In case you didn’t know, we launched our Indie Program last year.
The program’s mission is to make playtesting more accessible for smaller teams, who don’t have the resources or opportunity to playtest their games (which is important to validate concepts & build player community).
We’re proud to share the story of one of the indies who joined the program, Brennan Anderson, founder of Whatnot Games.
We asked him some questions about the studio’s origin, his journey so far and Star Racer, a game that is coming soon on July 28th.
Honestly, it’s an incredible story 🧡
Origins
What’s the story behind you and Whatnot Games?
There is the origin of the name, and the origin of the studio.
For the studio, I was visiting a friend who also makes games. We were talking about the games I wanted to make and he wouldn’t let me leave his place until I filed the paperwork to form the company!
The name is a bit more interesting. When I was still in school, I read a magazine interview with my favorite composer, Nobuo Uematsu. The interviewer asked what instruments he played, and his response was “I play piano and whatnot.” I don’t know if it was just a misunderstanding on my part, or a high-schooler’s misunderstanding of the English language at that point, but I asked my parents “What’s a Whatnot?”
That story has stuck with me and made me chuckle ever since, so when I was thinking of a company name, that came to mind, thus Whatnot Games was born.
What made you go independent and start making games?
I have been in the AAA industry for about 12 years, and I knew I wanted to make games differently, as well as different types of games than AAA will make.
In AAA, I’ve seen too many business decisions get in the way of creative decisions, mistreatment of developers, and a poor understanding of what makes games unique and what makes them art. I had to make my own games so that I could pursue what games mean to me personally, rather than what they mean to giant “money printing” organizations.
Namely, I want to make more games in less development time with emphasis on gameplay rather than graphics fidelity.
Game Concept & Inspiration
What is Star Racer about?
Star Racer is all about futuristic combat racing.
It has less of a story and is more of a pulp-inspired series of characters thrown into this world where they are racing to be the champion. There is purposefully no cohesive storyline, but each character has comic pages with just a snippet of their life to give you some insight and connection into them.
What was the lightbulb moment that made you realize this was the project you wanted to build?
Honestly, I had just bought a Super Nintendo, and a copy of F-Zero. I have been playing F-Zero ever since I can remember, and it was quite possibly one of my first games.
I had also been playing Star Fox, and when I was considering the different games I could make, I thought I should just combine two of my favorite games.
Development Journey
What's been the most surprising or unexpected part of bringing Star Racer to life?
I must have tapped into something in the zeitgeist, because about 4 months after I began development, Nintendo shadow dropped F-Zero 99! I had several mixed emotions about this, but ultimately it inspired me to push myself to make the game as fun as possible.
I began the project working completely solo, but quickly realized I needed help to make it into what it is today. I have had several other engineers join the project at various points to help round out my knowledge and ability to develop the game.
When I first started the project, I was fully employed at a AAA studio, so splitting my time between that and my own game started to become pretty stressful. That, combined with the stresses of a game development day job, I started struggling with burnout. At first it was fairly mild, heightened stress. Then it got worse. I stopped sleeping well, stopped having the motivation to exercise.
I started falling asleep randomly throughout the day, and other physical and harmful medical symptoms started to appear. This ultimately caused me to have to take a six week medical leave from work.
Eventually I made the decision to leave my job and focus full time on Indie development, and things have seriously been looking up from there. The burnout is still there, but it is diminishing as I am only focused on one job instead of two.
I am extremely excited to be releasing my first game, and I am very happy with how it has turned out.
Community
Who is your ideal player?
Ideally, mid-hardcore racing fans. The game has something for almost every player motivation.
We have gameplay modes for action (Grand Prix/Death Race), mastery (Time Trials), creativity (Course Editor), social (Custom Races/Steam Workshop), and achievement (Ranks for most game modes, and tons of unlockable content).
What do you want players to take away from your experience?
I want players to have a sense of incredible fun during the races. I also want to slightly challenge what a racing game can be. For example, in the event races we have several game modes that you would not traditionally find in a racing game, like break the targets and golf.
The golf mode is especially fun, where we disable your accelerator and only allow you to boost, counting each boost as a stroke. You must navigate the course only by boosting and get across the finish line in par or less.
How are you building a community around Star Racer?
We are mainly building the community on our Discord server. We have several very avid players who love to create their own courses and share them with the community. We also have good discussions about various game mechanics, and everybody is just generally really awesome!
Looking Ahead
Once Star Racer is released, what's next?
First, I’m taking a nice long vacation. I’ve been at this for 2.5 years without a real break. Once I’ve rested, I have updates for Star Racer I’d like to make, but nothing major. Then I have a few more game ideas I’d like to pursue!
What advice would you give to aspiring Indie Devs?
Take care of yourself, drink water, exercise, go outside. I cannot overstate how important doing these things are. I am still not the best at these things but I am getting better. You really need to find a way to make this life sustainable, because it can become extremely unsustainable very fast without you even realizing it.
Making games is extremely rewarding, and it is a worthwhile pursuit for anybody who is creative, who wants to make fun experiences, who wants to create art. At the same time it can be incredibly demanding and mentally taxing. So please listen to your body and work in collaboration with it so that you can keep doing it for as long as possible.
Where can people find your game and follow your work?
You can find the game on Steam, and you can follow us on X, Bluesky, or Instagram, and you can join our Discord if you like!
Wrapping Up
A beautiful story told by Brennan.
It’s indie devs like this that keep the gaming industry alive and vibrant.
Star Racer officially launches on 28th July. Big thanks to everyone who playtested the game on Antidote and helped refine it. Thank you for participating!
The game will also be available to redeem through the Antidote store and to purchase on Steam.
We can’t wait to see what Whatnot Games creates next 😊
