Developing a video game is never easy; regardless of whether you’re a small independent studio or a AAA publisher, the process is arduous, though also rewarding. But imagine being a solo developer creating a new game. That’s the reality that jakefriend found themself in while creating Scrabdackle. 

Since Scrabdackle Act 1 was released, it’s amassed positive reviews from critics and players. Having previewed the game, The Escapist wanted to chat with jakefriend about the development process, what we can expect from the next couple of acts, and how important community is when you’re a solo developer. 

The Escapist recaps

• Scrabdackle is a hand-drawn adventure game created by jakefriend, and will consist of three acts.
• The Scrabdackle game’s first act was released on December 2.
• Due to the game still being in development, Scrabdackle is in early access, and thus, jakefriend will be slowly updating the game as it further develops. 
• Being a solo developer brings its own set of challenges, especially in terms of the time-consuming nature of development and the isolation that can accompany the creation process. 
• Jakefriend cited Scrabdackle’s “supportive community” as one of the reasons they kept going to make and share the game. 
• Although the other acts haven’t been developed yet, jakefriend provided The Escapist with a brief explanation of the kind of vibes we can expect moving forward. 

The power of an active community

The video games community, as a whole, doesn’t have the best reputation; small pockets of problematic gamers shout louder than everyone else, and thus, they’re heard more than others. Yet, a supportive, active community can prove invaluable, as Jake found out firsthand during Scrabdackle’s development process. 

“There’s been a very active, engaged, and supportive community from the very start, and psychologically speaking, it keeps me going,” they explained. “I know who I’m making this game for (beyond just myself or ‘consumers’), and I know that there are people waiting for it. It’s also just… the closest thing I have to ‘peers’, really.”

Unlike those working in a group, Jake was in their own bubble, so to speak. Although they have friends who are game developers, the conversation is predominantly “generic” in nature as opposed to Scrabdackle-specific. 

“Developing a game of this scale alone really has a ‘No One Cares About Your D&D Campaign’ problem, where no one in my personal life is going to be that close to the material or want to hear story thoughts all the time,” said Jake.

“Even other developer friends tend to be people you can chat shop with in terms of like, generic shared problems, but nothing really game-specific. Without the community, it would have been half a decade of having genuinely no one to talk to about what I spend most of my waking life creating – I couldn’t have done that.”

Challenge versus reward

No matter how many cheerleaders you have encouraging you from the sidelines, there’s one aspect of development they can’t change: time. 

As a solo developer, Jake is tasked with finetuning all of the moving parts of Scrabdackle, and just like any person, they only have a limited number of hours in a day to get the work done.

“The hardest part is that it’s slow to do anything, because I only have so much time, and everything takes time,” Jake explained, “That also means basically everything I do necessarily pushes out my deadlines – if I think the gamepad controls need another week or two of tuning and quality-of-life (which honestly, probably true), that’s also either committing to Act 2 moving 1-2 weeks out or trying to find something else that’d take comparable time and cutting it.”

It sounds stressful, and as Jake themselves told The Escapist, it is. However, the challenges often give way to satisfying rewards. 

“It’s very stressful to feel like I’m ‘always behind’ on every deadline due to the nature of being a human bottleneck, and equally challenging to be sitting on hours of finished content that I can’t release until the future; for me, the most rewarding part of making this game is sharing it.”

They continued, “I really enjoy making basically every aspect of the game myself (beyond sound effects) […] In terms of the writing and world design and bosses and music and coding systems and all that, though… bandwidth and deadlines aside, I’m having a blast.”

Jake’s passion and enjoyment, despite every hurdle, definitely come through when playing Scrabdackle; there’s so much heart in Blue’s misadventure. 

Delving deeper into wizard society

The Escapist couldn’t end our interview with Jake without trying to get the inside scoop about the next chapters in the Scrabdackle game. As they’re still in development, we didn’t see any sneak peeks of gameplay; however, Jake did give us an idea of what we can expect moving forward. 

“Act 2, subtitled ‘Past Away’, doesn’t need to introduce the setting or key story points, so I can broaden the scope a little bit and trust players to follow,” they detailed, “There’s a deeper look into wizard society with Blue facing further challenges to their worldview […] Both Act 2 and Act 3 will be more narratively focused overall.”

But for those who appreciate Scrabdackle’s “narrative-light” approach, fear not, for the game will still allow you just to explore, free from the confines of a rigid narrative. 

“I don’t want to tell anyone how to see the world so much as invite them to. Thematically, it’s mostly about the importance of taking action, especially when inaction is causing or prolonging harm.”

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