! Make sure to play with sound on.
Thanks for talking to me, kc! There's a lot more you can learn about the Japanese doujin community through the linked GDC talks or over on @npckc 's cohost page! You can find A YEAR OF SPRINGS on Steam and Nintendo Switch. You can find all of their work on itch.io. Until next time!
