A Heart-to-Heart from the producer of Sanctree
[p]Hi everyone, [/p][p]It’s been a few months since we last connected, and the free updates for Sanctree have been on pause for a while. But since some of you have been asking about the team’s status, I thought I’d drop in and chat—just like old friends catching up. [/p][p]'Guardians of the Sanctree' is my first true indie game, and now, it’s also the source of the $70,000 debt weighing on my shoulders (wry smile). [/p][p]During development, I gathered a team of nine trusted friends (some of them are from my college club). Someone said a 10-person team was too risky for an indie project, but I believed that if I was going to fully realize my vision, I needed the right people—to polish every system, tweak every asset until it felt just right, no matter the time or cost. [/p][p][/p][p]Back then, we crammed into a tiny rented office (sharing the space with another company), takeout boxes piled in the corners, working under the glow of monitors at 2 or 3 AM, all of us convinced that if we made something great, players would notice. [/p][p]On launch day, I barely slept, scrambling to fix bugs. Reality didn’t give us much breathing room, and in the end, sales were modest. [/p][p][/p][p]I’ll admit—the launch version fell short for many of you, especially with issues like optimization. I still feel guilty about that. The months of free updates afterward were a struggle, but I couldn’t just walk away. Not when the game still needed to be better. [/p][p]After paying the team their final salaries, I had to say, “It’s time to go our separate ways.” [/p][p][/p][h3]I know stories like this— 'game underperforms, team disbands, creator left in debt' — aren’t uncommon in the indie world. But here’s the thing: this isn’t the end for Sanctree. [/h3][p][/p][p]These days, I’m working a day job unrelated to game dev, but after clocking out, I still dive back into the code—fixing bugs, tweaking numbers, even if my typing’s a little slower now. Sometimes, a message pops up on WeChat from our former lead programmer: “Got some free time, want me to take another look at that level logic?” or “Should we try to address that issue players mentioned in the reviews?” [/p][p]For the Sanctree dev team, it’s gone from 10 to 1—but I’m lucky to still have companions on this journey. [/p][p][/p][p]Some might say, “You’ve got debt. Focus on paying it off. Why burn the candle at both ends?” Honestly, I don’t have a perfect answer. [/p][p]Maybe it’s because Sanctree is my “first”—the first game I built entirely from my own vision, the first time a player’s comment (“This was the best demo I played during the Steam festival”) kept me awake all night, too moved to sleep. [/p][p][/p][p]Money matters, of course. But those little moments of 'initial intention'—that’s what keeps me going. Sanctree is like my first child. Even if it didn’t ace the test, I still want to help it stand tall, to make it something worth being proud of. [/p][p]The debt will get paid. The day job won’t last forever. As long as Sanctree sits on someone’s hard drive, as long as I can still type code, there’ll be another free update someday. [/p][p]If you ever spot an overworked old bird in the game, that might just be me. Its story—and mine—is only just beginning. [/p][p]Thank you, truly, for being part of it. [/p][p]—The Producer of Sanctree[/p]
