I'd like to quickly shout out new releases by some of my friends.



First, we have a new release by KAON, which is a remix of Battle Against My Thoughts. Feels like a tight radio edit with new drums and focus on vocals.



Next, TaskBeenden has released a new EP called "Emergence" under his new moniker LADDWICK. Super high energy, clearly NIN inspired.



Then we have renderpunk with his EP "Still Leben Remixed" that features dance remixes of my album Still Leben. What was a tiny experiment turned into a list of songs you can listen to while coding. Very addicting.



And finally, Imhxtp has released a new track called "Angel". With his absolute dark vibe, this could be part of the Resident Evil movie soundtrack. I know he's working on more remixes and original stuff, so you can look forward to that too.

I've been working on the Faith in Despair update, which is currently in beta. You can catch a glimpse here. It will be released in the next 1-2 weeks.

Then it's almost time for GDC already! Time flies.

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.

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.