Sea of Stars

Developed by Sabotage Studio

Published by Sabotage Studio

"Sea of Stars is a turn-based RPG inspired by the classics. It tells the story of two Children of the Solstice who will combine the powers of the sun and moon to perform Eclipse Magic, the only force capable of fending off the monstrous creations of the evil alchemist known as The Fleshmancer."

You can find Sea of Stars on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox.

You can find Sabotage Studio on Twitter

WrestleQuest

Developed by Mega Cat Studios

Published by Skybound Games

"TAG TEAM WITH DESTINY! Pro wrestling and RPG fantasy collide in the ultimate pixel powered adventure. “Macho Man” Randy Savage and tons of other icons offer guidance as you powerbomb your way to glory beyond the ring. This hero’s journey ain’t just an epic quest, it’s WRESTLEQUEST!"

You can find WrestleQuest on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and Netflix Games.

You can find Mega Cat Studios on Twitter

That's a good question.

I think if you say something like "LOOKING FOR PLAYTESTERS" it might sound a little too formal; like you're asking someone to really dedicate a lot of time and formally submit feedback forms and look extensively for bugs.

Instead, I think you're better off just showing off a work-in-progress game online and then asking if anyone wants to try it. Or simply putting a free demo up on itch.io and getting feedback from people in the comments. I feel like itch.io users are fairly accustomed to playing small projects and early prototypes, and most users are pretty helpful in the comments from what I've seen.

Longer answer below!

With INDIE INTERVIEWS, I talk to the game developers hanging here on Cohost to learn more about new games you might love.

There's a lot of different paths up the indie dev mountain! Everyone's coming at it from different angles, different life experiences. Today I have an interview with @danielleri, the current EIC of GameDeveloper.com, about her path up that mountain! And even better, she has been collecting a lot of useful tips and tools to help devs start climbing.

You can find The Tunnel on itch.io

Introduce yourself for everyone here on Cohost! Who are you?

Hi! I’m Danielle Riendeau, I’m the editor-in-chief of Game Developer (dot com!) formerly of Fanbyte, Waypoint, and Polygon. I’m also a hobbyist game dev (been making and releasing tiny games since around 2013-2014), a game design lecturer at the Berklee College of Music, and a volunteer EMT here in Brooklyn and Queens. I also do submission grappling and I’m learning some basic pixel art these days to help out with my tiny game projects!

How did you find yourself first getting into the games industry?

This is a bit weird but I went to grad school for film production, and found myself in the exciting (to me, at the time, this is like 2006-2009) world of freelance writing to help support myself. I always wrote about games—and film, and other media—and while I started my full time career in the nonprofit world, I freelanced for places like Kill Screen and EGM and G4 until, one day, Polygon had an opening for a full time reviews writer. So! I’ve been writing about games full time since 2013. As I mentioned above, I’ve been making games (and teaching) since around then (or before, in terms of teaching), so I’ve always been involved in multiple sides of the space. I’m one of those writers who does think having a bit of experience making the type of art you comment on/report on is helpful (not everyone agrees with this! But this is discourse from another era, lol).

You have experience in teaching, in games journalism, in indie game dev, and in being a volunteer EMT. This might be ridiculous to ask, but...is there anything you've learned over the years that you feel has helped you across all four fields? Are there any similarities between, say, games and being an EMT?