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Ultimate Indie Racing Developer Interview - Game Sandwich BLT
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Aug 28, 2024
Mateo Covic is the solo developer of Makis Adventure and Ultimate Indie Racing. It's a game he made in 5 hours on a bet from his brother. It's inspired by Mario Kart and features more than 40 characters from indie games including A Crab's Treasure and Follow Mateo: @Zoroarts and https://www.linkedin.com/in/mateo-covic-71391a1b2/ Head to Game Sandwich for articles: https://www.gamesandwich.com/ Follow us and let's talk about video games, their stories, and the people who make them! 📱Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@game.sandwich.official ✖️Socials: https://twitter.com/TheGameSandwich 🎮Join our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/6GrQYXYdSf #gaming #videogames #interview #indiedev #indiegame #indievideogame #indiegames
View Video Transcript
0:00
I would love to have like a community who has like many ideas and I can build them all into the game to make a game for the community
0:07
Because of course like as a developer you make a game for players and that's for you
0:11
One of my favorite things about talking with indie developers is you really listen to your community
0:18
Yeah. You're small enough. You have that close tight knit network where you have a Discord or you get a LinkedIn or Twitter X whatever
0:25
You can be like, hey, what would you like to be added? Hello everyone. Welcome to another game sandwich bite level talk or BLT for short. I'm hanging out
0:36
with a person you probably see on the internet. He's blown up recently for his racing game he made
0:43
in five hours on a bet. Mateo, thank you for hanging out with us. How are you doing today
0:50
Thank you so much for the invitation. Hello everybody. My name is Mateo. I started to make a racing game
0:56
one month ago and right now I'm here to talk about it. Yeah, exciting. I've reached out to Mateo. We've been trying to set this up, and as I said, it blew up. This game has exponentially gone pretty much crazy on LinkedIn and Twitter slash X. So let's really dive into it. So you have a background as a game developer, but it is just you, correct
1:19
Yeah, it's like, the robot is my studio name, and it's only me developing games. But maybe in the future, maybe someone else will join the game, the studio, but we will see
1:30
We'll see. Yeah. I mean, you've made, you know, Mackey's adventure before
1:33
and Mackey is a character in, we're going to call it, ultimate indie racing
1:39
Yeah. So, but Mackey, we can talk about Mackey for a bit
1:44
So what is Mackey's adventure all about? And how did it translate to the racing game
1:49
Okay, so I started this game, Mackey's Adventure three years ago. It was like in 2021, I think
1:56
It was my first commercial and first video game I made. And Mackey is like a shark demon, so he's like half a devil and half a shark
2:05
He's like two things I really like. For example, Mackey's adventure started out as just a demon, but like one year after development start
2:14
I got the idea to maybe make the game a bit more crazy
2:18
And that's like a shark ability into the game where Mackey can transform into a shark when he enters water
2:23
And yeah, so that's how Mackey turned into a shark demon later on. Yeah, he can transform into three different shark types
2:29
a hammerhead, a reef shark and a macko shark. And yeah, it's a lot of shark gameplay there
2:35
You can travel in the water. It also switches from 2D to 3D because they were 3D Hubworld in the game
2:41
And yeah, it's my first game and I really like the idea still. And we'll make a sequel maybe someday
2:47
Oh, yeah, super. How was reception of Mackeys? It was really good
2:52
Like for a first game, right now it is very positive on Steam
2:56
It didn't sell much, but it's so good, I think. Because, like, the Steam reviews are 90% positive
3:02
So, for our first video game, I think, it's a great result. Also, like, the press reviews, I had, like, 10 out of 10 reviews, which made me so happy
3:12
But I also had, like, one review. The most bad review was, like, I think, 5 out of 10
3:18
But it's still very constructive and helped me to improve the game. So I took it, like, it was a good review
3:24
Yeah. He helped me very much. Yeah. But, yeah, it was a very good reception
3:30
That's awesome to hear. I've never really dove into the fact of developers looking at their reviews
3:36
You know, you want to see the tens and the nines. That's obviously what you want to go for. But when you see a five, what does that do for you as a developer
3:44
Does that push you to, you know, do better or answer questions you've had, you know, going into it or something like that
3:52
Yeah, to be honest, it may really sad for the first like moments because like when you make a video game and when you make a first video
3:59
game you are very personal and very emotional when it comes to reviews
4:04
So of course, it's like a school grade. You wanted to be as good as possible and like you spend two years to make a game
4:10
And if press like, say it's a five out of five out of ten, it's not good
4:15
But yeah, after like getting I think two bad reviews, the other one was a seven out of ten
4:22
which is good, I think. You like get over it and then you start to be more objective and try to learn out of the reviews
4:29
But at first it was really It was really sad for me
4:33
But yeah I think I managed to Handed it Handed it pretty well
4:37
I mean while speaking of You know reviews and outlooks and everything
4:41
Switching back to the racing game Outlook outpour has been Relatively Not relatively
4:49
Extremely positive for this So it started out And I'll let you share the story
4:55
But from a bet basically You know I bet you to make a game
4:59
game in five hours from your brother, I believe. Yeah. And you said, sure, and you went out and you did it
5:06
So walk me through that. What was that whole process like? Yeah, me and my brother, we love to play Mario Kart
5:12
So it was like a month ago, he was like with me playing Mario Kart
5:17
And then suddenly after playing Mario Kart, of course I won. He then like stumbled like the words, I can make something like that too much
5:29
because like I think a driving game which like Mario card is like from the from the base
5:35
game it's really simple because you have a car controller but like the other things that networking
5:40
are the more difficult parts I think and I always like since I started with game development
5:45
I always think like how could I do that how would I recreate it and like this got me through
5:50
the idea to make my own Mario card and then my brothers taught me that it's impossible to make a
5:56
Mario card in like a day. So I proved him wrong and made a game
6:01
It's not Mario card. It's not by far as good. It only wears a controller, I think, of a car
6:08
But the drifting really felt like a Mario card and that made me really happy and I
6:12
posted it on Twitter. And that's when it all started. Yeah, that's when it all started
6:16
So you posted it, I think, May 26th. And then the next day, it was pretty much, you know, it caught on
6:23
Tires screeching. People were posting about it. it people were talking about it yeah it was really um a cool thing because with mucky's adventure
6:32
it was um most like my pre tweets got like maybe 50 to 100 likes even when the game was already out so when I had the finish games it looked good I think the people just didn
6:45
press the like button as often and that doesn't really help me to be honest with getting new players
6:51
but like the first game with the prototype of the racing game
6:55
got like 500 likes in the first few hours and like people
6:59
told me to make a full game out of it so I like went full on it and I think
7:05
I spent like every day at least two or three hours right now to make the game
7:09
better and improve it and yeah the most important part is I think when a deaf friend
7:15
of me he's developing bow path of the key lotus a very cool metadvania game
7:21
and he asked me to include Bo his own character into the racing game
7:25
and that's when the whole idea started because until then it only
7:29
was a racing game like an arcade racer but when he asked me to
7:33
built his character into the game, I thought, maybe why not include many indie characters
7:39
that we all love into the game, like Coronite, Chauvel night, for example, like all the indie
7:44
legends that we all love to play, why not having them all in one universe and one racing game and
7:50
share cards? I think the idea is pretty cool and people really lost the idea. Yeah, I was
7:57
great segue to my next question. So what is it like working with other indie developers
8:03
to bring their characters into the game. I saw the crab from a crab's treasure is here
8:10
So what is that? Like, how does that make you feel? That was super spontaneous because, to be honest, I thought
8:18
I'm like, I'm unknown. Not many people know me for my previous games
8:22
like Mackie's Adventure saw 2,000 times. So I do not have a big community behind me
8:27
But I think the idea was really cool, really cool. So I just started out to reach out to people
8:34
And like the first developers were the biggest, I think. Like I spoke to Humble Games
8:40
I spoke to like many different big publishers in the indie area
8:45
And I also like reached out to the community manager of another CREPS treasure
8:51
And she was really cool. She was really friendly, supportive. And she was directly really positive and said
8:58
hell yeah let's do it and then i got like the 3d models of the crap and it was a really cool
9:05
conversation and yeah they really liked the idea and they really like when i shared some gameplay
9:11
some like i built the crap into the game and shared some gameplay before posting it and they really
9:15
liked the game of the team so i straight up posted and then they retweeted the post and it blew up
9:22
yeah i mean it's this leads you have 40 characters is it
9:28
total or is that just the number now? For now, I have
9:32
like 15 characters built in right now, but I'm focusing on the gameplay
9:37
first or the other characters are coming in later. But for the full game, I plan to launch with like
9:42
30 to 40 characters, but also include more characters via maybe updates or DSEs
9:48
maybe two. Like, I could also think about theme packs, for example, like a
9:54
pack with four characters from a specific game that people really like, for example
10:00
Like, of course, as Team Cherry would like to join, I would love to do that
10:04
like a Team Cherry pack with some characters on Hollenite, for example
10:08
But yeah, that's all a question of time. And I think the bigger studios
10:12
will also try to reach out when the game gets bigger. So right now, the game is still not that popular
10:18
It's getting there, definitely, but to be honest, it doesn't look that good right now
10:23
because it's all like placeholder assets and the idea is there, but the graphics are also not that improving
10:28
and not that impressive right now, so I will change it later on
10:34
Okay, so what are you building it in now? Right now I'm working with Unity and the Unity engine
10:42
And yeah, I started to make like a first like 3 3D models and like the base
10:46
I also took like 3D models from other projects I made and also like some asset packs I took the 3D models off
10:53
But right now it's all like I'm focusing on the code, on the code base, the online network
10:58
is working right now, so I can join players worldwide. I have like, you can choose the region
11:04
It's all working right now, so the base is there. Right now you have a split screen multiplayer, local, with two to four players
11:11
It's all working. And it will be tested on some conventions I visit later this month, so it will be the first
11:17
public playtest there. But I also plan to hold like a public playtest via steam in the future, in the really near future
11:24
I think, for the next few months or weeks. and I really like to get the feedback and the ideas of the players because
11:33
I would love to have like a community
11:45
who has like many ideas and I can build them all into the game
11:48
to make a game for the community because of course like as a developer you make a game for players
11:54
and that's for you. That's, I tell almost everyone I talk to this
11:59
one of my favorite things about talking with indie developers is you really listen to your community
12:06
Yeah. You're small enough. You have that close tight-knit network where you have a Discord
12:10
or you go to LinkedIn or Twitter X, whatever. You can be like, hey, what would you like to be added
12:15
Or they could say, hey, can you throw in a battle royale type thing
12:20
where you've got, you know, like Mario Car, for instance. They've got the three balloons system where you go fight
12:25
And I think that's really fun that, you're listening and engaging with your community like that
12:31
Yeah, like I plan to have a future in game development. I plan to live from game development later on
12:37
So I try to build like a community from the ground up. For example, I started with Mackie's Adventure and build up like 32,000 followers on TikTok
12:45
So they, the followers there can give me many ideas. And I also like to stream the development
12:51
I only talk in the German there. So it's like a German focus TikTok channel because with English
12:56
it's all like, uh, is a German accent and people complain about that
13:01
And like I also started with reaching out to German streamers, really big German streamers and got their reaction, got them to play my games
13:10
And that how I grew in popularity in Germany So yeah like I on a pretty cool level in Germany right now where I can have a community that likes to play the game gives me ideas and I really want to improve on that
13:23
Yeah, so popular in Germany. Yeah, I plan to be there, but yeah, I would say I have like many people that wait for the game in Germany
13:32
That's amazing. Are you mainly doing game devs in conventions in Germany over there
13:39
mainly like I had one convention as a WASD in London which was really cool I exhibited
13:46
market adventure there but it was so expensive because I had to flew out to a London and it's like
13:52
really expensive for a student to like to like afford a hotel afford like a flight and all the
14:01
stuff yeah so yeah I mainly plan to go to Germany right now of course gamescom is the biggest one
14:07
And I also have a book there already, so I can say that I will exhibit at Gamescom
14:13
Maybe I can also plug in the racing game for like a day if people want to play it there
14:19
So I will see. That's awesome. Congrats on getting Gamescom. That's one of the biggest over there
14:25
Yeah. I've not made my way to Germany to do any gaming stuff, but would like to in the future
14:31
Have you been over here yet to States? Not yet, but I really want to go there
14:37
It is one of my life goes to grow to the United States, but it's really, really heavy from the cost
14:44
Yeah. And can we talk about the fact that you're a student and you're 21 years old, man
14:50
You're making games at 21 by yourself and you have this following
14:55
32,000 followers on TikTok, you said. Yeah. And growing. And just I can see the value in this racing game
15:03
I can see, you know, the following. I've read a bunch of reviews on Mackey's
15:07
on Steam and just from people commenting on your Twitter and socials
15:13
you're popular LinkedIn, man. Like, your networking is superb. You're doing very well
15:18
I see your name pop up. I see you liking post. And I see you, you probably post about the racer every day, if I'm not mistaken
15:26
Yeah, not even every day. It's like, like, seven times every day
15:30
Because, like, the racing really motivates me. And I also like to comment on people, like, like tech people
15:37
who would see the game because many people reached out to me because I tagged them
15:41
So I have like, I tag people once and if they don't respond, I will not take them anymore because I don't want to spam
15:47
But yeah, to reach people, you have to tag them and get active because Twitter is so big and like there are many games posting
15:54
It's like Steam, you have to do something to get to get safe, you know what I mean. Yeah
15:58
You have to be active, posting communities. Like I also post on Reddit because like Max Adventure got pretty many reviews
16:07
wish list for Reddit because like one post that really ran on Reddit it has like 11,000 likes
16:13
and it got me, I think 5,000 wishdust only from this one post on Reddit
16:17
So I would say Reddit is my biggest social media from the impact because TikTok is more like
16:23
people know you but they won't buy your game. It's like more people get to know you and the younger audience is there which who doesn't
16:31
have money to pay for games and yeah, mostly only have like a smartphone and other PCs
16:37
So TikTok is not my social media for getting reviews and getting like units sold
16:43
It's more like getting interaction with the community. And I also like make one TikTok every day or every two days because TikTok is like you can record really quickly
16:54
You can have like many comments on it. You can get great and really quick feedback
16:59
So it's a good thing for Indydas, I think. Yeah, I agree. And you know, social media has definitely advanced and open many doors for any developers
17:07
I personally use LinkedIn. LinkedIn's my favorite to network. It's how we connect for this call
17:13
Yeah. LinkedIn is really a thing I didn't really checked. I don't really get it right now because LinkedIn feels for me for me like Twitter
17:23
because I only post like gameplay videos on it and ask for feedback
17:28
I do not do not really connect there. I get many connect requests and I always accept them and like want to know more about the people
17:37
But to be honest, to connect, I really love to use Twitter because Twitter is for me the industry, social media
17:43
So it's like I get to know people, writers there because like one writer from Forbes, for example, I wrote him a DM and then he like wrote a article about Marky's Adventure
17:54
And the Mackey's Adventure got into a Forbes article. And that was really big for me
17:58
Only through Twitter because like I knew a friend of mine and he got me the contact of the Forbes writer and then we got in contact
18:07
Yeah. And then I always love to follow his tweets and he's a really cool dude
18:11
Yeah, it's all about who you know, right? Yeah. The fact that you reached out to a Forbes writer and they're like, yeah, I would love to cover this game
18:18
That's incredible. I love talking to Indiebbs and boosting them and, you know, getting them seen by gamers and players because I'm not a game maker myself
18:32
I just like talking about games, man. Yeah, like we all need it
18:36
we know I need each other because without people like you, I wouldn't have like that many
18:40
connections, wouldn't know as many people. And it's like good to have like not only game left connections, but also like people in the
18:47
industry, for example. It's a really valuable thing for game developers. Yeah
18:54
Man, I'm excited to check out this game. I'm excited to get my hands on it
18:57
Do you want to say, do you have, I know, you're going to release it previews at conventions
19:03
is there a set date for when you're going to go online for people to try it out
19:10
Right now, like the full release will definitely take some months because I've got quite a few publishing offers right now
19:17
and also like have people who reached out and want to help me. So I'm not sure if it will be released in 2024, to be honest
19:26
It may be released in 2025, but I want to keep it like under a year of development
19:30
because I really want to make efficient development time and not spend years to make a game
19:36
And because I would rather release it into early access, get feedback from the players, from many players
19:42
and makes the game better over the years. Because like when I developed it for three years
19:46
and I cannot really get feedback except from playtest, then yeah I think it not a good idea I think a game like the racing game would profit from making it into an early access for like a year or two years and then work with the community together to make it into a great game
20:04
Because racing games are always like the problem that people need to give their feedback, I think
20:11
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I remember back, you know, when Mario Kart came out on the 64, you just got the game
20:17
They couldn't update it. They couldn't do anything. It was there. It was out, right? that's what I love about
20:22
2024 and onward you can release it you can talk to your network and be like
20:27
what works what doesn't work what do I need to fix alright I'm going to ask you
20:32
I got one fun question for you so if you could work with any
20:39
indie dev or AAA or double A to have in your game character wise
20:44
what is like that number one that you would want to work with oh with
20:49
I don't want There are so many cool people, and I want so many cool characters
20:54
But one character that I really would love to is, I think, Horonite, because I love Mettervania's
21:01
It was one of my favorite games. And only from the indie area, of course, because right now I would also say, like, when I could choose from AAA2, I would, like, choose Link, because Link is, like, Wind Waker is my favorite game of all time, Wind Waker HD
21:16
It was like, I, Mackey's adventure is, like, really inspired by Wind Winkwaker
21:21
So I made this game playing Wind Waker and like taking the best parts of Wind Waker out of it and making it into a moment game
21:28
So yeah, if AAA is allowed, I would say maybe Link. If not, I would say definitely Holo Night
21:36
Yeah, Holo Night and they just released. They've got a lot of stuff coming up for, well, people are wanting a lot of HoloNite stuff, but we'll see if it ever happens
21:46
Who is the first indie dev minus Bo to reach out to you
21:51
out to them to be in The Racer. It's a really tough question, but I think
21:57
Frogram from Renata from Froggan, we got in contact really early and I love
22:03
Froggan. It's a great game. And it's also a really friendly developer. So yeah, we also like our friends on Discord now and we chat about the game
22:11
because the deaths are really passionate about the game. They really want to
22:15
see it and really like the idea. And some people also told me that
22:19
they had the same idea, but didn't really knew how to start. So they are
22:23
thankful that I knew how to start and they can like take part into the development
22:27
Yeah. Like also some developers even like offered me to work with me on maps and make their own
22:33
maps from their games aesthetic into into the racing game. And that really means a lot to me because
22:38
they would spend a lot of time doing the maps without taking any money for it just because I like the idea
22:45
It's a really cool thing I think. Yeah. So are you going to now? I know there's just one
22:50
map for now. very infancy in this development. Yeah. Are there going to be multiple maps in the final release
22:57
In the full release, there will be like 10 to 15, like unique maps from the game
23:02
But like a beach map, a city map, a mountain map, there's enough, like a cave map, for example
23:08
But in the full game, there will also be 10 to 12 indie game inspired tracks where you can play
23:15
through the maps inspired by the indie games. For example, I plan to make an underwater world inspired by another crepturess
23:21
and also like from paper clay, this capboard aesthetic, and I really want to get it into a game too
23:28
So yeah, I really like the art styles and indie games, and I want to combine it
23:32
That's incredible, man. How about Battle Royals like Mara 64? Are we going to get that
23:38
or is it just strictly eraser? Yeah, the game will definitely get like different game modes
23:42
because right now I plan to have local online multiplayer. I also plan to have a battle mode
23:47
which is like a battery mode where you can play against other players. And I also think about adding, like, player abilities from the games, like, in hero racing game, if you know, Overwatch, like, we have ultimates
24:03
And, yeah, I really want to have, like, one ability per character
24:08
For example, Macchi is a shark demon. So maybe, like, Mackey can shoot out shark that follows the nearest enemy player and, like, defeat it or something like that
24:19
Yeah. or another crab could have like a specific type of shell on their back or something yeah yeah
24:24
there's enough enough space to work around and maybe i will yeah plan to my like maybe reduce
24:32
my scope a bit because for every character is a bit hard but it would be cool to have like for every
24:37
character on ability yeah that's amazing man matteo it's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you
24:43
thank you anything else you'd like to say or leave off where can people find you where can people
24:48
check out Mackey's and learn more about the racer. Yeah, Mac's Adventure is available on Steam right now
24:54
The racing game will get a Steam page in the next days. It's an approval right now, so I have to wait for Steam to check it
25:00
But the game, the Steam page will be called Ultimate Indy Racing, so you can just type it up
25:07
And I can also send you the link to edit later on maybe. Because I don't know if Steam will be done in like the next two days, but I hope so
25:15
but yeah the ultimate racing game wish with it on steam if you hear the podcast a bit later
25:21
and yeah thank you so much for the invitation it was a pleasure to meet you and to talk to you
25:26
and i wish you a great day thank you matthio wish you a good day go everyone go wish list the game on
25:32
steam go wishless mackey's adventure and ultimate racer take care take care
25:45
I'm I'm gonna
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