After our previous indie game, LUNA: The Shadow Dust, was released, I told some of my close friends that if I ever thought about making another indie game, they should slap me so hard that I will come to my sense again. I guess now I owe a lot of people face slaps.
I suppose I was traumatized a bit by the enormous workload of taking on the project of creating a game, whether indie or not. Luckily, or sadly due to the lack of experience and optimism, we dove into the production without a second thought. Then we were hit by reality – there were just so many things out of our control. The work itself was hard enough, but it didn't compare to the other challenges. Long story short, I thought it was really lucky that we managed to pull it off; the game was released and even received some awards and acknowledgment. People created fan art for it, wrote us letter, YouTubers streamed it – all of these things still warm my heart and make me incredibly grateful. But I've decided then that for at least within a couple of years, I don't want to make games anymore.
So, what changed?
In 2020, at the same month which we released LUNA, the whole world completely changed. COVID happened. It was, may still is an extremely tragic and undeniably important event in our modern history, something I never thought would happen in my lifetime. I witnessed London and Shanghai, two of my favourite cities, two of the most populated city, became empty concrete ghost desert.
It made me think and reflect. When you witness such an event, it fundamentally changes the way you think about certain things and challenges many of your old beliefs. In the midst of all that, my personal relationships with family and friends were at the forefront. It made me wonder what the most important things we should cherish as human beings are.
It's community, the care we have for each other, the trust, and love.
These are the only things that can help us overcome any hardships, and it's all too common for us to take them for granted or even neglect them until they're gone for good. So, in a way, this might be the spark for this new project. It might not be able to provide the answer to my question, but it will be a thinking process. And I hope that if it ever gets made, it can remind people to cherish the most important things in our lives.
I spoke to the people whom I believe share the same values toward the core message of the new project. I asked them if they would like to join me under a new team, Tiny Storm, to create a new game.
A new amazing journey is waiting ahead. I welcome you to join along.