10 Years Game Development Journey — Chubby Pixel

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From a 2 person team to a Company

Hel­lo my friends!
In this blog post I would like to write about our game devel­op­ment jour­ney expe­ri­ence dur­ing the last 10 years in the gam­ing field start­ed with small games projects devel­oped by just 2 per­son to a com­pa­ny with over 15 devel­op­ers involved!
For more infos you can vis­it our web­site with all our games at: www.chubbypixel.com

Our first game Woo­dle Tree Adven­tures released in 2013 for PC was quite a suc­cess­ful release, espe­cial­ly after the con­sole release few years later.

Game link:
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Woodle-Tree-Adventures-1321276.html

In the mean­time we con­tin­ued to devel­op B2B games (Busi­ness to Busi­ness) for many com­pa­nies and brands. Only after a few years we’ve been able to start to devel­op only B2C (Busi­ness to Con­sumer) and to expand the team only through this business.

In 2016 we decid­ed to expand the team thanks to suc­cess­ful games like Sui­cide Guy, Sui­cide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply and Woo­dle Tree 2: Deluxe released for all con­soles and PC

Games link:
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Suicide-Guy-1374572.html

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Woodle-Tree-2-Deluxe-1607727.html

After the incred­i­ble and unex­pect­ed suc­cess of our new games, we decid­ed to con­tin­u­ous­ly expand the team and move the first steps into the Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty field, releas­ing our first VR game Sui­cide Guy VR for PlaySta­tion VR, Steam and Ocu­lus in 2020. Despite the niche mar­ket, the game was a great suc­cess and helped us to con­tin­ue our Journey

Game Link:
https://store.playstation.com/en-hu/product/EP2659-CUSA24681_00-2916580547794178

In 2020 and 2021 we start­ed to devel­op and con­vert our games for the Mobile mar­ket (iOS and Android). Since the games were already very famous, this helped a lot the mobile releas­es, with thou­sands of copies sold in the first weeks.

Game link:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sleepin-guy/id1543427407

The team is now com­plete and we’re focus­ing on our next adven­ture game releas­ing it soon and a new PlaySta­tion VR2 game, stay tuned!
Thank you for the atten­tion, I hope this post can help oth­er devel­op­ers to find their way too!

Suicide Guy VR Deluxe Coming to Steam!

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Hel­lo my friends!
We’re glad to announce that Sui­cide Guy VR the new Deluxe edi­tion is com­ing to Steam this November!

Stay tuned for the full release and add to your wish­list now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2154060/Suicide_Guy_VR_Deluxe/

A first per­son puz­zle game like no oth­er where you’ll have to find the way out of your own dreams using objects and tools that you’ll obtain dur­ing your nap.

Play this super immer­sive expe­ri­ence, now com­pat­i­ble with all VR devices (Ocu­lus Quest, Valve Index, HTC Vive and Ocu­lus Rift)

Chubby Pixel team is expanding!

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Hel­lo my friends!
In this blog post I would like to talk about our team, now com­posed of 6 mem­bers.

In the past months we’ve been busy scal­ing up the team and our projects find­ing new key fig­ures that will help us to make even bet­ter games!

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After years of hard work now the team is com­posed of:

(1) game designer

(2) game­play programmers

(1) sound effect and sound­track designer

(1) 3d artist

(1) 2d artist

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I think the key aspect to be able to build up a team like this, start­ing as solo devel­op­er, has been to con­tin­u­ous­ly scale up the game projects, gath­er­ing more funds from one project to the next.

Since we’re still search­ing for fig­ures to join our team, if you would like to work (or col­lab­o­rate with us), please send your CV and port­fo­lio at: info@chubbypixel.com

We’ll review it and answer as fast as possible!

From a single game to a brand: the Suicide Guy recap

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How the constant support to the game, hugely improved the interest in the franchise through the years

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Hel­lo my friends!
In this post I would like to share with you the devel­op­ment expe­ri­ence that we have under­tak­en to raise aware­ness and main­tain con­stant inter­est in our games and brands, with hun­dreds of thou­sands of play­ers all around the world.

We start­ed with a sin­gle game, than due to the suc­cess of the first release, con­tin­ued to expand the brand, releas­ing new chap­ters, a phys­i­cal edi­tion, a Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty ver­sion of the game, a Mobile edi­tion and much more.

Below you can find all the steps that fol­lowed the ini­tial release in 2017!

Suicide Guy (PC game) (2017)

Released back in 2017 for PC (Steam, Hum­ble store) the game gained a huge boost thanks to stream­ers that helped to expand the brand aware­ness of the char­ac­ters, game­play style, and game mechan­ics.
Thanks to this, we under­stood the game poten­tial and decid­ed to con­tin­ue to expand this world.

Game link: https://chubbypixel.com/games/suicide-guy/

Suicide Guy Sleepin’ Deeply (2018)

We then released a few months lat­er the sec­ond chap­ter with new lev­els, sto­ry and much more, expand­ing the game world and its char­ac­ters.

Game link: https://chubbypixel.com/games/suicide-guy-sleepin-deeply/

Suicide Guy (Console releases) (2018)

The first chap­ter was then released on all major con­soles (PS4, Nin­ten­do Switch and Xbox One) gain­ing even more vis­i­bil­i­ty, play­ers and a fan­base.
The most pop­u­lar release is prob­a­bly on Switch where the game had the most sales ever. 

Game Link: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Suicide-Guy-1374572.html

Suicide Guy VR (2020)

The Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty edi­tion of the game was then released in 2020 for PC, and lat­er for PlaySta­tion VR/Oculus Store.
Although Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty is not yet a mass hard­ward prod­uct, the game has sold very well on those plat­forms.

Game Link: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP2796-CUSA24680_00-4177634767104012

Suicide Guy Collection (physical edition) (2020)

The Sui­cide Guy Col­lec­tion that includes all the chap­ters of the game, was then pub­lished the same year as a phys­i­cal release for Nin­ten­do Switch, thanks to Red Art games that helped us with the phys­i­cal distribution.

Game Link: https://www.redartgames.com/presentation?rp=suicide-guy

Suicide Guy (mobile edition iOS, Google Play) (2021)

Due to the suc­cess of the lat­est releas­es, we then decid­ed to pub­lish a lighter ver­sion of the game for iOS and Google Play, and found out that many users did­n’t have yet played the game. The mobile mar­ket is huge if well exploit­ed and if you release a game already well known globally.

Game Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ChubbyPixel.SleepinGuy&hl=en_US&gl=US

The Suicide Guy Deluxe Edition (2021)

After many years from its ini­tial release, we then decid­ed to release an updat­ed and improved ver­sion of the first game, with new lev­els, con­tent and much more, attract­ing many new players.

Game Link: https://www.xbox.com/it-IT/games/store/sleepin-guy-deluxe-edition/9ncr3ph12m87

Suicide Guy (Chinese release) (2022)

Thanks to the Chi­nese pub­lish­er 4399 games we were final­ly able in 2022 to release the game in Chi­na.
This fact helped the aware­ness of the game to expand even in this new territory!

Game Link: https://a.4399.cn/mobile/204985.html

Suicide Guy 2 (TBA) and more!

Many new releas­es are in the works, with a big­ger sequel, new incred­i­ble chap­ters, peluches and much more. This was all pos­si­ble thanks to the huge sup­port that gamers and fans gave us through the years.


We think that the fran­chise of the game is still wide­ly expand­able and so we will con­tin­ue to devel­op this kind of game expand­ing even more its game mechanics!

8 Years of Chubby Pixel games, year revenues, upcoming games and more!

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Hel­lo my friends!
In this blog post I would like to cel­e­brate 8 years of Chub­by Pix­el games: first of all I would like to thank you all for mak­ing this incred­i­ble jour­ney pos­si­ble, with­out you this would­n’t have been pos­si­ble, so thank you !

Since many of our fans are very inter­est­ed in how we make and mar­ket our game, I would like to show you how we were able to con­stant­ly make big­ger games and expand our team year after year.

With dozens of games released to date, the com­pa­ny start­ed as a sim­ple exper­i­ment for mak­ing orig­i­nal and com­pelling games to be pub­lished main­ly for PC.
After sev­er­al years (in 2017) we start­ed to pub­lish our games even for Con­soles and Mobile with incred­i­ble results.

As exam­ple, Here fol­low­ing the Year 2021 rev­enues recap in in per­cent­age!

With our most suc­cess­ful game being “Sui­cide Guy” for Nin­ten­do Switch
Link to the game: https://www.nintendo.it/Giochi/Giochi-scaricabili-per-Nintendo-Switch/Suicide-Guy-1374572.html

As can be seen from the graph, the high­er rev­enues arise from the Nin­ten­do Switch games (we have pub­lished a total of 4 games games on Switch for now), but this does­n’t mean we’ll not con­tin­ue to sup­port the oth­er plat­forms as well.

The team con­stant­ly expand­ed and now includes a total of 5 devel­op­ers (includ­ing sound design­ers and artists) + exter­nal resources that will help us to con­tin­ue to port our games for all consoles.

With hun­dreds of thou­sands of copies sold world­wide, we’re sure to be able to con­tin­ue to devel­op new great games, so stay tuned!

Recent­ly this year we pub­lished our first game for Mobile and VR Ocu­lus store, as can be seen in the graph this was main­ly an exper­i­ment and rep­re­sents only a small part of our core business.

Our Mobile games are soon com­ing to the Chi­nese mar­ket too thanks to a great pub­lish­er (soon to be announced) that sup­port­ed us and is help­ing to enter in this incred­i­bly big market.

Woo­dle Tree Adven­tures Mobile:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ChubbyPublishing.WoodleDeluxe&hl=it&gl=US

Our first big VR game exper­i­ment (The Guy VR) released this year on Ocu­lus Store, Steam and Soon PlaySta­tion VR is pre­form­ing rather well, but rep­re­sents only a small part of our total income.

The Guy VR (Store link): https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/3088466977939130

As this exper­i­ment worked rather well, expect more VR games soon from us!

We have a lot of new projects in mind too and would like to show some­thing soon.

One of the projects we’re work­ing on right now is a new kind of adven­ture game that will take place in a future where human­i­ty has now dis­ap­peared from the plan­et. Only the inno­cence of child­hood could save it from itself.

Here one of the first screen­shots! Com­ing soon for PlaySta­tion 4, Playsta­tion 5, Xbox, Nin­ten­do Switch and PC!

I hope this was an inter­est­ing read, we’ll soon share more details in the next months, so stay tuned!

Considerations and reflections on today’s games

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What do they give to players? Are they just meant to make money?
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Hel­lo my friends!
In this blog post I would like to take the time to make a con­sid­er­a­tion on the today’s game mar­ket and design: how are they designed and what is pur­pose of most of them?

The imme­di­ate answer to this is prob­a­bly: “To make mon­ey”.
But is it real­ly just this? Or is there more?
This is ques­tion I ask myself many times as a game devel­op­er and design­er since as an answer it always seemed very flat and mean­ing­less in the end. Sure­ly this kind of dis­course can take a deep social/philosofical turn, but I think there could be sim­pler answers.

Game com­pa­nies’ goal in gen­er­al is sure­ly just to sell more copies of their game in order to sus­tain them­selves and make prof­it.

Their goal is to get big­ger and big­ger, mak­ing “big­ger games” in order to make more mon­ey to make even more big­ger games. But does it make sense in the end? Or is it just a dog chas­ing its own tail?
Com­pa­nies that have passed their size lim­it (of prof­it) tend to expand into oth­er fields since they have so much sur­plus bud­get that they don’t even know what to do with it (an exam­ple is Google expand­ing in the gam­ing mar­ket with Sta­dia).

But tak­ing the exam­ple of Google, in the case they squash all the com­pe­ti­tion in the gam­ing field with their prod­uct and ideas what’s left? Just more money?

I think it does­n’t make much sense in the long run.
Com­pe­ti­tion is some­thing that I per­son­al­ly think can also be pos­i­tive and lead com­pa­nies to give their best (but also addi­tion­al stress) as long as they don’t anni­hi­late the oppos­ing com­pa­nies.
This sure­ly can push the tech­nol­o­gy, lead­ing the mar­ket to pro­duce visu­al­ly stun­ning prod­ucts that would nev­er have seen the light otherwise.

Visu­al­ly (and audi­bly) sure­ly progress has been made, but is this the right path? Do games nowa­days are so much dif­fer­ent from the games of the past?
Per­son­al­ly I think today’s games don’t con­vey or teach some­thing real­ly mean­ing­ful and do not yet ful­ly exploit the poten­tial of the medium.

Most of triple A games tend to be lin­ear sto­ries with cutscenes get­ting clos­er and clos­er to the world of cin­e­ma with­out real­ly being able to find its own lan­guage, nor even approach­ing remote­ly to the great cin­e­mato­graph­ic mas­ter­pieces such as Ser­gio Leone or Fellini’s movies to name a few.

Prob­a­bly indie games hav­ing less costs and being able to risk more, tend to explore this medi­um much more deeply.

With this sen­tence I don’t mean to despise triple A games (I still like to play them), but I real­ly would like to see more exper­i­men­ta­tion and not just games that tend to copy each other.

These games don’t real­ly make gamers think or give them pro­found teach­ings (oth­er than thoughts on how the plot will con­tin­ue).
Small­er games like UNDERTALE tend to explore much more this con­cept, and this is also linked to the fact that the devel­op­er’s goal (toby­fox) was­n’t to make mil­lions out of the game. His main objec­tive was to cre­ate some­thing unique and some­thing nev­er seen before with a sim­ple idea:
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/257884/Game_Design_Deep_Dive_Undertales_actionbased_RPG_battles.php

With real moral choic­es that final­ly make the play­er think, these are prob­a­bly the games that can lead to the path of pure game design.

I think that in order to cre­ate tru­ly excep­tion­al games, devel­op­ers need to look at oth­er fields: not only Cin­e­matog­ra­phy, but even Art, Music, Pho­tog­ra­phy, Phi­los­o­phy and all aspects of life that can be stud­ied.


After all even Nin­ten­do affirms that when try­ing to search for the best game design­ers, they tend not hire gamers
https://www.insider.com/shigeru-miyamoto-hire-gamers-nintendo-2017–12

This is because gamers tend to take inspi­ra­tion from oth­er games they played rather than from their oth­er life expe­ri­ences, and this is some­thing that we try to achieve too as a small game devel­op­ment com­pa­ny.

Even recent Nin­ten­do best­sellers such as “Super Mario Odyssey” and “The Leg­end of Zel­da: Breath of the Wild” have been laud­ed for being exam­ples of the com­pa­ny’s will­ing­ness to take risks with even its most impor­tant franchises. 

Of course there are many oth­er exam­ples to study, for exam­ple cash grabs games like Fort­nite or Can­dy Crush are designed by armies of psy­chol­o­gists in order to study the bet­ter way to keep the play­ers glued to the game.

This brings the ques­tion I made at the begin­ning of the post: even if these games made 10x more mon­ey then Breath of the Wild, does it real­ly make these games more suc­cess­ful? or do we have to con­sid­er oth­er fac­tors to mea­sure the suc­cess of a game?

here some links that I took the inspi­ra­tion by to write this blog post! I hope you liked it :)

Ref­er­ences:

https://medium.com/@sambro055/scope-of-game-development-and-design-dd187a64fd44

https://www.lcca.org.uk/blog/careers/scope-and-future-of-the-gaming-industry/

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/nintendo-can-teach-us-game-design/

https://www.insider.com/shigeru-miyamoto-hire-gamers-nintendo-2017–12

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/technology/nintendo-switch.html

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/257884/Game_Design_Deep_Dive_Undertales_actionbased_RPG_battles.php

Chubby Pixel new games — March update!

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Hel­lo my friends!

In this March blog post I would like to update you on the new games and improve­ments we’re work­ing on. We’re excit­ed to show you some new con­tent from our games!

first of all:

Woo­dle Deluxe new edi­tion is now avail­able on Steam, you can grab it here!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1516090/Woodle_Deluxe/

In this new edi­tion, we’ve decid­ed to include a new extra lev­el and more con­tent updates soon to be announced!

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Mean­while here a glimpse from the new game we’re work­ing on!

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Regard­ing the PlaySta­tion VR the new edi­tion of “Sui­cide Guy VR we’re work­ing hard to bring it soon to the PS store.


it took us more time than expect­ed to port the game for the new sys­tem,
but we’re glad to announce that it will be released even for the new PS5 VR Visor edi­tion, com­ing soon!

For Fur­ther updates join our Dis­cord Server:

https://discord.com/invite/chubbypixel

This month some of our Nin­ten­do Switch games are now on sale too!

Sales Sui­cide Guy (-88% off) and Sui­cide Guy Sleepin’ Deeply (-83% off):

Sui­cide Guy: https://www.nintendo.it/Giochi/Giochi-scaricabili-per-Nintendo-Switch/Suicide-Guy-1374572.html

Sleepin’ Deeply: https://www.nintendo.it/Giochi/Giochi-scaricabili-per-Nintendo-Switch/Suicide-Guy-Sleepin-Deeply-1459376.html