4 years + 1 day after founding Theorycraft we launched our first game SUPERVIVE into Open Beta on Steam. It’s still early days but the first week has been one of the most exhilarating / gratifying / humbling of my career. THANK YOU all for playing, giving feedback, telling your friends and helping us spread the word. We are so, so grateful. It’s true what they say about startups: it’s a lot of staring into the abyss. Everything is existential all the time. There is a constant looming dread that - statistically - what you're doing is overwhelmingly likely to fail. On the flip side, everything matters. One’s actions have a tremendous amount of impact. Everything is also extremely personal - you’re so close to every decision; there are no talking points; there’s zero distance between you and the game, all the time. Building a new game with a lot of new ideas and a new IP from scratch is hard enough. Building a new team and a new company at the same time - remotely! - is… insane. If you’re going to bite off something this challenging, step one is to do it with excellent people. This team is without a doubt the best team I’ve been a part of in my career. We said we would keep the talent bar high and we did. We wanted to optimize for speed and agency and impact and we did. Building a community from scratch has been supremely gratifying. Going from routinely addressing millions of players to having to beg, borrow and steal playtesters but knowing many of them by name - a truly magical experience. Seeing some of those OG players still engaged in the community is 🤯. “Grateful” doesn’t even do the feeling justice. We appreciate every. single. one! We said we would build the game out in the open taking player feedback all through development and we did. We think that together we made something fun, innovating and fresh and deep, something that is worth mastering, worth your time. The last 4 years have been an intense, exhausting, super fun journey and we are just getting started. Putting the game in the hands of the community this week has been so energizing. None of us can predict what comes next; but we are so excited to keep building in the wild, improving the game with the help of our community every step of the way.
Vassily Filippov
1mo
Congratulations, good sir! I am so grateful for the short time I spent with the team. Best of success!
David Seno
1mo
Congratulations! Super proud I helped you in our office back in Bldg 25 to become the person you are! You’re welcome! 😄
"It’s true what they say about startups: it’s a lot of staring into the abyss. Everything is existential all the time. There is a constant looming dread that - statistically - what you're doing is overwhelmingly likely to fail. On the flip side, everything matters. One’s actions have a tremendous amount of impact. Everything is also extremely personal - you’re so close to every decision; there are no talking points; there’s zero distance between you and the game, all the time." Having spent the last 4+ years at a Series A company, this is the most eloquent and accurate description of what it feels like to work at a startup (insert "service" for "game" in my case...). Thanks for posting Joe, best to you and the team!
Robin Guo
1mo
Been following since the early playtest and I’ve loved seeing this game change and evolve over time. Lots of great design choices both large and small. Hats off to you and the whole team
Juan Rueda
1mo
Just discovered this on Twitter because of your post about the 6000+ reviews. After diving deep into the game, I can say your team is incredibly talented. You guys have reinvented a genre that felt old and repetitive, bringing a fresh breath of air. The artwork and style, both in-game and in general, are simply amazing. It's a lovely project, and I hope you reach the peak of the gaming world to have another great contender.
Robin Maddock
1mo
Congratz to you and your team Joe. It is intimidating to take the indy plunge, be inspiring enough to have people follow and invest in the dream. Then be persistent enough to get the grueling part done to get something cool to players. GGWP, wishing your whole team the best
An incredible game. A very refreshing mashup of genres and great character designs to boot. I hope the team is taking some well earned rest and celebrating the successful launch into beta.
Lucas Mattox
1mo
Fantastic game, had a lot of fun so far. A fresh take on the MOBA genre.
Zyain Butt
1mo
🫠 i hate that ...more button, cause i ain't reading that.
M365/Azure Cybersecurity Engineer at Planet Technologies
1moMy gaming buddies and I are STUCK on this game. I love what your team has done! The characters and world art are great, the game balance feels good, and what you do in the game feels fun. Recent additions of more music, new skins, etc have all been great. I'm very excited to see where this game goes! This might be my new daily-play game!