Recently, the Ukrainian Campfire Studio announced a new project Dream Garden, the studio's fifth game in two years. We decided to talk to the company's co-founder Oleksii Drobnyi about the secrets of such productivity, the fate of all projects, including the indie hit My Dream Setup (sales of 100 to 200 thousand copies), and the general trend for cozy games that we are seeing now.
Oleg Danylov: Good afternoon, Alexey. First, tell us how you manage to develop games at such a pace, how many people work at Campfire Studio, when did you get together, and how did you personally get into the studio and the industry?
Oleksii Drobny: Good afternoon! Yes, we're already working on our fifth game, but it's been almost three years since we founded the studio. We develop at the pace we set for ourselves - 6 days a week, 5 hours a day. It turns out to be 30 hours a week, which is even less than the standard 5/2 schedule. But with such a schedule, you have time for yourself in addition to work. Personally, I believe that such productivity is the result of "discipline" and almost daily progress on projects.
Now about the studio. There are still two of us. We got together in March 2022 and started working on Package Rush. Since then, the studio's composition has hardly changed. Only when we were working on Catch and Cook did we have three people working together, but that didn't become permanent.
As for me, I started developing games in my first year at university, and I found it interesting. I worked with my friends on various prototypes, but it didn't go far. These prototypes helped me learn and gain some basic skills in development. This went on for about a year and a half, until we started working as Campfire Studio.
Oleg Danylov: Your first game, Package Rush (release October 2022), had an interesting concept, but it seems that it didn't find its player. Why do you think this happened and why didn't this failure stop you?
Oleksii Drobny: Package Rush was actually pretty good for a first project together, and a commercial project at that. The number of reviews may be low, but we don't consider it a failure. The only mistakes I can think of are that we didn't know a lot of aspects of marketing, working with Steam, and so on, and I think we would have done much better now. But in general, we were satisfied with the result, so we decided to move on, especially since we had the idea for the new project before Package Rush was finished.
Oleg Danylov: There are literally 4 months between the releases of Package Rush and My Dream Setup (February 2023), how did you manage so quickly and where did the concept of My Dream Setup come from?
Oleksii Drobny: 4 months of very productive work, almost without days off, despite constant power outages, it was the winter of 2022... Now, looking back, I can say that it was something that is very hard to believe. But let's start with the concept.
The concept just came up by itself. I often came across photos of top computer sets on social media (nowadays, the fashion for workplace sets has replaced the classic modding of a PC system unit of 2000-2010 - ed.) for several thousand dollars, with a bunch of RGB lights, expensive monitors, PCs, stylish desks, and top components. That's how I came up with the idea to create a game where everyone can build a setup like that without spending thousands of dollars and customize it for themselves.
After that, it was just a lot of work, posts on social media that went viral very quickly, and the expectation of something unknown, because we had no idea that the game would become a hit.
Oleg Danylov: According to the information collected by SteamDB from other analytical sites, My Dream Setup's sales reached 100-200 thousand copies (the same Tiny Glade that made a splash only has 2-3 times more). So how many are 100 or 200 thousand? And in general, did your success give you any financial independence, self-confidence, or the opportunity to experiment?
Oleksii Drobny: I won't disclose any figures, but since SteamDB and other sites provide such statistics, I can only say that sales are indeed in this range. Of course, this success has given us confidence and some funds to develop the studio and make bigger and more ambitious projects. But as we have already proven, an indie hit can be made with a budget of $300. That's exactly the budget My Dream Setup had.
Oleg Danylov: Three add-ons were released for My Dream Setup: Pets DLC, Bathroom DLC, and Kitchen DLC. If it's not a secret, what percentage of buyers of the original game paid attention to the add-ons and, in general, was it worth it?
Oleksii Drobny: Today we have already released the fourth DLC - Garage DLC (released on November 29, 2024). People loved this game and, as it turned out, one bedroom was not enough for them to set up their setup. That's why we set out to make it possible to build more than just one room in the game. Now you can build a whole house. And this attracts people. This model of small DLCs for a small price(in Ukraine, DLCs cost 26 UAH each, while the full version of the game with all the add-ons can be purchased for 164 UAH right now - ed.
Oleg Danylov: Your next project, also a rather calming game, but in a completely different genre, is Catch & Cook: Fishing Adventure (July 2023). What inspired this project and why, in your opinion, do you think it has very modest sales despite quite good reviews?
Oleksii Drobny: Although this project is similar to the successful Dredge, to be honest, we hadn't even played Dredge before we were compared to it.
In fact, the game was not very successful for many reasons. Firstly, fishing is a very small niche, and it's very difficult to attract a large number of players, especially the under-25 audience, which is the main one on Steam. Secondly, we didn't have enough rest after the release of My Dream Setup. This contributed to some burnout. And thirdly, we didn't have a well-planned plan and a well-developed idea, so everything was added during development. But it was an experience, an experience of working not together, an experience in games with a character, because the previous two games didn't even have a main character. So despite the result, we were not going to stop.
Oleg Danylov: Another project in a completely different genre that took you the most time is Arcane Blast (September 2024). Again, good reviews and very few sales. What went wrong?
Oleksii Drobny: An interesting project with an unusual visual style. At first, it seemed very promising and ambitious. It was a kind of a challenge for us, to prove to ourselves first of all that we can make not only small games without a challenge for the player. But it took a lot of time to develop it. Much longer than we had planned. On the other hand, to create a roguelike of this scale in a little over a year is very cool.
Of course, not everything went as we planned. First of all, we didn't take into account that the market is full of roguelikes. As it turned out, people just don't want to play your product when there are other giants on the market. Secondly, after such a long time with almost no coverage (the number of additions to the Wish List was very small), we began to doubt whether we were doing the right thing, whether we should continue, and whether anything would come of it. That's why we set ourselves a deadline to finish the game by and then proceed from there, depending on how the sales go.
And as you already know, sales did not meet expectations. Personally, I don't understand why. It's not that we did a bad job of marketing, or did nothing at all to promote it, but the game just didn't catch on. They say that there are two types of games: those that catch you visually and those that catch you gameplay-wise, and Arcane Blast belongs to the latter.
But the main question is how to get players to play if even the Ukrainian audience says: "Why should I play Arcane Blast when I'd rather play Risk of Rain?" And this person hasn't even played the game, this is one of the comments under the post on social media. In general, the audience for such games was not very friendly. However, I think the game turned out well and is worth playing, especially with friends.
Oleg Danylov: And here is a new, fifth project, Dream Garden, which, as I understand it, is due out in the first quarter of 2025, in which you return to the cozy games genre and literally repeat the same Tiny Glade, but with an emphasis on building cozy Japanese gardens. Is this an attempt to repeat the success of My Dream Setup, to ride the trend?
Oleksii Drobny: Of course, the game has this Tiny Glade vibe, but not every building game is Tiny Glade anymore. In general, it rather repeats My Dream Setup, because now you are decorating a garden instead of a room. And in terms of functionality, at this stage, it's basically the same My Dream Setup in a different cover. But that's because all construction games are pretty similar. Of course, Dream Garden will not be just a copy of these games. We still have a lot of work to do, and the game should be much better. As for the idea, we've returned to what we know how to do, what we're good at, and what we enjoy.
Oleg Danylov: In general, where do you think the cozy games trend came from and why are we seeing an abnormal number of such projects right now? Are people tired of shooters, is life too hectic as it is?
Oleksii Drobny: This trend has always been there. Every year a new cozy game comes out that everyone plays. This year it's Tiny Glade. I also remember Unpacking, Dorfromantik, Islanders from previous years. Most likely, this year there are just more games like that than usual. We also position ourselves as a studio that creates a "relaxing gaming experience".
Oleg Danylov: And some technical questions. What engine do you use? What tools do you use during development? How often do you use purchased assemblies?
Oleksii Drobny: We use Unity. All our games were developed on this engine. I use Rider to work with the code. Other tools include Blender for 3D models. Figma for UI design and other developments. Trello - for task tracking. And of course, the classic Photoshop, Github, Obs (for recording).
We use purchased assemblies when there is an opportunity to save time, or when we need to make improvements for a project. For example, with the latter, we bought an asset to quickly prototype one of our ideas. That way, we didn't have to spend extra time on development.
Oleg Danylov: On Reddit, you told me about Steam's meticulous attention to matching the list of languages on the game's page with their presence in the demo. So it turns out that it is difficult to announce the availability of the Ukrainian language in advance, because all development is usually done in English anyway, and languages are added only at the end. Please tell us more about this.
Oleksii Drobny: Yes, there is such a thing. Generally speaking, Steam is very scrupulous when it comes to checking games. And even if you install language support, you'll still have to remove it at the stage of build verification (unless you already have a ready-made localization). But Dream Garden will definitely have Ukrainian localization. The store page, by the way, was immediately available in Ukrainian.
Oleg Danylov: You publish all your games yourself, without involving a publisher. Don't you see the need? Do you think that we need a national Ukrainian publisher that would help small and medium-sized studios and could take the place of the conventionally Russian or former Russian and Polish publishers with whom many of our indie studios work? Would you work with such a publisher?
Oleksii Drobny: All publishers want to make money for themselves first and foremost. Of course, their profits depend on the success of your game, but only 1% of publishers can ensure this success. These publishers have a huge choice of whom to cooperate with, as they receive thousands of requests every month. And trying to break through to them is, firstly, difficult, and secondly, no publisher will like our schedule - 4 months for a game. Of course, it would be nice to have a Ukrainian publisher of the scale of Devolver Digital or Team 17, then I think we would not refuse to cooperate with such a publisher.
Oleg Danylov: Finally, the question I ask all the developers I talk to. Are you going to add national flavor to your games? As the practice of large projects like Cossacks and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. shows, it works well. I think back during the release of My Dream Setup, I suggested that you make a DLC with a house in the Carpathians, and in the case of Dream Garden, I asked about a "cherry orchard near the house." If so, what can we expect, and if not, why not?
Oleksii Drobny: Yes, I think we will add some decorations like wheat, cherries, a mill, or a mazanka to Dream Garden. So that players can create something Ukrainian.
Oleg Danylov: Thank you for your answers. Good luck with your development and we look forward to the release of Dream Garden.