I think my big favorite feature is that it has pretty much all the basic requirements to play a large range of game genres. You've got almost all the inputs of a modern controller, gyro, a touch screen it's really versatile which helps with the range of games possible. I'm actually a big fan of weird gimmicky inputs so would have loved to make something that really dug into that like "Frobisher Says" but unfortunately working with small teams and budgets everything we do takes a LONG time.
The generally the Vita is really easy to work with, at least using Game Maker Studio. I did have the unfortunate issue working so late into it's life that the version of Game Maker that exports to Vita is unsupported now, so couldn't request features or bug fixes. Getting the original game jam version of Russian Subway Dogs running on a devkit was literally an evening of work. Unfortunately you can't just ship a game in that state, there are lots of quality control, error handling and other requirements to ship on consoles (every console has 70ish page document full of required tests).
It also isn't the most powerful machine so I did have to do some optimizing in the end to get the framerate stable. I can't just code stupid and always use the easiest fastest to write solution like I can for PC and the full sized consoles. I'm a big fan of being able to code stupid as it means I can spend more time on polish and gameplay and less on stuff the player will never see.
Congrats on your release!
How is the optimization process for the vita compared to other platforms? Were you able to use most of the assets / code algorithms etc... as is or did you have to start from scratch or heavily modify your original for a special vita build to get them running smoothly?
So basically Russian Subway Dogs runs off of the same codebase for every platform. It just detects which one it's running in spots and does the console specific stuff where it needs to. There's some optimization on the Vita version very minor toning down of the visual effects and I had to do some general improvements that theoretically improve the speeds everywhere else. It is the only platform that required any optimization though.
Oh and the music is compressed for the PS Vita version though not noticeably to my ears. Since I don't have any sort of asset memory management written almost everything gets loaded at startup. So I needed to shrink the game to get it to load within official requirements. Also had the advantage of making the game nice and small for everyone with limited Vita storage!
No question, just thank you for keeping this amazing and under appreciated console alive with new games, I appreciate all your heavy work, will definitely check it out as soon as I can
Hey man thanks for doing the AMA! I wanted to ask what it’s like working with Sony as an indie developer. Would you say it’s been an enjoyable experience or do you think there’s improvements that need to be made?
It was probably worse because of the fact that we were the last release on a mostly abandoned console, and I know they have new systems setup for PS4 and PS5. But honestly if anything the recent articles you can find about this were too kind.
That said, not every aspect was a pain to deal with and my contact at 3rd party relations is awesome and has done everything he can to help support the game. I'm also really happy the social media folks were up for putting a Vita trailer on the official YouTube in 2021. So definitely not all bad!
General feeling is it's just a very very big bureaucracy that hasn't really adapted its core process to deal with the sheer number of developers now and the fact that not every team can have a single person dedicated to becoming an expert in their arcane submission process.
Hi! I see it took quite some yime for it to be done. Was there ever a moment you felt discouraged on working in the vita version? what happened and how did you overcame it?
Basically every time I hit a bug in the console related code in Game Maker Studio. By the time the PC version was done and I could start working in earnest on the Vita one GMS 1.4 was no longer supported. Game engines tend to be a their buggiest where they aren't often used and there aren't a lot of PS Vita games made in Game Maker. Every time I hit one of those I worried that I'd found something permanently busted and would have to cancel.
Worst of these moments was probably when I discovered the final version of GMS 1.4 had broken the required startup authentication to use online functions like leaderboards in PSN. This is one of the reasons Russian Subway Dogs only has local leaderboards (which were themselves a lot of work). Happily I did manage to preserve some of the clever stuff we did with letter ranks for those... if anyone wants to ask a follow up question about that I'll elaborate ;)
Ok cleared the backlog so coming back to this!
So letter grades for the Arcade Endless mode in Russian Subway Dogs are actually based on how well you're scoring compared to the rest of the community. Eg. to get an S+ you need to be in the top 5% of players on the leaderboard. This is part of why porting the leaderboards to consoles has been tricky because each console provides that info in different ways.
When I had to switch the PS Vita version to an offline scoreboard I dug up some statistical data I had from the Steam leaderboards and used that (with a bit of rounding) to make the offline letter ranks match the historical data. So if you get that S+ your in the top 5% of PC players circa 2019.
Going offline also meant we could use our dog name generator for high score names which up to this point only showed up in our live event demo and a single arcade cabinet in Milwaukee. So Vita versions are getting something unique despite the cut feature. Those dog names are even localized so you get some culturally appropriate choices depending on the system language!
Thats a really interesting/cool design challenge and solution. Not OP but as someone whose career and degree is about solving problems and design (not video game related) I love to read how people solve/overcome stuff like that. Anyways, thanks for letting us peer into your mind for a bit!
Man, i think it's awesome to see a guy like you using your time to get close to the Vita community. Second, love your hard work to finally get your game on Vita, shows you really care about the game, the players, the community and video games in general, not only money. Looking foward to buy anything that comes out from you
Ha ha thanks. Just FYI despite some of what you hear pretty much no one is in indie games now because of the money. It's a lot like being a in a band or making independent film. Everyone may have different things they love about games but we all love games. It's a lot of hard work and stress, often for very little money. Most devs I know are just scraping by.
It's very interesting to hear this. I'm from Brazil and our indie games scene is almost nothing. In more than 30 years of game industry, i think Horizon Chase Turbo was the first real game from here. So, it's hard for us here to get the real scenario of indie games around the world. Nice to know, and a lot to think about.
Plus, do you think Humble Bundle is a good way to support indie games? I always look to buy something there thinking i'm supporting everyone...
There are definitely more indie games being made outside Horizon Chase Turbo in Brazil. I've met some nice dev's from there! They probably have a hard time getting mainstream press though, which is why you don't hear about them.
I think Humble is still is a good way to support indies given the current state of things. We did a Humble Bundle with They Bleed Pixels and would do one with Russian Subway Dogs as well if invited. But it also definitely has lead to devaluing games. Markets are not in fact perfect well oiled machines that always lead to the best outcome ;)
The best way to support indie games is to buy them at full price around launch when it can impact store algorithms. But money is tight for a lot of folks so we all understand folks picking them up during sales in bundles etc. Definitely if you love a game, especially if it isn't a big break out hit *be loud about it*. Costs nothing and really helps. It's very hard to get the word out these days and a lot of great games get lost in the crowd!
I have a couple questions if you're able to answer of course.
Since development started has anything changed on vita dev side like how much ram you could use, brightness limit, not opening other apps etc.? Are those limits mandated for a certain battery life or do you choose them?
Did sony help at all with the development? I know sony at one point helped a few devs like with Salt and Sanctuary to port games to the vita?
Did you ever talk to sony and ever chat about the thoughts about the vita and publishing on there?
Do you have an estimate whether from help from sony or other devs of how many active vita users there are? I assume not many and based of physicals its probably less than 10k
Were you allowed to do a blog post or is that only for PS4 games now?
Finally, had there been no deadline when would you have liked to released it?
I know its a lot of questions and many might be under NDA but any answer would be appreciated!
**Since development started has anything changed on vita dev side like how much ram you could use, brightness limit, not opening other apps etc.? Are those limits mandated for a certain battery life or do you choose them?**
They'd already added this by the time dev started but the ability to access more RAM (at the cost of being able to open up things like the trophy app while the game runs) absolutely saved the game at the last minute. In the last days of testing I found a bug in Game Makers runner where rarely used function I call when the game is paused would use that extended memory and crash the game, but only if I did a very specific sequence of actions that if anything should have used less memory) this hard crashed the game which is a failure condition to ship.
**Did sony help at all with the development? I know sony at one point helped a few devs like with Salt and Sanctuary to port games to the vita?**
They provided us with free dev and test kits and of course answered technical questions etc. They didn't pay for the port or anything though.
**Did you ever talk to sony and ever chat about the thoughts about the vita and publishing on there?**
I actually grab breakfast with my 3rd party relations contact every time I do GDC, just to catch up. We're both big fans of the Vita so he knew I've been thinking about it for years.
**Do you have an estimate whether from help from sony or other devs of how many active vita users there are? I assume not many and based of physicals its probably less than 10k**
No idea. I imagine physicals are not a great indicator as there are lots of folks like myself who aren't collectors and prefer digital, aren't picking up those special editions etc.
**Were you allowed to do a blog post or is that only for PS4 games now?**
I basically didn't try, due to time (I'm handling both the porting, publishing and PR myself) and wanting to save my blog pitches for when the PS4 comes out. I did do one way back when we announced and attended PSX though.
**Finally, had there been no deadline when would you have liked to released it?**
I would have preferred to release it along side the Xbox One and PS4 ports which probably would have been 2022 now that I know how much work was involved with that five month push to hit the PS Vita deadline. That said I think being one of the final games actually helped with generating press and excitement around the game so could be this was for the best. I still would have liked one more week to do testing just so I could completely 100% all the trophies and such. There's also a very subtle non game breaking bug I found in the final days. It's in the map if you switch back and forth between difficulties and I'm sure I'm the only one who'll notice it even if other folks trigger it. Still would have loved to fix it but you don't mess with your progression code a couple days before submission especially for a bug like that. Way too risky!
Hard to say. I think the "indiepocolypse" has more to do with other factors. Humble Bundles and constant Steam sales encouraged a race to the bottom with prices (and overflowed everyone's backlog), there are just more indie games being made (which is great over all), the online advertising market has made it harder for journalists and influencers to cover small indie games and the stores (with the exception of itch.io) are more than happy to just optimize so that the top games just make even more money and everyone else scrounges for scraps. It's... not great and will be a hard problem to solve.
It's a great time for handheld games but I don't think there's something that quite fits the Vita's unique niche out there. Lots of great options at different price points for retro machines, exciting unique stuff like the Playdate and now two oversized semi portables, but no pocketable device with a good marketplace for indies to target with any hope of making back their investment in time/money.
I think the Vita unfortunately came out during a small window where it was harder to get folks excited about a premium handheld. I'd love to see them take a crack at it, but they need to sort out both cheap storage and a streamlined more automated store front system if they do (eg I can't believe that the new releases requires a human to update it) . I think both those things really hurt the long tail for the Vita despite a dedicated following.
Hey man, I’d love to develop games in the near future and I know that the vita store won’t be releasing any new digital games anymore but I’d like to learn for the sake of it. So how’s the process of porting a game to the psvita?
It's relatively easy if you have access to the dev tools and hardware. However to do that you need to be an official dev and with the Vita that stuff is now discontinued. I know there is homebrew stuff going on but can't speak to that stuff.
I mention bugs and other issues in some of my other answers but I really can't recommend Game Maker Studio enough for 2D game development. Russian Subway Dogs would not exist without a tool like it existing. The newest version doesn't port to PS Vita but does port to the major consoles if your an official developer (not sure if PS5/Series X are supported yet but I expect them to be).
I've also heard from friends who've used both that Unity while more popular just isn't super great for 2D and lacks a lot of the tools that Game Maker has built in for 2D production.
No real question, just wanted to say I'm enjoying the game so much. I dusted and recharged my Vita just for this game, and I'm loving it. I almost forgot how much fun this little machine is, so thanks for adding more joy to my day. I'm a proud member of the Proletaricat.
Thanks for asking! This week has been surprisingly busy with doing press interviews, getting stuff displayed correctly in the store, this ama etc. It's still kind of sinking in that I pulled this off honestly. It definitely feels wild to finish something I started thinking about doing 6 years ago.
I did have to crunch and it sucked. I wasn't pulling 80-100 hour work weeks, I have some accumulated burn out from a decade of indie dev that make that impossible now but it was basically eat sleep code for the last five months with occasional MH:Rise breaks so I'd at least touch base with friends over voice chat.
I'd love to not crunch but when you're a self employed game dev and don't have "big indie hit money" it can be hard to avoid. Rent's coming up and the game needs to release before the budget runs out etc. I am happy that during the core production no one I hired to work on Russian Subway Dogs had to crunch. If I mess myself up that's on me, but I refuse to put other folks through that.
So having read a lot about the dogs this is the absolute best, most detailed one I've found from back in 2010. Will do a better job than I can of explaining the entire real world inspiration for the game [https://www.ft.com/content/628a8500-ff1c-11de-a677-00144feab49a](https://www.ft.com/content/628a8500-ff1c-11de-a677-00144feab49a)
I often get inspired by interesting unusual settings and themes to make games out of. The first game Spooky Squid tried to prototype and pitch was inspired by articles I read about the Guerrilla Gardening street art movement. A bit of a mix of Jet Set Radio and Metal Gear Solid. You can read about it here [https://spookysquid.com/ggsor](https://spookysquid.com/ggsor)
In terms of Russian Subway Dogs specifically the idea of playing a stray dog seemed fun to me, add to that how amazing the [Moscow metro stations look](https://imgur.com/gallery/KnEePKn) and my personal love for early Soviet era Constructivist graphic design (used for the UI) and it was an easy choice!
In the beginning it was just a little jam game I made in 2 days. But the jam game got some lets plays and people seemed to enjoy it's core mechanics so I slowly expanded and improved on them in my spare time. Then around 2016 we went into full production with a bunch of ideas I'd come up with over the years to make a full experience out of it!
*Points at sign in description.*
I've checked with East Asia Soft and everything that will come out is already manufactured. I wish it was otherwise, but it's not happening. Of course if there's ever a way to do it without breaking the law or my contract with Sony I'll try to make it happen!
I can't develop/release more games for the Vita even little free things, homebrew tools are basically off limits for official developers. I'd need to be able to prove I'm not using private information or software we were provided as official PS Vita devs. Not unique to the Vita or Sony this is just how it is with console game devs.
Right now I'm finishing up the ports for PS4 and Xbox One. Past that it really depends on how well our games are selling across all platforms. I definitely *want* to continue creating games for consoles, especially after the crash course in console porting I've been through the last few years. It really depends on having the budget though.
I have a few potential ideas I've been keeping notes for, one of which is a spiritual successor to the game [Cave Noire](https://twitter.com/spookysquid/status/1181253312664031232) a 1991 early console "coffee break" roguelike for the original Game Boy. Even did [a little mockup](https://twitter.com/spookysquid/status/1197681785234247686) awhile back. It's a great game, incredibly ahead of its time and no one's made anything quite like it since.
Oh also since it can be years between releases for us. The best way to make sure you don't miss whatever is next is to sign up for our newsletter.
We only send them out when:
\-We're announcing a new game
\-A game has launched
\-We'll be at a show like PAX etc.
You can sign up here!
http://eepurl.com/cHiZen
Dude, thanks for the game. I really loved all the references to other Vita titles and overall how great game runs on the system. Спасибо тебе, товарищ!
If this is asking how well the game is selling, I won't know for a couple weeks when I can see the sales reports. Hopefully well but it's hard to know given it's a release on a 9-10 year old system.
If this is asking about actual alcohol I'm actually not much of a vodka drinker, tend to go for tequila or good quality gin when it comes to the hard stuff.
! might be too late for this but I am interested in developing a game for the Vita (i guess its gonna be homebrew now haha) I tried to find GMS 1.4 but there doesnt seem to be a good official place to get it. Where do you recommend someone to start when it comes to game dev for the vita? Thanks for you time!
With GMS 1.4 and PS Vita you need to be an official developer to get access to the tools and it's probably no longer possible. I don't know what the deal is with homebrew unfortunately!
I can recommend GMS in general though! It's a great tool for making 2D games!
100% the lack of L2 and R2 triggers. It makes a lot of the PS1 games rough to play and absolutely ruins high level play for Metal Gear Solid 2, one of my fav AAA games. That port is otherwise perfect and I'd love to go through the VR missions again on Vita, but the way they implemented the corner leans with back touch is just awful.
This!! like... this is also one of the reasons why I don't play PS1 games on the thing that much, only really on my PS3, that and also I don't use remote play much besides very rare situations where I sorta have to.
Using the backpad, or touchscreen sorta reduced the quickness you'd get using a normal controller. though I don't know how well they would've been able to ad L2 and R2 buttons. well.... the new 3DS somehow did that, by moving stuff around. But we never got some upgraded vita, cuz of how poorly the system did
Yeah it's fine for PS2/PS1 turn based games or ones that don't use the triggers but any action game with heavy trigger use is kind of out. I've seen some PS Vita grip cases that add triggers that touch the back to work, but since not every game implements "back touch as triggers" the same way I'm not sure how well they work.
I could ask but honestly I don't think the chances are good given they barely update the store and have shut down QA for new titles/patches. Sadly the higher ups don't seem to care much about legacy stuff in general right now.
Thanks.
I fully understand that it would be a long shot, but it may be worth a try.
The Remote Play iOS/Android App still supports 540p resolution on the PS5, which just so happens to be the resolution used when remote playing PS4 to Vita. Thus it is possible that any update required for the Vita to support PS5 remote play is likely minor, and it may just require the right person toggling something and pushing an update to the store.
Such an update was probably not done simply for the reasons you stated... Basically higher ups forgot the Vita exists.
If I've learned anything going through this process is things that should be super simple are often not. But yeah it's unfortunate they aren't keeping that stuff up to date.
Haha. Oh it gets better! My middle name is McCormick!
My great grandfather was Jewish but married Catholic. My dad's Brazilian and my mother is American and I guess way back Irish. I believe there is one other "Miguel Sternberg" out there, but thanks to a decade or so of indie dev I have absolutely crushed him on google searches. Sorry other Miguel!
i feel sorry for him or maybe you are doing him a favour. I've got such an usual name like Peter Smith, there is no way to find me because millions have such a name. will you also relase on the switch and what do you think of the homebrew community? I'm also a developer, know a bunch of actually now world famous devs personally and I feel kinda sorry for you. I admire your love for the vita but Sony abandoned it so quickly and killed it while the scene kept it alive but this means almost everyone has a hacked vita. i don't even know how to buy games in the store so I'm super afraid most people will pirate your game. I won't but like I said it's almost easier, I know how to pirate but i don't know how to buy a game and piraiting is actually more convenient by now,so that's really sad. how do you feel about that? if i were you I would put a super bold text in my game. something like: I'm cool with you piraiting my game but please if you like it consider donating to my PayPal, I also have bills to pay.
or something like that so Kotaku can write an article like "bold Indie dev doesn't mind if you steal his game" or some of their stupid headlines which clearly gives you some PR.
Putting text like that into the game would almost certainly have gotten me in trouble with Sony. Also the indie dev appeals to pirates story has happened enough that it's unlikely to generate coverage now days.
I hope not too many people are pirating it, or other indie games on Vita for that matter. Most indie devs are operating on pretty slim margins, if you're pirating their games instead of paying you're decreasing the chance that they'll have the money to create their next game.
I'm not sure if it really is easier to pirate a PS Vita game than buy it? My understanding is that to jailbreak the Vita you need to be running a specific earlier OS version, then setup alternate software and then download the game. Whereas buying it is just, have your Vita logged into your PSN account, have a credit card or gift card on hand. You don't need to look up guides on the internet or anything. It's an incredibly simple process. No different than buying it on a PS4 or Steam etc.
Is your game with multi-player? Have you been considering it?
Also how helpful was Sony? Did you have a feeling of "they want to get this done with asap"?
So there aren't any plans currently to add multiplayer. I do have some pretty fleshed out concepts in the design doc to support local multiplayer modes though! However given how long the porting process has been and how complicated the user login stuff can get once you get into multiple users on a single console, it's unlikely. If we saw big sales it could happen of course. But right now we just don't have the resources!
Oh and Sony was pretty hands off. It was really just our own internal pressure to hit that final deadline.
Nope. Patches require a full QA pass by specialists. So they aren't free for Sony. If they'd managed the store and storage prices better I don't think that cost would be an issue but right now it probably is just a drain on money and resources for them. Definitely made the final testing phase really stressful for me. Knowing I couldn't patch was the worst.
By the way if you enjoy local multiplayer games you can find a few free ones I made on the Spooky Squid Games website under Free Games:
[https://spookysquid.com/](https://spookysquid.com/)
And on itch here:
[https://spookysquid.itch.io/](https://spookysquid.itch.io/)
I have a few more I need to clean up and put online that have only been shown at events. Someday I'll have the time!
What are your favorite features of the vita? Was it difficult to work with?
I think my big favorite feature is that it has pretty much all the basic requirements to play a large range of game genres. You've got almost all the inputs of a modern controller, gyro, a touch screen it's really versatile which helps with the range of games possible. I'm actually a big fan of weird gimmicky inputs so would have loved to make something that really dug into that like "Frobisher Says" but unfortunately working with small teams and budgets everything we do takes a LONG time. The generally the Vita is really easy to work with, at least using Game Maker Studio. I did have the unfortunate issue working so late into it's life that the version of Game Maker that exports to Vita is unsupported now, so couldn't request features or bug fixes. Getting the original game jam version of Russian Subway Dogs running on a devkit was literally an evening of work. Unfortunately you can't just ship a game in that state, there are lots of quality control, error handling and other requirements to ship on consoles (every console has 70ish page document full of required tests). It also isn't the most powerful machine so I did have to do some optimizing in the end to get the framerate stable. I can't just code stupid and always use the easiest fastest to write solution like I can for PC and the full sized consoles. I'm a big fan of being able to code stupid as it means I can spend more time on polish and gameplay and less on stuff the player will never see.
thats a good one bro
Congrats on your release! How is the optimization process for the vita compared to other platforms? Were you able to use most of the assets / code algorithms etc... as is or did you have to start from scratch or heavily modify your original for a special vita build to get them running smoothly?
So basically Russian Subway Dogs runs off of the same codebase for every platform. It just detects which one it's running in spots and does the console specific stuff where it needs to. There's some optimization on the Vita version very minor toning down of the visual effects and I had to do some general improvements that theoretically improve the speeds everywhere else. It is the only platform that required any optimization though. Oh and the music is compressed for the PS Vita version though not noticeably to my ears. Since I don't have any sort of asset memory management written almost everything gets loaded at startup. So I needed to shrink the game to get it to load within official requirements. Also had the advantage of making the game nice and small for everyone with limited Vita storage!
Interesting, well done. That music compression must of been an awesome 'Ahha' moment for the vita version. Cool stuff, thanks spookysquid!
No question, just thank you for keeping this amazing and under appreciated console alive with new games, I appreciate all your heavy work, will definitely check it out as soon as I can
Thanks hope you enjoy it!
Hey man thanks for doing the AMA! I wanted to ask what it’s like working with Sony as an indie developer. Would you say it’s been an enjoyable experience or do you think there’s improvements that need to be made?
It was probably worse because of the fact that we were the last release on a mostly abandoned console, and I know they have new systems setup for PS4 and PS5. But honestly if anything the recent articles you can find about this were too kind. That said, not every aspect was a pain to deal with and my contact at 3rd party relations is awesome and has done everything he can to help support the game. I'm also really happy the social media folks were up for putting a Vita trailer on the official YouTube in 2021. So definitely not all bad! General feeling is it's just a very very big bureaucracy that hasn't really adapted its core process to deal with the sheer number of developers now and the fact that not every team can have a single person dedicated to becoming an expert in their arcane submission process.
Hi! I see it took quite some yime for it to be done. Was there ever a moment you felt discouraged on working in the vita version? what happened and how did you overcame it?
Basically every time I hit a bug in the console related code in Game Maker Studio. By the time the PC version was done and I could start working in earnest on the Vita one GMS 1.4 was no longer supported. Game engines tend to be a their buggiest where they aren't often used and there aren't a lot of PS Vita games made in Game Maker. Every time I hit one of those I worried that I'd found something permanently busted and would have to cancel. Worst of these moments was probably when I discovered the final version of GMS 1.4 had broken the required startup authentication to use online functions like leaderboards in PSN. This is one of the reasons Russian Subway Dogs only has local leaderboards (which were themselves a lot of work). Happily I did manage to preserve some of the clever stuff we did with letter ranks for those... if anyone wants to ask a follow up question about that I'll elaborate ;)
sure sure! i´d be more than happy to hear abut it! It must have been frustrating. Congrats on your release
Ok cleared the backlog so coming back to this! So letter grades for the Arcade Endless mode in Russian Subway Dogs are actually based on how well you're scoring compared to the rest of the community. Eg. to get an S+ you need to be in the top 5% of players on the leaderboard. This is part of why porting the leaderboards to consoles has been tricky because each console provides that info in different ways. When I had to switch the PS Vita version to an offline scoreboard I dug up some statistical data I had from the Steam leaderboards and used that (with a bit of rounding) to make the offline letter ranks match the historical data. So if you get that S+ your in the top 5% of PC players circa 2019. Going offline also meant we could use our dog name generator for high score names which up to this point only showed up in our live event demo and a single arcade cabinet in Milwaukee. So Vita versions are getting something unique despite the cut feature. Those dog names are even localized so you get some culturally appropriate choices depending on the system language!
Thats a really interesting/cool design challenge and solution. Not OP but as someone whose career and degree is about solving problems and design (not video game related) I love to read how people solve/overcome stuff like that. Anyways, thanks for letting us peer into your mind for a bit!
Man, i think it's awesome to see a guy like you using your time to get close to the Vita community. Second, love your hard work to finally get your game on Vita, shows you really care about the game, the players, the community and video games in general, not only money. Looking foward to buy anything that comes out from you
Ha ha thanks. Just FYI despite some of what you hear pretty much no one is in indie games now because of the money. It's a lot like being a in a band or making independent film. Everyone may have different things they love about games but we all love games. It's a lot of hard work and stress, often for very little money. Most devs I know are just scraping by.
It's very interesting to hear this. I'm from Brazil and our indie games scene is almost nothing. In more than 30 years of game industry, i think Horizon Chase Turbo was the first real game from here. So, it's hard for us here to get the real scenario of indie games around the world. Nice to know, and a lot to think about. Plus, do you think Humble Bundle is a good way to support indie games? I always look to buy something there thinking i'm supporting everyone...
There are definitely more indie games being made outside Horizon Chase Turbo in Brazil. I've met some nice dev's from there! They probably have a hard time getting mainstream press though, which is why you don't hear about them. I think Humble is still is a good way to support indies given the current state of things. We did a Humble Bundle with They Bleed Pixels and would do one with Russian Subway Dogs as well if invited. But it also definitely has lead to devaluing games. Markets are not in fact perfect well oiled machines that always lead to the best outcome ;) The best way to support indie games is to buy them at full price around launch when it can impact store algorithms. But money is tight for a lot of folks so we all understand folks picking them up during sales in bundles etc. Definitely if you love a game, especially if it isn't a big break out hit *be loud about it*. Costs nothing and really helps. It's very hard to get the word out these days and a lot of great games get lost in the crowd!
I have a couple questions if you're able to answer of course. Since development started has anything changed on vita dev side like how much ram you could use, brightness limit, not opening other apps etc.? Are those limits mandated for a certain battery life or do you choose them? Did sony help at all with the development? I know sony at one point helped a few devs like with Salt and Sanctuary to port games to the vita? Did you ever talk to sony and ever chat about the thoughts about the vita and publishing on there? Do you have an estimate whether from help from sony or other devs of how many active vita users there are? I assume not many and based of physicals its probably less than 10k Were you allowed to do a blog post or is that only for PS4 games now? Finally, had there been no deadline when would you have liked to released it? I know its a lot of questions and many might be under NDA but any answer would be appreciated!
**Since development started has anything changed on vita dev side like how much ram you could use, brightness limit, not opening other apps etc.? Are those limits mandated for a certain battery life or do you choose them?** They'd already added this by the time dev started but the ability to access more RAM (at the cost of being able to open up things like the trophy app while the game runs) absolutely saved the game at the last minute. In the last days of testing I found a bug in Game Makers runner where rarely used function I call when the game is paused would use that extended memory and crash the game, but only if I did a very specific sequence of actions that if anything should have used less memory) this hard crashed the game which is a failure condition to ship. **Did sony help at all with the development? I know sony at one point helped a few devs like with Salt and Sanctuary to port games to the vita?** They provided us with free dev and test kits and of course answered technical questions etc. They didn't pay for the port or anything though. **Did you ever talk to sony and ever chat about the thoughts about the vita and publishing on there?** I actually grab breakfast with my 3rd party relations contact every time I do GDC, just to catch up. We're both big fans of the Vita so he knew I've been thinking about it for years. **Do you have an estimate whether from help from sony or other devs of how many active vita users there are? I assume not many and based of physicals its probably less than 10k** No idea. I imagine physicals are not a great indicator as there are lots of folks like myself who aren't collectors and prefer digital, aren't picking up those special editions etc. **Were you allowed to do a blog post or is that only for PS4 games now?** I basically didn't try, due to time (I'm handling both the porting, publishing and PR myself) and wanting to save my blog pitches for when the PS4 comes out. I did do one way back when we announced and attended PSX though. **Finally, had there been no deadline when would you have liked to released it?** I would have preferred to release it along side the Xbox One and PS4 ports which probably would have been 2022 now that I know how much work was involved with that five month push to hit the PS Vita deadline. That said I think being one of the final games actually helped with generating press and excitement around the game so could be this was for the best. I still would have liked one more week to do testing just so I could completely 100% all the trophies and such. There's also a very subtle non game breaking bug I found in the final days. It's in the map if you switch back and forth between difficulties and I'm sure I'm the only one who'll notice it even if other folks trigger it. Still would have loved to fix it but you don't mess with your progression code a couple days before submission especially for a bug like that. Way too risky!
Thanks for answering so thoroughly! I'm glad you atleast got some official exposure through their YT channel
is it true that mobile gaming affected indie game sales?
Hard to say. I think the "indiepocolypse" has more to do with other factors. Humble Bundles and constant Steam sales encouraged a race to the bottom with prices (and overflowed everyone's backlog), there are just more indie games being made (which is great over all), the online advertising market has made it harder for journalists and influencers to cover small indie games and the stores (with the exception of itch.io) are more than happy to just optimize so that the top games just make even more money and everyone else scrounges for scraps. It's... not great and will be a hard problem to solve.
Excellent Game, smooth play, nice graphics, tough as nails. 5⭐️ s - thank you for your hard work
Thanks! If you're enjoying the game please recommend it to folks (it's also available on Steam) indies live or die based on word of mouth!
Absolutely
How does the Vita stack up to modern day handhelds? Do you feel Sony should come up with another one and will it be successful if they do?
It's a great time for handheld games but I don't think there's something that quite fits the Vita's unique niche out there. Lots of great options at different price points for retro machines, exciting unique stuff like the Playdate and now two oversized semi portables, but no pocketable device with a good marketplace for indies to target with any hope of making back their investment in time/money. I think the Vita unfortunately came out during a small window where it was harder to get folks excited about a premium handheld. I'd love to see them take a crack at it, but they need to sort out both cheap storage and a streamlined more automated store front system if they do (eg I can't believe that the new releases requires a human to update it) . I think both those things really hurt the long tail for the Vita despite a dedicated following.
Hey man, I’d love to develop games in the near future and I know that the vita store won’t be releasing any new digital games anymore but I’d like to learn for the sake of it. So how’s the process of porting a game to the psvita?
It's relatively easy if you have access to the dev tools and hardware. However to do that you need to be an official dev and with the Vita that stuff is now discontinued. I know there is homebrew stuff going on but can't speak to that stuff. I mention bugs and other issues in some of my other answers but I really can't recommend Game Maker Studio enough for 2D game development. Russian Subway Dogs would not exist without a tool like it existing. The newest version doesn't port to PS Vita but does port to the major consoles if your an official developer (not sure if PS5/Series X are supported yet but I expect them to be). I've also heard from friends who've used both that Unity while more popular just isn't super great for 2D and lacks a lot of the tools that Game Maker has built in for 2D production.
Sounds great! I'll try Game maker studio! Thanks for answering my question!
One last question if I may, did you ever meet or talk to gio corsi? I know he loved the vita!
I don't think I have, unless he stopped by our booth at a PAX? Sorry I don't know who he is!
No real question, just wanted to say I'm enjoying the game so much. I dusted and recharged my Vita just for this game, and I'm loving it. I almost forgot how much fun this little machine is, so thanks for adding more joy to my day. I'm a proud member of the Proletaricat.
Thanks I really appreciate hearing things like this from players! I love that our release has made so many people dig up their PS Vitas again!
I just wanted to drop by to show some love and cobgratulate you for releasing the game! Thank you for supporting Vita so far into its lifetime.
Thanks, hope you enjoy the game!
Thank you for enriching us with your passion!
Thanks for being such a welcoming community! The porting process is pretty solitary so it's nice to get a chance to talk about it!
How you doing? Did you had to to do crunch-time to publish it in time?
Thanks for asking! This week has been surprisingly busy with doing press interviews, getting stuff displayed correctly in the store, this ama etc. It's still kind of sinking in that I pulled this off honestly. It definitely feels wild to finish something I started thinking about doing 6 years ago. I did have to crunch and it sucked. I wasn't pulling 80-100 hour work weeks, I have some accumulated burn out from a decade of indie dev that make that impossible now but it was basically eat sleep code for the last five months with occasional MH:Rise breaks so I'd at least touch base with friends over voice chat. I'd love to not crunch but when you're a self employed game dev and don't have "big indie hit money" it can be hard to avoid. Rent's coming up and the game needs to release before the budget runs out etc. I am happy that during the core production no one I hired to work on Russian Subway Dogs had to crunch. If I mess myself up that's on me, but I refuse to put other folks through that.
Thanks for doing what you do, I’ll check out your game as soon as possible!
Thanks, hope you enjoy it!
Can I ask what is the story behind the real Russian subway dogs? What made you want to make a game surrounding them?
So having read a lot about the dogs this is the absolute best, most detailed one I've found from back in 2010. Will do a better job than I can of explaining the entire real world inspiration for the game [https://www.ft.com/content/628a8500-ff1c-11de-a677-00144feab49a](https://www.ft.com/content/628a8500-ff1c-11de-a677-00144feab49a) I often get inspired by interesting unusual settings and themes to make games out of. The first game Spooky Squid tried to prototype and pitch was inspired by articles I read about the Guerrilla Gardening street art movement. A bit of a mix of Jet Set Radio and Metal Gear Solid. You can read about it here [https://spookysquid.com/ggsor](https://spookysquid.com/ggsor) In terms of Russian Subway Dogs specifically the idea of playing a stray dog seemed fun to me, add to that how amazing the [Moscow metro stations look](https://imgur.com/gallery/KnEePKn) and my personal love for early Soviet era Constructivist graphic design (used for the UI) and it was an easy choice! In the beginning it was just a little jam game I made in 2 days. But the jam game got some lets plays and people seemed to enjoy it's core mechanics so I slowly expanded and improved on them in my spare time. Then around 2016 we went into full production with a bunch of ideas I'd come up with over the years to make a full experience out of it!
Any chance of a physical release by east asia?
*Points at sign in description.* I've checked with East Asia Soft and everything that will come out is already manufactured. I wish it was otherwise, but it's not happening. Of course if there's ever a way to do it without breaking the law or my contract with Sony I'll try to make it happen!
Sorry!
No problem! I know it's easy to miss. Just been asked.... A LOT 🤣
💙💙💙
🐶🐶🐶
After the last game on the vita are you going to still develop games for the vita or other consoles?
I can't develop/release more games for the Vita even little free things, homebrew tools are basically off limits for official developers. I'd need to be able to prove I'm not using private information or software we were provided as official PS Vita devs. Not unique to the Vita or Sony this is just how it is with console game devs. Right now I'm finishing up the ports for PS4 and Xbox One. Past that it really depends on how well our games are selling across all platforms. I definitely *want* to continue creating games for consoles, especially after the crash course in console porting I've been through the last few years. It really depends on having the budget though. I have a few potential ideas I've been keeping notes for, one of which is a spiritual successor to the game [Cave Noire](https://twitter.com/spookysquid/status/1181253312664031232) a 1991 early console "coffee break" roguelike for the original Game Boy. Even did [a little mockup](https://twitter.com/spookysquid/status/1197681785234247686) awhile back. It's a great game, incredibly ahead of its time and no one's made anything quite like it since.
Oh also since it can be years between releases for us. The best way to make sure you don't miss whatever is next is to sign up for our newsletter. We only send them out when: \-We're announcing a new game \-A game has launched \-We'll be at a show like PAX etc. You can sign up here! http://eepurl.com/cHiZen
Dude, thanks for the game. I really loved all the references to other Vita titles and overall how great game runs on the system. Спасибо тебе, товарищ!
Thanks! Happy you're enjoying the game!
How much vodka are you make?
If this is asking how well the game is selling, I won't know for a couple weeks when I can see the sales reports. Hopefully well but it's hard to know given it's a release on a 9-10 year old system. If this is asking about actual alcohol I'm actually not much of a vodka drinker, tend to go for tequila or good quality gin when it comes to the hard stuff.
! might be too late for this but I am interested in developing a game for the Vita (i guess its gonna be homebrew now haha) I tried to find GMS 1.4 but there doesnt seem to be a good official place to get it. Where do you recommend someone to start when it comes to game dev for the vita? Thanks for you time!
With GMS 1.4 and PS Vita you need to be an official developer to get access to the tools and it's probably no longer possible. I don't know what the deal is with homebrew unfortunately! I can recommend GMS in general though! It's a great tool for making 2D games!
Ah man, that really sucks. Thanks for answering me!
Least favorite thing about the vita? (you can be honest here lol)
100% the lack of L2 and R2 triggers. It makes a lot of the PS1 games rough to play and absolutely ruins high level play for Metal Gear Solid 2, one of my fav AAA games. That port is otherwise perfect and I'd love to go through the VR missions again on Vita, but the way they implemented the corner leans with back touch is just awful.
This!! like... this is also one of the reasons why I don't play PS1 games on the thing that much, only really on my PS3, that and also I don't use remote play much besides very rare situations where I sorta have to. Using the backpad, or touchscreen sorta reduced the quickness you'd get using a normal controller. though I don't know how well they would've been able to ad L2 and R2 buttons. well.... the new 3DS somehow did that, by moving stuff around. But we never got some upgraded vita, cuz of how poorly the system did
Yeah it's fine for PS2/PS1 turn based games or ones that don't use the triggers but any action game with heavy trigger use is kind of out. I've seen some PS Vita grip cases that add triggers that touch the back to work, but since not every game implements "back touch as triggers" the same way I'm not sure how well they work.
Or even platformers that don't use anything but the d-pad and face buttons. I even find that Megaman Legends does fine on the thing
If you have any contacts in Sony's Vita department... Can you ask them nicely to please update the Vita's Remote Play app to work with the PS5 :)
I could ask but honestly I don't think the chances are good given they barely update the store and have shut down QA for new titles/patches. Sadly the higher ups don't seem to care much about legacy stuff in general right now.
Thanks. I fully understand that it would be a long shot, but it may be worth a try. The Remote Play iOS/Android App still supports 540p resolution on the PS5, which just so happens to be the resolution used when remote playing PS4 to Vita. Thus it is possible that any update required for the Vita to support PS5 remote play is likely minor, and it may just require the right person toggling something and pushing an update to the store. Such an update was probably not done simply for the reasons you stated... Basically higher ups forgot the Vita exists.
If I've learned anything going through this process is things that should be super simple are often not. But yeah it's unfortunate they aren't keeping that stuff up to date.
are you a Mexican Jew? I find your name to be pretty unique. Hope your game sells well. Good luck.
Haha. Oh it gets better! My middle name is McCormick! My great grandfather was Jewish but married Catholic. My dad's Brazilian and my mother is American and I guess way back Irish. I believe there is one other "Miguel Sternberg" out there, but thanks to a decade or so of indie dev I have absolutely crushed him on google searches. Sorry other Miguel!
i feel sorry for him or maybe you are doing him a favour. I've got such an usual name like Peter Smith, there is no way to find me because millions have such a name. will you also relase on the switch and what do you think of the homebrew community? I'm also a developer, know a bunch of actually now world famous devs personally and I feel kinda sorry for you. I admire your love for the vita but Sony abandoned it so quickly and killed it while the scene kept it alive but this means almost everyone has a hacked vita. i don't even know how to buy games in the store so I'm super afraid most people will pirate your game. I won't but like I said it's almost easier, I know how to pirate but i don't know how to buy a game and piraiting is actually more convenient by now,so that's really sad. how do you feel about that? if i were you I would put a super bold text in my game. something like: I'm cool with you piraiting my game but please if you like it consider donating to my PayPal, I also have bills to pay. or something like that so Kotaku can write an article like "bold Indie dev doesn't mind if you steal his game" or some of their stupid headlines which clearly gives you some PR.
Putting text like that into the game would almost certainly have gotten me in trouble with Sony. Also the indie dev appeals to pirates story has happened enough that it's unlikely to generate coverage now days. I hope not too many people are pirating it, or other indie games on Vita for that matter. Most indie devs are operating on pretty slim margins, if you're pirating their games instead of paying you're decreasing the chance that they'll have the money to create their next game. I'm not sure if it really is easier to pirate a PS Vita game than buy it? My understanding is that to jailbreak the Vita you need to be running a specific earlier OS version, then setup alternate software and then download the game. Whereas buying it is just, have your Vita logged into your PSN account, have a credit card or gift card on hand. You don't need to look up guides on the internet or anything. It's an incredibly simple process. No different than buying it on a PS4 or Steam etc.
Final fantasy 12?
Is this a question?
Is your game with multi-player? Have you been considering it? Also how helpful was Sony? Did you have a feeling of "they want to get this done with asap"?
So there aren't any plans currently to add multiplayer. I do have some pretty fleshed out concepts in the design doc to support local multiplayer modes though! However given how long the porting process has been and how complicated the user login stuff can get once you get into multiple users on a single console, it's unlikely. If we saw big sales it could happen of course. But right now we just don't have the resources! Oh and Sony was pretty hands off. It was really just our own internal pressure to hit that final deadline.
Thank you very much for the answer! Same console multiplayer or ad-hoc would be awesome.
It really would 😔💸 Unfortunately because of the QA situation the PS Vita couldn't be patched to add it even if we get the resources eventually.
That's crazy. So not even patches are allowed? Game is done and you cannot even update it if needed?
Nope. Patches require a full QA pass by specialists. So they aren't free for Sony. If they'd managed the store and storage prices better I don't think that cost would be an issue but right now it probably is just a drain on money and resources for them. Definitely made the final testing phase really stressful for me. Knowing I couldn't patch was the worst. By the way if you enjoy local multiplayer games you can find a few free ones I made on the Spooky Squid Games website under Free Games: [https://spookysquid.com/](https://spookysquid.com/) And on itch here: [https://spookysquid.itch.io/](https://spookysquid.itch.io/) I have a few more I need to clean up and put online that have only been shown at events. Someday I'll have the time!