Anonymous developer of Knockout Indie Hits Baratoro It hasn’t been released much since the game was released in February 2024. He chose not to attend the Game Awards in December 2024, but was nominated for Game of the Year, won Best Indie, and chose to send a representative to represent the representative. He has not conducted full-length interviews with the report. Of course, he keeps his identity a secret. So his long developer diary, published on LocalThunk.com on March 6th, was a surprise to fans.
LocalThunk’s posts are filled with nuggets of fascinating information about game development. His pseudonym was inspired by the nickname “Sank” of the variables in the code, but softly views the experience of individual developers creating games under intense pressure from the beta. In just over two years, LocalThunk took a file called CardGame and turned it into a sophisticated version that debuted with an explosive success.
“I have quite emotional moments that I feel like I’ve done something I’m trying to do,” he wrote, reflecting on playing the game a week before its launch. “Finally. I’ve created a fun game I wanted to make.”
I made a lot of money at that moment. He describes launches and receptions as surreal and life-changing. He also describes the final six months of development as the intense mental and physical health displacement that landed in the doctor’s office.
“This is when my sleep and my heart started to have problems,” he wrote in August 2023.
The game continued to gather more wish lists, and certainly increased the pressure to offer a great game. “For a few nights I need to sleep upright on the couch because I kept getting in the way while I lay down and slept,” he wrote in October 2023. “I felt totally overwhelmed.”
LocalThunk’s health issues came to mind in January 2024, a month before its release. He went to the doctor after a severe anxiety attack that he mistakenly mistaken for a heart attack. “I’m not usually anxious person and I’ve never had any problems with this in the past,” he wrote, repeatedly saying he struggled to explain how he felt. “(The doctor) asks me if my work has been stressed out lately. I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Thankfully, I am grateful for his health, but this experience has led to LocalThunk starting the opportunity to “see once the fruits of (his) labor.” Baratoro Live stream of the tournament while eating sushi with his partner. “Of course she does, so Huff wins. She’s a Huff!” he wrote about the January 19, 2024 tournament.
Reviews then began to come from media outlets. “The first big review comes from PC gamers: 91. Playstack and I are calling when they beat me the news. I was shocked. That rating makes no sense,” he wrote. However, his stress and anxiety had one final boss fight. Launch date and whatever bug it may bring.
“In my shock – nothing goes well,” he wrote. He had planned to do at least a month of patching, but instead saw LocalThunk share a critical positive review of the game, which began as a three-week project while on vacation from work. He explained early and realized he had gotten enough steam list to potentially cover his living expenses for the year. Then, on the release day, he checked the Steam Sales page a few hours after its release and discovered that the revenue was already “a lot more money than I’ve made in my entire life.”
As they say, the rest is the history of the game. LocalThunk, like many of us, has finished “the most surreal day of (his) life.” A great hug from a proud supportive partner, several burgers and a bottle of champagne.
