Last month, my game Faith in Despair launched! It's a roguelike deckbuilder that lets you create your own cards using triggers, actions and modifiers. You play against Death for eternity.

I've written and said this intro to my game so much in the past few months and years, it almost happens automatically. Two and a half years have gone by way too fast. I still remember making the prototype and showing it to my wife. We both saw that it had potential, so I kept working on it.



And here we are. In a recent twitch stream, I was asked if the launch has "beaten my expectations". It's hard to say. My expectations were all over the place before launch. On the one hand, people said it's great, on the other I had people tearing into it, finding flaws and bugs. I knew the truth would come out on November 12th. Would it only get like 4 reviews? Or a thousand?

Well, I did see the wishlists in the backend. Based on that, I could pretty much forecast how it was going to do. And the forecast was on point. It sold a couple hundred units, and it now is sitting at 42 reviews. The meaning of life.

Did I try my best? I think so. I got a marketing person (shoutout to the great Flo) to help me out with press and influencer outreach, and he got people like Celerity, aliensrock, and Wanderbots on board. I got an artist last-minute to add 20 new angel cards (say hi to Lyfeu), with more art to come. I spent days and weeks going through how roguelike deckbuilders tick, playing games and taking notes, reading negative Steam reviews, and devouring books on game design and dopamine. I networked at Gamescom in 2024, Twitchcon EU 2025, Gamecity Vienna 2025, and Gamedev Days Graz 2025. I was part of mentorship programs both as mentor and mentee. I did regular playtests, had a Discord up, automated bug reporting, and an invaluable in-game feedback form.



The game was translated into the biggest languages on Steam, including Simplified Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Brazilian-Portuguese, and German. With French, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian still in development.

I talked to industry veterans, and freelanced for a big indie game, to learn the ins and outs. Talked about pricing the game, marketing, unlock mechanics, onboarding, tutorialization, mental tricks, but also about what to do when not working on games, when you're burnt out and need to take some time off.

Faith in Despair is not only a game to me, this is the start of something new. I have learned so much. And it seems like this is only the beginning.

So, has it beaten my expectations? Has it been a success? I would say, yes. If you compare it to any of my previous projects, Faith in Despair has blown them out of the water. It might not have gotten the same attention and fanbase as Halfquake, but it is a completely new IP that I've built from the ground up with no prior recognition or community. Sure, some Halfquake people tried it out and a few even enjoyed it, but ultimately it is a different target audience.

Faith in Despair has given me so much. A place in the local (and hopefully international) gamedev community. A reason to stream and find a community there. It is not just about numbers, but the experience. And for that, I'm truly grateful. It is a dream come true to work on a game like this that also gets that many positive reactions.

Only one question remains. What next?

I'm currently working on a content update, and I have plans to add a few more systems to the game (such as unlocks and different modes). This will likely take another year. At the end of all these updates, it's going to be released on consoles, where it hopefully will be received positively as well.

I would like to work on other games of course, maybe something with horror vibes. One thing's for sure, whatever I make next, it's definitely going to have more of my music.

After working on it for two and a half years, Faith in Despair has now launched on Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2686020/Faith_in_Despair/

If you buy it, make sure to leave a review because we need to reach ten reviews as fast as possible to get into the Steam algorithm.

The soundtrack is available as DLC, but also on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and it will be on all popular streaming services soon.

There's also a bundle available with Novus Orbis, another deckbuilder that I really enjoyed.

I will go more in-depth in a later post. For now, this is it.

Thank you for being part of my journey!

The past 3 weeks were a little bit too crazy!

I was in Graz, giving a talk about why video games are fun. I think the talk will be on YouTube at some point. A day before that was also my first time streaming IRL, it was fun and I want to do it again at some point.

The days after Graz I got sick, and I was worried I wasn't gonna make it until Gamecity, especially since I had a fever on Tuesday and we were invited to set up our tables on Thursday. But I pumped myself full of pills and survived 3 days standing 9 to 10 hours amidst gamers and gamedevs.



Gamecity was a lot of fun, many people checked out my game and said they liked it. Some didn't like it, and that was to be expected. I actually started asking people if they liked card games, like Magic: The Gathering, Slay the Spire, etc. And if they had a confused look on their face, I told them the game is probably not for them.

I did a full recap with photos in the livestream right after Gamecity.

Steam Next Fest started on Monday and I patched the game really quickly in the morning, mostly to fix a softlock that I witnessed during Gamecity.

Remember the instagram post I made about AI generated art? Kat picked it up and reacted to it in her YouTube video. Afterwards, people on reddit posted it on r/antiai and r/mtg. Even a coworker in the company I work for recognized me, because the antiai post appeared on the front page of reddit.

I can tell you that it probably did not convert to many wishlists, but I can't really tell. After Steam Next Fest was over, Faith in Despair had 3001 wishlist. It had an average of 150 players per day throughout the event, and it got to 11 reviews, and people sending feedback and joining the Discord.

Now it's time for launch. On November 12th, I will do a livestream early in the morning to press the launch button together and celebrate a little bit. I have two influencers lined up, who will stream the game and make a YouTube video, so it should make a bit of a splash hopefully.

I'm both excited and anxious. I have never had a project with that many wishlists before launch. Halfquake Trilogy has got around 3800 wishlists over 7 years, and it might have had more players and reviews overall, but it's also a free modification for Half-Life, not a commercial product.

However, the game is basically done. I could probably go on vacation for two weeks and it would be fine. But I still want to keep polishing it for another week or so. And make one more music track.

And after launch, I'll do a bunch of quick updates and a content update.

We'll see what happens afterwards.

Faith in Despair has been updated to version Version 0.4.0, which now includes rare angels in shops, lacrima packs that appear at the start of a run, and over a hundred changes, fixes, and adjustments.

A lot of things are happening currently. I will hold a talk about fun in video games at Gamedev Days Graz on October 4th ("It's all Fun and Games"). From October 10th to October 13th, I'll showcase my game at Gamecity in Vienna (my game was mentioned in the local news). And the game will be a part of Steam Next Fest from October 13th to October 20th.

I have hired a new artist to help with the new angel images. His name is Lyfeu, and he's also streaming on Twitch if you want to see how he's making the angels.

I'm also working together with a marketing expert, and they're going to help me with overall messaging, Steam page, reaching out to press and influencers, and some general tips for the game.

Probably the biggest thing that happened since the last devlog was that I approached a publisher with a proposal for a bundle. They said that they were worried because my game cover was seemingly AI generated and many people were going to be thrown off by that.

I posted about this on reddit, instagram, youtube and tiktok. It resulted in some heated debates, but also some encouraging comments, great feedback and new contacts. The artist that I mentioned earlier also reached out to me because of that.

I've now added all artist names of the illustrations in my game to the title screen and directly on the Steam page. People might still think it's AI and not even click on the image to get to the store page, but that's okay.

In a recent gamedev event (Subotron) I also met Mario, the creator of KIDS. He was so chill and down to earth, despite all the success his games have had, and I really respect that. I asked him if all the memes and reactions to his games have changed his workflow, but he hadn't even thought about that. Yes, he enjoyed it when people posted jokes about his games, but it doesn't influence his approach to making games. He's currently working on a game where you manipulate graphs, and his animations always look so smooth and almost life-like. It was definitely an inspiring talk.

I've also locked in the launch date for Faith in Despair: November 12th. It was either March (after February Next Fest) or November (after October Next Fest), and when I thought about March, it felt like it was too far away in the future. The game is ready now. I'll polish a few things, add more music, but more content can be added after launch. Depending on reception, or on how I feel, I might take a little break and work on something else, and then return with an update.

Localization is also going well, the current languages are: Simplified Chinese (Horace Pan), Japanese (Toyoch), Russian (NikSynaly), Spanish (Alejandro), Swedish (Pao), French (Khimitsu), and German (by me). Also waiting for confirmation from possible translators for Polish and Brazilian Portuguese. More languages would be better of course, but I think that's a good start.

I keep streaming on twitch (and youtube) three times a week, and I feel like it helps me a lot in getting things done. People are supportive, and have some great tips and suggestions. Sometimes new people join and ask what the game is because they think it looks great. I'm so grateful whenever that happens, because for a long time I felt like the art style was not coming together.

The game now has 1443 wishlists. At a recent gamedev event, I spoke to another developer and he said that the number is too low and the "hype score" doesn't look great. I agree that it's too low to reach Steam's "popular upcoming" list, and it will probably not make me a millionaire (yet!). But it has the most amount of wishlists of any of my games before launch so far. And to me, that is already a success.

Faith in Despair has given me so much and opened so many doors. It allowed me to experience Gamescom last year, where I met so many incredible people. It gave me my first freelance job at a game studio, which made me confident to transition to freelance full-time. I learned so many invaluable lessons and made a lot of new friends.

And most importantly, some people already have fun playing it.

I think that is enough.

I just came back from a week in Stockholm. It was a much needed vacation after the last game update, which took place a week before that and introduced many new things, including a new deck (Gambler) and the journal mode.

Honestly, it was a very random decision to pick Stockholm as my destination. I just always felt like going there, and because summers are quite hot in Vienna, it was a good opportunity for cooler weather.

After I had already booked my flight ticket and my hotel, on a random day I was looking at the wikipedia page for Seventh Seal, and I found out that Ingmar Bergman was inspired by "a medieval church painting from the 1480s in Täby kyrka", which was just north of Stockholm. Seventh Seal is one of the many inspirations for Faith in Despair, where you play against Death. So I knew I had to check it out.

So, on the fourth day of being in Stockholm, I decided to get into a train and travel north for approximately thirty minutes. When I exited, I had to walk maybe ten minutes and I was able to see it in the distance. I walked closer, and there it was in its entirety.


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There was a photographer taking pictures of the Nordic runes scattered around on the outside walls (finding runes was a common occurrence in this area, there were many displayed around the town). He was laughing as I walked by, he said he had to take photos like these, because as a wedding photographer, he wanted them to have all kinds of memories.
"Are you here to see the chess player?" he asked.
Surprised, I said, "Yes, I am."
"You have to be quick, it's upstairs and the wedding starts in 10 minutes."
"Oh, I'll be quick then," I said and hurried inside, past people dressed up for the wedding.
As soon as I entered, I saw why this church was special. The paintings on the walls were incredible. Later I would learn that this church was one of the only few remaining where the walls weren't painted over with white. There was a model of a war ship hanging in front of one of the windows, and there was an Yggdrasil on the right side of the altar. During my stay in Stockholm, I learned that vikings were heavily influenced by Rome and Christianity, and so there was a period where they merged these ideas together.
I could not find the painting of the chess player, so I decided I would leave and come back later, so I could enjoy the moment.
I walked further north, past a cemetery, and into a forest. It took me another half an hour to get to a lake. I stood there, enjoying the scenery. It was quiet and peaceful.



I returned all the way to the church, now maybe an hour or more later, and this time it was seemingly empty. As soon as I entered the church again, someone started playing a beautiful piano piece right above me. I did not see who played, I just sat down and waited for it to end. It was played twice, so I realized this must've been practice. When the piece ended, an older woman came down a small flight of stairs and I said, "That was beautiful." And she laughed and said, "It's for the wedding."
There was another wedding! It didn't seem as imminent as the other one, so I thought I still had time.
I stood up and looked around more carefully. As I went closer to the life tree, I checked out the nearby bowl with the holy water inside of it. It had a golden ship embedded. That's not something you see a lot in catholic churches, I thought.



A different woman approached me from the church entrance, and she asked if I'm here to see the chess player. Once again, I said yes.
She said, "I will turn on the lights. You can see it if you walk up these stairs, and then you have to turn right and look up."
I thanked her and walked up the tight staircase. Slowly but surely I made it up and I was stopped by a black gate. I thought, maybe she forgot that this was locked. I tried to see if it was somehow possible to unlock myself, it had a strange mechanism on the right side of it. But no luck. Then I remembered, she had said, turn right and look up. So I did. And then I saw it.



I had to crane my neck upwards so far that it hurt, but I just laughed and tried to soak in the moment. Here I was, seeing it with my own eyes, the inspiration for Seventh Seal, which in turn got made fun of by Bill and Ted, which led me to this point. It was haunting in a way, but also kind of delightfully silly. As if the artist had just added a little easter egg he came up with on a whim.

I would see many more fascinating artifacts throughout my stay in Stockholm. The Vasa museum was breathtaking, with the fully intact warship from 1628. The Skansen felt like a dream. But when I met Rumpel, he told me to check out the Codex Gigas, the Devil's Bible. It was on display in the National Library of Sweden. When I checked its location, I couldn't believe it. It was right inside the park across my hotel, maybe a minute of walking.




The book is much bigger in person than it looks on photos. It is absolutely massive. According to the description, it was written "in a single night by a sinful monk who was trying to redeem himself from guilt. In despair the monk turned to the Devil, who helped him in exchange for a devil's portrait in the book."

I've met more friends in Stockholm and on Wednesday it was time to fly back to Vienna. With new inspiration and a fresh perspective, it is now time to finish my game.