Lucid Rain's Gamescom Diary: Running on energy drinks and an IGN surprise
What This Episode Covers
Lucid Rain Studios is an Edmonton game studio behind INFERIUS, a first-person horror deck builder set in an underworld inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy and Lovecraft.
Host Cory Sellar sits down with game director Rosche Rheeder and technical director Ricardo for a Gamescom 2026 post-mortem: what actually happened during their second year exhibiting in Cologne, Germany, and what it's meant for the studio heading into 2027.
A Second Year at Gamescom Cologne
This was Lucid Rain's second Gamescom, supported by Edmonton Screen's Summit Push Program after the studio took Best Game at GameCon Canada in June, alongside NAGIS, Edmonton's new North American Games Industry Summit.
Rosche puts the jump plainly:
"Germany is like 10x what Gamescom Canada is right now in terms of scale and size and exposure." But he says the local stops still count. "Even those local exposures in your local cities can really do a lot for a studio."
Year one was validation. Year two was about fixing what went wrong, from hardware to travel to accommodation.
The conversation covered the real week behind the highlight reel. Ricardo walks us through it: cancelled trains, a 6:30 wake-up, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the show floor, "non-stop talking, non-stop pitching, playing the game." Then dinners and industry events until 2 a.m. The team ran on grocery-store energy drinks and meal prep. Rosche calls it a university skill put to new use in a foreign country. Uni life, am I right?!
The IGN Trailer Premiere and Deep Dive
The team's trailer premiered on the Gamescom Awesome Indies Show, a showcase IGN co-hosts with Gamescom. What Lucid Rain didn't expect: the hosts kept playing INFERIUS live and gave it a five-minute deep dive, exclusive coverage among that week's showcased games.
Rosche says hearing INFERIUS described by someone outside the studio, with zero developer or business framing, reshaped how he pitches the game himself.
Representing Alberta on the World Stage
Rosche also joined a Canada Pioneer Powerhouse panel on immigrant founders and Canada's game industry tax incentives, drawing on his and Ricardo's own path as South African-Canadian founders. He credits Canada Media Fund support with helping carry INFERIUS into active production, and argues Alberta reopening its own tax-incentive conversation would help studios like his compete on the same stage.
Advice for Alberta Studios Eyeing Gamescom
Rosche has been mentoring other studios, and his advice starts with timing: begin prepping around May. There's Devcom and a run of B2B events before the show, then five days on the floor with B2B meetings running at the same time. Gamescom is both GDC and PAX at once, so split the load. At Lucid Rain, Ricardo worked the floor and the press while Rosche and Delena met publishers and partners. "I cannot imagine doing all of this as a solo founder."
What's Next for INFERIUS
The road to a 2027 launch
INFERIUS is targeting a 2027 release on Steam, and the free demo is live now. Gamescom opened doors the studio hadn't planned for. Ricardo says new conversations with porting and localization partners have put Switch and other consoles on the table as possibilities, though nothing is confirmed yet. Translations into German, French, Spanish and Japanese are already live, and German streamers are playing the game on Twitch. Next year, Lucid Rain plans to run the Gamescom and festival circuit again, with smaller drops through the winter in between.
Follow the trailers. They're telling a story.
Rosche says each trailer isn't just a new look at the game. Every drop connects to the last one and reveals a bit more of how big INFERIUS really is. Anyone who caught the announcement trailer will spot the threads carried into the demo release trailer, and the next one picks up from there. The best place to follow along is Lucid Rain's Discord, where the devs talk directly with players and are running playtests before launch. New trailers land on their YouTube channel first. You can also follow along on their socials, including Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Bigger than one game
When Cory pushed for teasers, the team gave a little. INFERIUS has their full focus, but Lucid Rain is already concepting and lightly prototyping other ideas. Rosche also confirmed there are teasers to come on how INFERIUS itself will expand. Ricardo calls the game "just the start of this world." If a cult following takes hold, he says the studio will "open up the floodgates.”
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Cory Sellar (01:16)
Welcome back to Good Game Edmonton Sellercast reporting in. My guests today are Roche and Ricardo from Lucid Rain Studios, based here in Edmonton, Alberta. Roche is the game director, Ricardo, technical director, along with their co-founder Delena. They've spent the last few years building INFERIUS a first-person horror deck builder. Roche, Ricardo, welcome back. It's great to have you back on the show. I feel like it's been a hot minute, but yeah, welcome.
Rosche Rheeder (01:44)
Hey Cory,
it's good to see you again. It has been a minute. I think the last
Cory Sellar (01:47)
Right?
Rosche Rheeder (01:48)
time we spoke was probably earlier this year, I wanna say. Yeah.
Cory Sellar (01:52)
Yes. Ricardo, I think last
year. This round this time last year.
Ricardo (01:55)
Yeah, it's it's been a while with me. But it's good to be back.
Cory Sellar (01:59)
Awesome. No, great. Really great to have you guys here. stoked to dive into what that trip to Germany has done for the studio. But before we get into all that, quick bit of context for everybody. If you haven't been following along, back in June, Edmonton hosted two things: GameCon Canada.
Largest gaming expo in the country. And just ahead of it, a new business summit called NAGIS. Yes, that's right, NAGIS You probably heard that one sounds a little familiar, I'm sure. The North American Games Industry Summit. We had a great deep dive on our last episode, quarterly roundup with Digital Alberta, featuring Ronnie from Edmonton Screen and Brett from the Calgary Game Developers Association. You can check that episode out over at goodgameyg.ca. Lucid Rain took
best game at GameCon Canada this year. They were also one of the five local studios picked for Edmonton Screen Summit Push Program, which exists to get local studios in front of publishers and investors at big international shows. Which of course is how they ended up with a booth on the show floor at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, in August. Second year running, if I'm not mistaken, for this Alberta studio. so yeah, let's
Ricardo Roche, like how how much did June those festivities in June end up preparing you for Gamescom this year?
Rosche Rheeder (03:24)
Well look, I think I think comparables are
really difficult to make because you know if if you want to look at Game Con Canada and what Gamescom Germany is, Germany is like 10x what Gamescom Canada is right now in terms of scale and size and exposure. But it is a really, really good start to building momentum in which we're calling kind of like our our like travel external marketing push for the game, right?
So we we we're here in Edmonton, it's local. Obviously, we're repping Edmonton, and then we built the momentum that we have over here over to Germany, and then Germany is built onto the next festival that we go to. because you know, I I do think it is important right now in today's day and age, exposure is the hardest it's ever been in the online world. So sometimes even those local exposures in your local cities can really do a lot for a studio, and for us, it's been it's been
Yeah.
Cory Sellar (04:22)
Awesome.
Ricardo (04:22)
Yeah.
Man, I I love Gamescon Canada. Like every year I'm the first one, like I wanna come on board, I wanna go because it's it's very
I don't know, like local and everything. So a lot of the game developers that I follow here in Canada are there too, and you know, there's a lot of good networking that happens. So I'm I'm always pumped to go and I think what they're building there is pretty amazing. Obviously Gamescom Germany, it's it's marketed as the biggest one in the world. It is massive. just to get anywhere takes
Cory Sellar (04:52)
Yeah.
Ricardo (04:54)
I don't know 20 minutes to walk, but the the regional scene over here I is incredible for like for Canada and what they're building.
Yeah.
Cory Sellar (05:03)
No, definitely. And yeah, and I I guess obviously second year at Gamescom now. you know, so kind of coming into it this year, c versus last year, you know, what was what was sort of different for you guys kinda going into it?
Rosche Rheeder (05:17)
Yeah, well I
When we went last year, we didn't really like the studio was like still kind of figuring itself out around that time.
Cory Sellar (05:25)
Right. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (05:27)
the game was also still in very, very early conceptual stage. The only thing I remember we had ready for Germany last year was a trailer. And the trailer we were pretty confident in, you know, it's not gonna be even close to the final vision, but it would at least, you know, allow us to say that we
Had a presence here, we you know. and this year we obviously had a year of development time that we've been putting into it. We've also made a lot of industry connects. That's one of the biggest changes, I think, for us is we were helped and sponsored by Edmonton Screen, and they've really started making a big push in terms of helping indie studios head over there. So that support really helped a lot. And I kind of want to pass over to Ricardo to talk about this next part.
But like the experience that we gained the first time we went versus this time definitely made the fruits of our labor more noticeable that here, like like this time around, yeah.
Cory Sellar (06:26)
Thanks.
Ricardo (06:27)
I think last year was a big validation point, just seeing how people reacted to the concept and the ideas of the game and whatnot. We also learnt a lot from last year to this year, like with hardware issues and stuff like that. things you don't really think of when preparing the build, you know, on your end over here and then taking it internationally, like what kind of problems to come across, whether it be accommodation, traveling, or again the hardware itself. So being able to experience
experience all of that and knowing what to prepare for and this year we really we went 10x with it right we we we really pushed on all all throttles to produce the best we can and I think that really helped and proved itself to us.
Cory Sellar (07:08)
coming off of Gamescom twenty twenty six, let's just rewind it back and you know, walk me through the week and
you know, starting wherever it starts for you, specifically, you know, going into the week this year and what it's done for Lucid Rain Studios.
Ricardo (07:26)
So, starting off Gamescom, Okay.
Two weeks before the time we check up on the news and they mention that the trains are gonna be cancelled on specific routes. This is way, way after we already booked our accommodation. We had plants and everything. We we find out okay trains are gonna be cancelled, right? So Amanda, our marketing director, and myself, we head over like a couple of days early just to scope things out. and you know, trains were relatively okay and we're like, Yeah, it should be
it should be doable. The first night, Monday night was the mix event, the cologne edition. and we had a station over there because we we got accepted into the mix and it took us two and a half hours to just try get to the venue using the transit at the time.
So that was one of the right away, right away, as Gamescom starts, that was one of the headaches we dealt with. On the way, on the bus, I'm busy like searching up renting a car because we couldn't do that for the rest of the week. Two and a half hours and and just the stress of trying to find the right transportation, like the bus numbers and what times and nobody really understands what's going on. yeah, it's that was pretty rough. But leading into Tuesday, so the
This is when like the the business days started. Amanda and myself we handle a lot of the the booth stuff during the business days. but Rosche and Delina yeah they did a phenomenal job on the business end. Rosche if you wanted to.
Rosche Rheeder (08:53)
What was nice is like and a lot of people go to Gamescom. I was I've been mentoring a few studios in kind of sharing this information. And I would really encourage anyone else that's an indie studio that's going there for the first time next year. you gotta start prepping like I wanna say somewhere around May for a lot of your Gamescom stuff. Because the you know, that there are a lot of like events that happen, there's a lot of B2B events that would happen, there's Gamescom dev, which is more dev centered kind of thing.
Going on before the actual gamescom, and then that's all usually like the two days before the actual five days of just you speaking to people non-stop, right? And then in involved in those gamescom, like those five days of the showcase, you also have three days of B2B stuff. So for us, we kind of knew how intense it was going to be based on what last year was. So this year, you know, again.
I'm saying I'm I'm shouting them out again, but Edmonton Screen helped us kind of alleviate a lot of the stresses that would come with a booth so that we could focus our efforts maximum on a lot of the B2B and the B2C side of things. So like Ricardo said, him and Amanda were on the showroom floor, they were dealing with a lot of press stuff. They were dealing with a lot of the you know, running through the demo with people and making sure that we're educating people on kind of what we're trying to build because it's such
unique experience and then on the B2B side it was a lot of Delena and I going around and speaking to publishers, speaking to vendors, partners, some really cool new dev kind of workflows being established right now in the industry, right? And and that's really kind of like I want to say the the big takeaway with Gamescom is that you know you've got GDC which is more B2B focused, then you've got your PAX's which are more B2C focused. Gamescom is
Is both right, and because it's both, it can be very overwhelming and very, very tight in terms of like getting to everything. so what I would recommend for a lot of teams is like learn to kind of like split responsibilities as much as you can. Because I cannot imagine doing all of this as a solo founder if I'm being 100% on one of the two would have to give, right? That's just unfortunately what it is. so for us, like
Like we always knew that we wanted to tackle everything and and handle everything in a way where we're dealing with the least amount of stress. You know, spoiler alert, we were still very stressed out. That didn't change, but we did end up being very successful in a lot of our endeavors at Gamescom. And I think that was largely due to the fact that Ricardo had the things that he was focusing on. He focuses on a lot of the showcases, getting us into those showcases.
Making sure that we're getting that exposure with Amanda at his side in terms of the the marketing director portion of it and dealing with playtesters at the same time. And then Delena and I would go and make sure that all of our outbound communications with partners, with with some of the I want to say like
groups that we're part of. You know, we've got Edmonton Screen, but also we had Noah, Noah Dector Jackson. He put up the IP accelerator program that we were a part of, right? And through that
Cory Sellar (12:09)
Okay. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (12:10)
we ended up meeting some more individuals that wanted to see what we were up to and create some more exposure. I think I think it's important to recognize that there's exposure on the consumer facing side of this business, but there's also exposure on the industry facing side
of this business. and again, like if you've got a good team on the leadership level that understands why we're tackling both of these and why they're both important and are aligned on how we're gonna do it. I think Gamescom can be one of the most fruitful experiences for an up-and-coming game studio.
Cory Sellar (12:46)
Yeah.
Ricardo (12:46)
As you can see, like we really went full throttle. Like we and okay, Cory, if I had to explain
Cory Sellar (12:50)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (12:50)
Ha ha.
Ricardo (12:53)
how
busy it was this year like in terms like and stressful but let me let me give you like a peek into like the day today right. Wake up at 6 30 you know get ready you know everything we leave you know just after 7 to get there around 8 you know deal with parking and whatever else that's a whole another issue so from 8 until I think eight pm so from 8 to 8 is the consumer day
And you know, people coming to the booth, non-stop talking, non-stop pitching, playing the game, all of that. Afterwards, we have some you know dinners or meetups or whatever with people, and then there's also industry events afterwards. We would be out until 1 a.m., 2 a.m. finishing up these events. Taking like 45 minutes to get back home by car. I don't even want to think about transit at this time. If you're stuck with transit, that's another you know.
hour and a half or whatever. By car. Trauma. Traumatized.
Cory Sellar (13:49)
gain flashbacks from post secondary.
Rosche Rheeder (13:52)
Yeah.
Ricardo (13:54)
So we get home by like 3 a.m. get a little bit of sleep, like three and a half hours. We're up again 6 30 the next day to do it all again. It was brutal. Brutal.
Cory Sellar (14:04)
So just lots of energy drinks and protein bars or
Rosche Rheeder (14:08)
Yeah,
Ricardo (14:08)
I kid you not.
Rosche Rheeder (14:09)
Actually, yes.
Yes, part part of part of those those you mentioned university flashbacks, part of the skills I think we all learnt in university was to meal prep. And we you know what what better evolution of that skill if you're in a foreign country with different kinds of foods and different kinds of labels for stuff and you're trying to figure out how to read German while or like getting fo food because you know meal prep is gonna be the most effective way to handle an event where
You're on the floor for nearly fourteen hours of the day. Right? So yeah.
Ricardo (14:42)
I s
so huge life hack when you know you're booking to your Airbnb the day before or whatever. Go to a supermarket, get some, you know, quick food that you can like put together. We also got like, you know, a dozen energy drinks or so, you know, so we can keep just fueling ourselves. We had, you know, whatever instant coffee and whatnot. We had to survive off of that. We had at least like each of us packed two energy drinks per day, and that's what we're surviving off of.
Rosche Rheeder (15:09)
Red
Red Bull, if you're listening to this, we won't say no. Yes,
Cory Sellar (15:12)
Sponsor my show.
Rosche Rheeder (15:14)
sponsor this show. Sponsor this show. We're
Ricardo (15:17)
But also
Rosche Rheeder (15:18)
we'll put a segment on.
Cory Sellar (15:19)
Also support
the these studios going to big events.
Ricardo (15:20)
Again Yeah and and a
Red Bull was at Gamescom and and they're big supporters of the devs. They know like the devs need energy drinks, so they're they're doing great over there. But huge life hack, don't buy energy drinks at the convention areas. It's probably like pffff, I don't know, four times the price. Just go to a grocery store, go buy your needs over there.
Cory Sellar (15:42)
Fair.
Yeah. Nope. Good good tips all around there. No, I appreciate that. wow. I I st I'm still I still have those college flasp flashbacks. But gonna gonna move on, gonna move past that. But yeah, you know, obviously some of looking at some of the the big things that kind of stood out over the course of the week. I'm curious to kind of dive into that a bit more.
Rosche Rheeder (16:03)
Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (16:04)
you know, Roche off a LinkedIn post I believe I I read not too long ago.
there was your your guys' new trailer premiered on IGN's awesome indies showcase during the week.
Rosche Rheeder (16:15)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (16:18)
wanted to kinda get a little more detail from you guys on that in terms of, you know, what happened and and where were you when it was just all kinda coming into place at that time.
Rosche Rheeder (16:30)
Yeah, actually so so that it's funny that you asked like where it happened because we were like right at the end of of the day, busy, you know, everyone's packing up their booths and whatnot.
Cory Sellar (16:40)
Burnt out.
Rosche Rheeder (16:41)
And yeah, tired. But
Ricardo had the live stream because in at our booth we had like a back room that we would go into, right? And Ricardo had the live stream playing there and he was like, guys, we think like awesome Indies is on right now. They're gonna showcase the game. So we're all sitting at the back there. Andy from Edmonton Screen was kind enough just to hang out with us before we locked up. So she just watched us like kind of freak out over the trailer. So we're like watching and the trailer's playing and we're watching the chat and you know we're reacting to people reacting and whatnot.
And it's good time. And then and then we're like, okay, the trailer's done. You know, it was like a minute. So it was a minute of stardom that we experienced, right? Except
what was really cool and we didn't know this. I'm assuming IGM just makes these decisions based on, you know, the the games that they get. But they actually ended up playing the game and they ended up covering and talking about the game for like five minutes. So we got like some exclusive coverage out of it, which some of the other games there, you know, some of them did, some of them didn't. And
Cory Sellar (17:44)
Right.
Rosche Rheeder (17:45)
for us that was like, you know, that was
Kind of surreal. Like, we all just kind of freaked out a little bit. We had an internal moment, you know. Not
Cory Sellar (17:52)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (17:53)
not because it was IGN or anything, but just because, like.
We know how competitive this industry is. We also know what it takes to make exposure earned. And we've always talked as a studio that we want INFERIUS, we we want to earn people's attention, we want to earn people's dollar. And INFERIUS being the studio's first project, it is very experimental game. we we we are obviously targeting a certain audience, right, that we're making this game for. but you never know how successful you're gonna be at something.
Off of like the first two attempts at showcasing it around the world. Literally like everything we've done up till this point here is from the culmination of work that we've done prior. All those like tiny little microscopic views we would get, and then it kind of snowballed into much larger exposure over time. And that's why, you know, a lot of people would say like making a game is a marathon, not a sprint, right? And that's true in all aspects outside of just
the development side of it is also on the marketing side of it. So we all we all you know we got giddy we felt good we went and we had a bit of a you know midi mini studio party. Mai Rider was there so I got to meet her for the first time she lives in the UK and it was it was kind of cool with all these really good elements came in coming in. Thursday night was a good night for us and I I don't think we could have asked for a better exposure and definitely I need to find the writer on IGN who did
Cory Sellar (19:21)
Mm.
Rosche Rheeder (19:21)
that piece because he did
Cory Sellar (19:22)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (19:22)
a better job explaining our game than what I have over the last year or so, which is crazy because I thought I had it nailed to a T.
Cory Sellar (19:30)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (19:30)
So, you know, maybe I I need to learn some I need to pick up some some tricks from him. But yes, it was it was good. It was it was great. We're riding the high we're we're getting some very interesting messages since then. and you know we've our our Discord has definitely like felt the impact of
that which is good. so you know we we're we're we're really grateful that people are seeing the vision even though it's not complete. and it's just reinvigorating the studio even further and it's it's making me more excited for for if people s like what they're seeing right now which is literally just an eighth of the game like we've barely showed anything off then I think I think
I think people are gonna be really surprised by what's gonna come later. Like there's benefits to being a a young studio with a lot of ideas, and we have a lot of ideas.
Cory Sellar (20:22)
I love it.
Ricardo (20:23)
Yeah.
Cory Sellar (20:23)
I love it.
Ricardo (20:23)
And just
to touch on like the prestige of this and why we were so excited.
Cory Sellar (20:27)
Yeah.
Ricardo (20:27)
throughout Gamescom there's maybe four showcases, maybe a little bit more. but like obviously there's
opening night live, there's future games show, then there's awesome indies, and there's some other smaller ones here and there, but there's really not a lot of opportunity for showcases. And we spent I think four to six weeks, four to six weeks on our trailer, and we were super proud of it, and we're like, we really want to showcase this somewhere. So once we got accepted by Awesome Indies, again
Cory Sellar (20:54)
Mm.
Ricardo (20:55)
that is like a Gamescom IGN hosted event, and it's hosted straight on IGN's channel. sorry, Gamescom's channel.
And then the trailer is later published to IGN. So that was like a massive one to us because again, being able to get that extra deep dive coverage on the game,
Cory Sellar (21:12)
Yeah.
Ricardo (21:12)
like all of that was just like a huge, you know, makes all the hard work definitely worth it. yeah, we were super stoked for that.
Cory Sellar (21:20)
Love it. Well, I'll I'll link the IGN article, but I I'm curious then what what stood out from, you know, this third party point of view that really resonated where you're like, wow, I I never thought of it in that way, you know, describing it when you're obviously pitching the game on a stage or you're pitching a game at a booth or just, you know, over beers at an at a community event.
You know, that kind of thing. What what was what was so different or from from that perspective, from somebody else writing about it, talking about it, that
Rosche Rheeder (21:54)
Yeah.
Cory Sellar (21:55)
that stood out for you that, you know, now you're maybe recalibrating how you're gonna go about going forward?
Rosche Rheeder (22:02)
I think I d I it's a really good question actually. It's a very, very good question because
You know, for for us on we started this project from the perspective of, you know, developers wanting to create something with the experience of being gamers who have experienced a lot of things, right? So over time, you know, that pitch that I have been doing for this game, even in terms of the marketing, it's almost it's almost kind of been not distorted in a bad way, but it's been distorted because
it's trying it's taking a lot of corrections to reach kind of like a maximum output so to speak right whether that's for a publisher where it needs to be more business focused or for a consumer where it needs to be more selling you on the fantasy of it right so what was really interesting with IGN's perspective when they wrote it and they talked about it they're coming straight with zero business background behind it zero developer background behind
Behind it, none of those like like when I explain a game, I'm explaining it from a designer's perspective because I'm a designer, so it's Ricardo, right? So so we we're not coming from it from literally zero context. And when IGN was explaining it, they were explaining it as
A gamer being sold on a fantasy, right? And when I heard it from their perspective, it felt like I was hearing a whole new kind of like description of my game. when when the core messaging was still all there, it was all correct. I was even surprised by how much they dove into the lore of the game because they said certain things that you wouldn't know unless you actually dove for it in the game, which tells us that they played quite a bit.
of it, which is, you know, very it's a good feeling for a dip for a developer. You know, I work
Cory Sellar (23:52)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (23:53)
also on the narrative, on the game's direction. So for me to see that, it's it it feels good. Like I can't really explain it, right?
So I'm hearing it from someone whose their only perspective is just on what the game has provided. And I'm sitting there thinking, dang, my game sounds fucking cool. It
Cory Sellar (24:13)
Ha ha.
Rosche Rheeder (24:14)
sounds so good. It sounds so cool. It was crazy.
Ricardo (24:14)
You're like you're you're sitting there, you're like, man, man, I need to buy that when it comes out, right? Yeah.
Cory Sellar (24:17)
Shit, I wanna play that. wait.
Rosche Rheeder (24:23)
I I can't, I it it it just hit me the minute the whole thing went through, I was like.
Holy shit, we actually came up with something so cool. Even though I believed in it, you know, obviously we believe in the project, but it's
Cory Sellar (24:37)
of course.
Rosche Rheeder (24:38)
just it's just about perspectives, man. It it was
Cory Sellar (24:41)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (24:41)
it was crazy what it did to us.
Ricardo (24:43)
You can see like the professionalism come through from, you know, the rider covering the game and how
Cory Sellar (24:48)
Course.
Ricardo (24:48)
how much detail and how they present it, like it just sells the game
Rosche Rheeder (24:52)
Yeah.
Ricardo (24:52)
completely, yeah.
Cory Sellar (24:53)
love it. Print journalism is not dead. In a in digital form, but
Rosche Rheeder (24:57)
No. No, actually in in in
in fact on that point, one of the coolest experiences there at Gamescom, this is a bit of a side tangent, but you mentioned printed journalism. Game Informer was there.
Cory Sellar (25:09)
Nice.
Rosche Rheeder (25:10)
And Game Informer was
giving out all their old magazines, which is really cool.
and I got to meet them because I'm actually a huge fan of the work that they do in terms of journalism in the games industry.
Cory Sellar (25:20)
Yeah, yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (25:22)
so you know, physical media is still is still running, it's still there.
Cory Sellar (25:26)
I love it. They're the only
Ricardo (25:27)
But
Cory Sellar (25:28)
gaming publication that follows me back on Twitter.
Ricardo (25:33)
They're they're super super cool. but unfortunately
Rosche Rheeder (25:34)
That's good. Yeah, they're nice. Yeah.
Cory Sellar (25:35)
Yeah.
Ricardo (25:36)
they made our our luggage home weigh a lot more. We we're coming back with like six magazines, we're like we have to, we have to.
Rosche Rheeder (25:40)
Yeah. Yeah, I took a lot. Yeah.
Cory Sellar (25:43)
no. no.
Good problem to have.
Rosche Rheeder (25:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
Cory Sellar (25:49)
No, I love it. I love it. Well, there there was obviously something that happened on the Thursday, Rosche, I wanna get to that, but you know, stop me if there's any other big moments that that's really resonated that what you want to talk about, but I'll give you an opportunity to to get to that right a after this. But yeah, on on Thursday
On the Thursday, Roche, you were saw that you were on a panel called Canada
Rosche Rheeder (26:10)
Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (26:12)
Pioneer Powerhouse. I
Rosche Rheeder (26:14)
Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (26:15)
want I'm curious to know how'd you end up on that? You know, obviously representing the studio, representing Alberta, but obviously representing Canada in C
Rosche Rheeder (26:23)
Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (26:23)
Cologne at Gamescom. How'd you end up on it? What what did the conversation actually get into, you know, that that was tangible for everyone to to take away?
Rosche Rheeder (26:36)
Yeah,
Look, I was invited to the panel by Noah Dector Jackson, the
Cory Sellar (26:42)
Awesome.
Rosche Rheeder (26:43)
former yeah, yeah. he founded a studio in Winnipeg, one of the only game studios there. he's since left. But he's he's also a bit of a mentor figure for me. And he told me about this panel and he asked me if I'd be interested, and I was like, Yeah, absolutely. Like I I Ricardo and I it's no secrets. We're immigrants in Canada, like we we're now Canadian citizens, but
We grew up in and we were born and raised in South Africa and we we came here, we we studied here, we've lived here now for quite a long time. And and one of one of one of the things that I've always felt strongly about is that Canada has such a welcoming
community for immigrants. You know, not not all immigrants experience that, but I feel like I've been fortunate and privileged enough to experience that. And one of the one of the things that Ricardo and I are forever grateful is that we are able to start a studio here. Maybe not with a lot of support, which is what our panel was talking about, but with the right amount of support that we can at least, you know, get something going. And you know, Canada has been very obviously very good to us and our family.
but it's also been very good to the studio. And part of what I was talking about at the panel was recognizing how Canada was one of the first countries to introduce tax incentives for you know studios and and you know the growth of studios that happened in Quebec and Montreal, you know, but also how that blossomed into the rest of Canada. Unfortunately, Alberta did lose a lot of its tax credit system.
I'm hoping, and I think others are hoping too, that there can be some conversation going up again because it really
Cory Sellar (28:25)
Hopefully. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (28:27)
does help studios. It will help us a lot. and and exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Cory Sellar (28:29)
Yeah. Hopefully Nagus helps with that with that spotlight. But yeah. No, I know what you mean.
Rosche Rheeder (28:35)
And and even if that's not the main mode of conversation, I do think there needs to be some level of conversation. And that's kind of what we were doing at this panel, because if you look at the games industry and you look at the history of the games industry when it started in the 80s, right?
there was like there was multiple studios that was forming around the world, but there's obviously certain areas where it's concentrated, right? And here in Canada, the history of some of the biggest games in the world that people have heard about, right? Or played or that are referenced started or was developed here.
In Canada with Canadian talent, right? And that history is rooted in here. When you speak with developers at Gamescom, you would be like most people wouldn't be surprised by how many of those industry vets are Canadian, right? and and I think Canada is now poised to be in a position more than ever, right, to really make an impact on the games industry again and to to grow that exposure.
And I'm a big believer in this, right? I'm
Cory Sellar (29:41)
Agreed.
Rosche Rheeder (29:42)
a big believer in being proud of where you what what you're representing, right? It's one of my favorite things about Canada is the pride that's here.
so you know.
When we went there, we were talking about all this stuff and we were I think it's important also to recognize that it's not cheap. It is not easy. There are difficulties here and we talked about that at the panel. we also recognize that there are partners in the industry like the Canada Media Fund that it exists here to assist developers and you know we're very grateful for that as well. And I I'm I'm only I'm a champion of what they're doing right now and I I I believe strongly in the vision. and
And think there should be more of this because that we're right now at the stage where studios are starting to get out of that kind of like small exposure struggling indie bubble in Canada, like in up-and-coming indie studios. And I think now's the time that we should be nurturing a lot of that growth. so the booth was sorry, the panel was an opportunity to talk about that. The panel was an opportunity to create that. Remember what I said earlier in this call.
Industry exposure. and this was us doing that industry exposure for for the Canadian games industry in Germany because there might be opportunities for a partnership between Canada and Germany. I would love to see that, right?
Cory Sellar (31:02)
Exactly.
Rosche Rheeder (31:03)
or or any other country in the European Union would be you know phenomenal. So so you know, I the
Industry struggles, you know, hardware issues right now, the battle of digital rights and physical ownership, right? All these conversations, it's good to have them. I actually think they're good to have because what it does is it it forces people to come up with new solutions in an industry that is struggling with a sustainability issue. Games are not cheap, they're not cheap to make, they are hours and hours of work, AI is not gonna come in and fix it overnight.
that's just a matter of fact, it's not speculation. So, how can we develop new pipelines, new methodologies, new project management related securities, right? Like, how do we develop a lot of that stuff in in a way that we can solve a lot of these sustainability issues? And I do think the upcoming generation of indie developers here in Canada, in Alberta, in BC, or wherever the case is.
I do think they're solving those problems at the moment. So I I would encourage, you know, a lot of publishers or investors to start looking at that level because I think people would be surprised what some of these devs are doing at the moment. not to toot our own horn, but we're also doing some really interesting stuff, which is why we've been able to achieve the things that we have for relatively new and junior team. So
Yeah, th there's a hunger here and Canada
Cory Sellar (32:35)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (32:36)
Canada is poised to be in a really good position, but it needs the right support. It needs the right exposure. and that that's kind of what that panel was aimed to do. Yeah.
Cory Sellar (32:46)
Nice. No, I appreciate that.
yeah, I know I met yeah, Noah I met for the first time at Alberta Game Series, in
Rosche Rheeder (32:52)
Mm.
Cory Sellar (32:52)
Edmonton when I was at Amii. I think it was day two there. So that was fun. But yeah, no, that that's great insight. you know,
by Friday at this point during Gamescom, obviously. there was also mention, you kind of alluded to it back in that LinkedIn post that there was a lineup at your booth. People waiting for I think what was it, up to an hour to to play
Rosche Rheeder (33:17)
Sometimes, yeah.
Cory Sellar (33:18)
sometimes. I I'm I really wanna and forgive me if there were if there was something a moment s not maybe similar to that, but another moment in that same kind of energy
between the IGN moment and this.
Rosche Rheeder (33:32)
Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (33:33)
please l please bring it up. But kind of starting off with this moment of the of that lineup at the booth, I'm really curious from both of your perspectives and how you contribute to the game, what was that like to witness, you know, to to see how far you've come as developers, as individuals, but also as a studio coming in
this year and to see that that curiosity and you know what people's reactions were and all that to to kind of see that exposure first hand with people walking up to the booth.
Rosche Rheeder (34:08)
Yeah. Ricardo .
Ricardo (34:10)
I think
Yeah, it's it's obviously like very, very rewarding seeing everybody's reactions for the first time and everything. And then again, seeing a lineup for our for our game was pretty amazing in itself. I feel bad for people in the lineup. I wish we made like the build a little bit shorter so that people don't have to wait too long. We only had two machines over there where we're like, do we bring out a Steam Deck or something? Like, what do we do? Like, but
Cory Sellar (34:36)
Yeah.
Ricardo (34:37)
again, all the reactions on that from new perspective.
New eyes, everybody's like, you know, checking out the trailer, checking out the art, going on and on about not only the 3D art, but the cards, art, the mechanics in the game, the look and feel and everything. all of that. Ex
Rosche Rheeder (34:52)
Audio was was a huge shout out as well.
Ricardo (34:55)
Yeah.
And then part of like our favorite part of the events as well, like, you know, talking to new players, you know, getting that fresh take from them afterwards and like what they really liked about the game and the mis mystery and everything behind INFERIUS and but also being able to talk to other devs, you know, in similar situations and being like, you guys are doing this, we're doing that and like what kind of collaborations and stuff, but a lot of hype that we were not really expecting. But you know,
it's a gift to us. but yeah, a lot of hype for INFERIUS
Rosche Rheeder (35:26)
Yeah,
It was it was a bit of a surreal feeling. I think a big thing for us, like I said, is that we want to earn the players' attention, right?
Cory Sellar (35:32)
Course. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (35:33)
and that was kind of like a moment of like, okay, we're we're doing something right here, you know. So it it like Ricardo said, you know, we we felt bad that people were waiting, but at the same time, you know, we were out there speaking to everyone, got to meet some new people. I think there's it's probably one part of
the job that I didn't expect that I'd be enjoying so much or even be into so much is speaking to people about why they're excited about what we're doing. you know, and we even had some folks come over where they saw a trailer, or or not saw this trailer, but saw a previous one and they've been following the the game for a while. This happened at NAGIS as well, where you know some people found us online and they they traveled externally just to come and like meet us and
and play the game, which is which is really cool, you know, and and then you you get some people that make some fan art of the game. And
Cory Sellar (36:24)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (36:24)
I'm like, how how is this how is this even real for us at the moment, you know?
Cory Sellar (36:29)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (36:30)
so but but it is a testament to a lot of the a lot of the good work that that's been done. a lot of the late nights
Ricardo (36:37)
And we're we're fortunate to work with Evolve PR. They handle like a lot of the PR for some big games like the Outlaws Trials and you know, some some really, really
Cory Sellar (36:45)
Okay. Yeah.
Ricardo (36:46)
cool games. we're fortunate to work with them so they did like a press outreach and stuff, and we we so we had press come over, you know, play the game to give a review and everything, and the amount of press like again, all very good positive feedback and hype behind it, which again amazing. But the press that came to us and spoke to us, they're Yeah, we've been
following this for a bit and like as soon as we got the notification we're like yeah we jumped on that right away and we're like that's that's so cool right
Cory Sellar (37:15)
That that makes me speechless and I'm like I'm not even on the team. So like that that
Ricardo (37:19)
Ha ha ha ha.
Rosche Rheeder (37:19)
Yeah.
Cory Sellar (37:20)
that's just mind blowing, you know, like obviously, in any situation there's positive feedback, there's constructive feedback, you know, in in terms of anything like that that maybe surprised you
something broke or, you know, just someone said something that really shocked you. was there any other
Rosche Rheeder (37:39)
Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (37:40)
kind of moment like that that that happened for either of you or what you heard but
Rosche Rheeder (37:45)
Mm.
Cory Sellar (37:46)
besides that? Obviously tons tons occurred that obviously surprised you in in great positive ways with people coming all over. But yeah, just curious if there was anything else that that really stood out that you're like, you know, we're we're doing our jobs, we're you know
game hasn't even officially come out yet. But,
Rosche Rheeder (38:07)
Yeah, yeah.
Cory Sellar (38:08)
you know, people people are flocking to it and, you know, there's there's lineups, there's excitement, there's, you know, feedback being shared firsthand. I'm I'm curious, was there was there anything else that you sort of witnessed that was said or or surprised you that you thought, okay, maybe we'll when we go when we come back home we'll maybe we'll tweak some some things.
Ricardo (38:28)
While I was there, had some talks with some other developers as a doing card.
you know, based games and stuff. So
Cory Sellar (38:34)
Mm.
Ricardo (38:34)
there's a lot of interesting design discussions to have and they have feedback. I'm like, yeah, that will work perfect with this, you know. So
Cory Sellar (38:40)
Yeah.
Ricardo (38:40)
there's there's a lot of feedback taken from there already, that we are working on constantly and improving the game. In terms of big honorable mentions in my eyes was like some people from last year who saw the game that revisited this year, you know, and that consecutive you know, I don't know, just the the
them following our journey, right? That that always
Cory Sellar (39:02)
Yeah, yeah.
Ricardo (39:03)
stands out a lot. and then also yeah, like we we this time had some really, really cool like industry people and publishers that would come over to the booth because they've heard about us and came to us, you know, to investigate more and have that conversation with us. That's been that's been amazing.
Rosche Rheeder (39:24)
Yeah, I think for myself there would the the amount of people that was coming to me and praising just like the key visual art of what we were presenting,
Cory Sellar (39:34)
Hm. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (39:36)
and then when I would give them the pitch on what the game was, they would always go, Yes, I know
I know inscription, and then I'd be like, okay, do you know amnesia? And like, yes, I know amnesia. And then I'd tell them, okay, well, our game is inscription meets amnesia. And then it would be like a light bulb switches on
Cory Sellar (39:55)
Mm.
Rosche Rheeder (39:56)
every single time, like without fail. It's become my go-to at this point. Because it it's you're taking two very wildly on on the spectrum wildly different concepts. You're looking at the key art, and then you're realizing, huh.
Okay.
I'm interested. You have my attention. Now earn it to stick around. And then that's usually when I direct people to go and play the demo. And then almost every time without fail after they play it, you know, I can see people physically going and wish listing the game. And then they're telling me what they really liked about it. And it's always something different, which is really good to see because we are maybe we're trying to do a little bit too much. but you know, we're a studio made up of game developers.
Who like a lot of different kinds of games and like different things in games. So, for example, Ricardo, when when we when we designed what INFERIUS was, Ricardo was coming from the perspective of someone who really likes, you know, the gameplay feel of what Bellatra has done or what Slay the Spire has done, right? That's where the deck building inspirations came in. And then inscription was obviously our biggest inspiration. But then I'm coming from the background of where I really, really love getting immersed in a game world. I want the game.
Game to sell it to me. I want the game to, you know, give me an opportunity where I'm forcing myself to stop and to look at what's being done in front of me, right? To really take it in, whether that's the narrative or the visuals, the art direction, and and you know how that all that stuff happens. How do we take those elements, right, and bring them all together in one game? And that's kind of what I think is really cool about what.
We're putting together with INFERIUS, it's almost like a like a cauldron of just like things that we're all really passionate about in games, and we're developing them in INFERIUS. When you play INFERIUS, you I'm telling you it's a rogue-like deck builder, and then you're thinking, okay, so I'm gonna be at a table and I'm gonna be playing cards consistently, then I'll go back to the menu. But that's not what's happening in our game. In our
Cory Sellar (42:02)
Right.
Rosche Rheeder (42:03)
game, you're actually walking in the world, you're exploring the underworld.
World, so that's the first, like you know, that that's the first pitch right there. Is that you're in the underworld. Then I tell you it's inspired by the divine comedy, and then you're like, my god, what divine comedy? I know the divine comedy, that's cool. Then I tell you it's got some Lovecraft elements, and you're like, What? Lovecroft, that's cool too. I like Lovecraft. Then I tell you it's a deck builder, and I show you the card art, and then you're like, Okay, okay, okay, okay, just pause for a second.
You mention all of that and you're showing me sick art. What else you got? Then I'm like, okay, but we also are creature heavy studio. So we are taking a very unique approach to our creature design. And then it just becomes a snowball effect, right? Like you can see how I'm just mentioning thing after thing after thing. You know, I and it's I think it's important in game design to ha be focused on your direction. And we are very, very focused on our direction, but
For us, we're viewing it almost as if like there are all these roots.
That is coming together to form a single tree trunk in the vision of how we're building our game. And each one of these routes is taking aspects of games that we really vibe with. So we always need to ask ourselves: how are we gonna make something that's a deck builder work with something that's a first-person horror? How do the two of those come together? And when I'm speaking to people on the floor, they're intrigued, then they play the game and it clicks.
And that's that's that's probably been the highlight for me. Absolutely. yeah, like it i
Cory Sellar (43:39)
Love it.
Rosche Rheeder (43:40)
it it it just feels good every single time.
Ricardo (43:43)
so it's kind of like we are building something familiar, but completely new at the same time, right? So again, this isn't just another deck builder, it's not just another horror game. It's com something completely new but inherits some elements from those, right? So when playing the game, like you get that sort of familiarity, like yeah, these are the kinds of games I like, but so much of it is new, so much of it is different. So it's kind of like
You know, there's there's those games that spark a new genre and I'm not saying we're gonna spark a new genre, but we're definitely gonna push game design and the the game mechanics to like a whole new surface that people haven't really seen too much of.
Cory Sellar (44:22)
Yeah. Well,
I mean it it kinda goes back to the IGN article where I think it was covering asking the question of potentially is this gonna become a a cult have a cult follow following. it's already sounding like it's we're already
Rosche Rheeder (44:36)
Ha ha.
Cory Sellar (44:37)
there with with the people that were in line.
Rosche Rheeder (44:40)
Yeah.
Cory Sellar (44:41)
and people coming flying to to see you guys. So wow. Yeah. Blown away.
Rosche Rheeder (44:47)
I would I would
love to earn earn the title of a cult following. I think sometimes that's yeah, baby steps. Baby steps. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Ricardo (44:51)
Baby steps.
Cory Sellar (44:52)
Baby steps, baby steps. Yeah, yeah. I I'm I'm jumping ahead here, but you know, it I I think
Ricardo (44:56)
Ha.
Cory Sellar (44:58)
it's it's it's a fair I think it's a fair milestone to strive towards or a a fair goal to to have on your peripheral at the very least maybe, but yeah.
Ricardo (45:12)
Yeah. I
think
INFERIUS has the potential to go far. Very, very far. It's how I guess the the fans, the audience, the how how they empower us, that's as far as we can go. and then we'll try push for further, right? But it's about proving ourselves right now, and then
Cory Sellar (45:28)
Yeah. Yeah.
Ricardo (45:31)
once we have that following, we want to do so much. There's so much we can do. this is just the start of this world, so it's kind of like yeah, if if there is
Is that Colt's following? We'll open up the floodgates and we'll just go go and create some more cool things within this world.
Cory Sellar (45:48)
Yeah. No, fair point. And yeah, and I guess, you know, looking back on on Gamescom is, you know, obviously Infurious is targeting twenty twenty seven, I believe. That's what it's says on on Steam. But as far as
Rosche Rheeder (46:00)
Mm-hmm.
Cory Sellar (46:00)
Gamescom is concerned, was there was there anything else that that it really helped the studio
you know, going forward now that you're back home and, you know, you're you're working tirelessly with with playtests and and all these other things, to get to that release date.
Ricardo (46:16)
So
Yes, that serves Gamescom is a one of our biggest marketing beats, right? and again
Cory Sellar (46:22)
Right. Yeah.
Ricardo (46:23)
it opens up some new doors. we've had talks with different porting partners, different localization partners, stuff like that, right? So we're like, we haven't thought about bringing it over to Switch, but now that could be a possibility, right? Or different consoles and stuff. So yeah, there's a lot of possibilities that now have opened up and we're we're still exploring and trying to network and you know fully realize
Cory Sellar (46:43)
Yeah. Productive meetings at least,
yeah. That kind of thing. A lot of productive meetings through the Meet To Match platform and all that.
Rosche Rheeder (46:51)
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's there's a lot of interesting conversations currently happening.
But this is just kind of like us trying to put our best foot forward as much as we can. You know,
Cory Sellar (47:01)
Of course. Yeah. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (47:03)
we like I said, we understand how competitive the industry is. we're coming in at a time when there's more questions and answers on the state of the industry, right? Even though I believe it's
Still very healthy.
We want to make sure that we're c contributing in a positive way. and that does require us to make sure that, you know, we're treating the business side of this endeavor as seriously as we're treating the consumer side of it, right? so yeah, not a lot of sleep, but definitely definitely I wanna say a lot of earned winnings that's coming from the work that we're doing. Now it's just a matter of
Of closing a lot of that stuff off on time for next year.
Cory Sellar (47:44)
Awesome.
Yeah. No, well, yeah, I guess a any anything else before we go, kind of wrap things up.
Rosche Rheeder (47:52)
I was I was just gonna say like Gamescom I think it's I think it's good to use Gamescom as like a like a bit of a a litmus test on where the industry's at at large. I think it's I think it's
I think it's okay to say that the games industry is still very, very healthy. I mean Gamescom's foot traffic increase from what I saw last year. They just reported a couple couple days ago that it went up by three percent in terms of foot traffic. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but
Cory Sellar (48:19)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (48:20)
if you take into account that that's three percent of three hundred and fifty-six thousand people from last year, and now it's three hundred and sixty-eight or something this year. That's a lot of people to still try
Cory Sellar (48:32)
So a lot.
Rosche Rheeder (48:33)
and fit in
A very very cramped space. Like I didn't I
Cory Sellar (48:35)
Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (48:37)
didn't think they
Ricardo (48:37)
Mm-hmm.
Rosche Rheeder (48:37)
could add more people and they did, right? Just because of how how crowded it is. But the the amount of excitement there is still for the games industry and what games are doing to people and and you know where games are going and how technology is evolving, right? There's still so much love and excitement for this industry, and I would encourage a lot of players, you know, like
Big AAA's, the big double A's, they definitely earned that that titlement, right? but some some of the some of the greatest innovations right now is happening on the indie scene. Some the some
Cory Sellar (49:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (49:13)
games that you would never have thought possible in terms of different combinations of things being done and and ideas being brought together is on the indie scene because the risk tolerance is not really on the game, but it's more on can I afford to make this right now. That's more where the risk is. And thankfully
A lot of devs are not necessarily doing this for a monetary gain. A lot of devs are doing this because they love it and they love making things for people. that's why we're doing it, right? So if I wanted to do it for money, I'd be I'd be in a much different career field. So
Cory Sellar (49:45)
Fair.
Rosche Rheeder (49:46)
so yeah, I would I would really, really I I just I would highlight the way the indie game scene is growing because it's really really good. It's something to behold. It's never happened before in history.
history in in this scale, right? So I think for me that was that was a a good highlight, a good a good thing to witness.
Cory Sellar (50:05)
Yeah, the rise of the indie devs. It's happening.
Rosche Rheeder (50:08)
Yeah.
Ricardo (50:08)
I'm telling you, there's so many cool games, there's so many cool projects and people with different passions and stuff. It's such an open, vast world.
Cory Sellar (50:17)
Mm-hmm.
Ricardo (50:17)
if I could, I would explore all of those games. Unfortunately, we were limited on time, so I only gotta
Cory Sellar (50:22)
for sure.
Ricardo (50:22)
talk to like you know the the reach that I had at the time. But
Cory Sellar (50:26)
Yeah.
Ricardo (50:26)
if I if I was there as a visitor, I would be at every single booth trying all of these cool games.
Cory Sellar (50:30)
Hey, why not? Yeah. Well,
and the other thing too, like, you know, you th talk about these in person events, but obviously there's, you know, content creators, you know, stumbling on new and different indie games and they're going through gameplay, they're trying to spice it up and, you know, do a a minute's worth or an hour's worth of gameplay to see like, do I like this game? What's it about? And, you know, they either do a review or they kind of do a deep dive.
And that starts to pop up on your feed. If you're if you look up enough indie dev or indie game gameplay or or related content on social media, you're bound to maybe stumble on something like, you know, the new INFERIUS trailer or the IGN walkthrough or, you know, things like that, or maybe a clip from this episode. but you know,
It's it's really cool and obviously for some outlets it's a slower burn to to you know, for that discovery, but nevertheless, tons of tons of different avenues. It's probably exhausting on your guys' end. but
Ricardo (51:35)
There's
it's really cool, like
Rosche Rheeder (51:36)
boy.
Ricardo (51:36)
even
Even yesterday I was just hanging out in a different like Twitch stream covering the game and it's a German influencer and they can now play the game because we've translated to German, we've translated to French, Spanish, and Japanese as well. So we're also opening up those doors. So getting content creators to now cover the game and I'm in chat or whoever in the team is in chat, just like interacting with them, seeing what they're
Cory Sellar (52:00)
Yeah.
Ricardo (52:00)
doing, seeing their reactions and their audiences' reactions. Again, it's beyond rewarding.
Thank you.
Cory Sellar (52:05)
That's cool. I
love that. Well, kind of looking ahead, I guess, you know, for the rest of the year and you know, going into twenty twenty seven with the release dates coming up, what what can we expect? What should we keeping an eye on for everyone following along with Lucid Rain?
Rosche Rheeder (52:25)
I would definitely say like keep an eye out because we're
constantly sharing new development updates with our trailers. I think if people are picking up on it, we're kind of doing something a little bit interesting with our trailers. Traditional games usually just release trailers that, you know, cover a different portion of a game. But we're
Cory Sellar (52:45)
Right.
Rosche Rheeder (52:45)
actually slowly telling a bit of a story with our trailers. And each one builds onto the other. So what I would encourage people to do if they were interested in seeing what we're up to is keep following
us because each trailer that we're dropping is showing a little bit more of the game and if you understand what the game is about from our Steam page you will understand why we're why why us dropping this is kind of like revealing more of what the game is gonna how expansive the game is so to speak.
Cory Sellar (53:16)
Mm.
Rosche Rheeder (53:17)
so so yeah I definitely encourage people keep keep an eye out for what we're doing check out our stuff like
Next year we're obviously gonna be doing the Gamescom beat again. We're gonna be doing all the festivals again that we've been a part of. But there's also like a little things here and there in between those events during the winter time that we will be releasing stuff. So yeah,
Cory Sellar (53:36)
Nice.
Rosche Rheeder (53:37)
just just keep an eye out for what we're up to.
Cory Sellar (53:39)
Exciting. Exciting and obviously Yeah. Sorry, no no no. My apologies.
Ricardo (53:41)
best way sorry, th the best way to do that
would be joining our Discord
so like if you check out the Steam page or even the website, there's direct links to the Discord. We have a really like active community. We us devs love talking with everybody and sharing some stuff. We're we're busy discussing some other community building stuff going ahead. which also involves playtesting. So if you're interested in like checking out new parts of the game or mechanics, we are hosting playtesting for the next couple of months. And then yeah, like again just following us on all socials.
Amanda's doing amazing work pushing all of our contents there so people can stay updated with what's in progress.
Cory Sellar (54:21)
Awesome. Awesome.
For everyone following along, obviously going into next year, you know, following along in your channels on social, Discord server obviously. any just kind of looking beyond that and I'm I'm curious, like, 'cause obviously Canada Media Fund releases their funding and for which
Rosche Rheeder (54:40)
Mm.
Cory Sellar (54:41)
projects they've been supporting. And I'm I'm just curious, like in in terms of other things
irons in the fire so to speak. is there any other teasers or anything that people could be could be
Rosche Rheeder (54:53)
Mm.
Cory Sellar (54:54)
exposed to at some point or another, kind of feeding off of that one thing working off the other, if they're following along with the trailers and and things like that. I'm prying, I'm I know.
Rosche Rheeder (55:04)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Ricardo (55:07)
You are prying It's it's it's good.
The way I would describe it
Cory Sellar (55:12)
If not, all good. Yeah.
Ricardo (55:14)
th the way I would describe it is like in INFERIUS is first and foremost
All hands, literally all hands are on deck with that, right? But in the meantime, we are doing concepts and light prototyping of two other concepts that we have going at the moment that we're very, very excited to jump onto. But again, we're also very, very passionate about INFERIUS. So it's like the struggle of like, let's let's make Inferior's the best game that we
Cory Sellar (55:37)
Of course. Yeah. Yeah.
Ricardo (55:41)
possibly can. And then we're so excited to explore more things
in the pipeline, right?
Cory Sellar (55:46)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Rosche Rheeder (55:46)
Yeah,
Cory Sellar (55:47)
No, no, a hundred percent.
Rosche Rheeder (55:47)
yeah. There
certainly there certainly is teasers to come on how infuriates is going to expand, yes. I will
Cory Sellar (55:56)
I love that.
Rosche Rheeder (55:57)
I will leave it I will leave it at that for you. Yeah.
Cory Sellar (55:59)
We'll leave it at that. We'll leave it at that. Thank
you. Thanks for indulging me. I know I was really prying as we before I let you go here. So
Rosche Rheeder (56:05)
Yeah.
Cory Sellar (56:08)
I appreciate you you putting up with me. Nonetheless, Rosche, Ricardo, thank you both so much. Thank you. Congratulations again on
the Gamescom experience and, you know, just hearing those moments, phenomenal. Congrats to both you and of course the rest of the team as we continue to go through the rest of twenty twenty six and then obviously gearing up for release in twenty twenty seven. Really appreciate you both making the time for this.
Ricardo (56:37)
Thank you so much, Cory. it's always
Rosche Rheeder (56:37)
Thank you very much, Cory. It's always a pleasure.
Ricardo (56:39)
a pleasure. There we go.
Cory Sellar (56:40)
I love it. I love it. Nope.
Yeah, best of luck. And obviously, of course, if you're listening or watching this and you want to do one genuinely useful thing for a studio in your own city, go wishlist INF ERIUS on Steam. Seriously, do it. Do it now. also, by the way, wish listing only takes a few seconds. And for an indie team like this one, it actually moves the needle.
It really does. The demo is up right away now too, if I'm not mistaken, so you can experience it firsthand. so head on over to Steam Wishlist INFERIUS by Lucid Rain Studios. Links and more details will be in the show notes. And of course, for more episodes like this conversation, you can head on over to Good Game Y EG dot ca. And if you got something out of this, follow the show wherever you're watching or listening. Until next time, Sellar cast out.
Rosche Rheeder (57:32)
Cheers.
