Spirit City: Lofi Sessions launched 1 week ago today and has already sold over 55,000 units. In fact, within the first 4 days it already sold 40,000 copies. The game is developed by Mooncube Games, a small, 3-person team from Montreal, Canada. The studio was created in 2021 by Keith Ebanks, Félix-Antoine Dupéré and Alexandre Gendron

This game is an amazing success and in a genre that many indies probably haven’t even heard of: productivity idle game / room decorator / creature collector. To put it crassly it is a pomodoro-timer-cookie-clicker crossed with the sims crossed with Pokemon. To play the game, you set a task and a duration, and when you accomplish it you get little rewards that you spend to upgrade your room, or attract more “Pokemon.” I am actually using it now to keep me on task as I write this blog post.  

I have been following Spirit City since Keith Ebanks, the co-creator of the studio, started posting detailed updates in my Discord. As a proud teacher watching another successful graduate, I have to brag and share this comment from Keith:

In today’s post I am going to break down how this game came to be and the signs of success along the way. 

Descoped game

Like all indies working on their first self-published game, Keith had a design that was waaay too big.:

“Our original plan was to create a full-on adventure in Spirit City, but that proved perhaps a bit too ambitious for a first attempt! I think the turning point was the art scope and level design involved. We saw it potentially taking 2-3 years to finish, as a team of 3.”

Wisely Keith and company didn’t think it was a good idea to spend 3 years on their first game, so they pivoted.

“We did as much market research as we could on our own. We scoured reviews, checked stats on vginsights, steamdb, etc. We also saw the popularity of lofi channels such as Lofi Girl and ChillHop. We had sketched out a feature where the player could hang out in their room to chill to music. One of us said, “Why not make this the entire game. We took inspiration from games like Chill Corner, and Virtual Cottage.”

CZ Analysis:

I heard Mooncube’s original “full-on adventure” idea and it would not have been as successful as this game even if they had the full 3 years of development time. Adventure games do not have enough content to satisfy fans. However, Spirit City’s idle, builder genre is almost endlessly replayable.  

Look at these thumbnails of the chill Youtube channels and compare them to screenshots I took of Spirit City. The chill productivity youtube sub-genre has this cute creature + room aesthetic that Spirit City perfectly captured.

When it comes to indie games, bigger isn’t better. I know several teams that are stuck deep in development for multiple years. Mooncube Games shows you a way out. Strip the game down to one core feature that you know you can accomplish with high quality. Also look for existing communities that have shown to be popular. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The chill productivity youtube community has an aesthetic and a need (background music to work to) and Mooncube games fulfilled the goal perfectly.  

Cozy Builders / Sitty Builders / Sims-like

Players don’t actually want a 100% unique game. In fact, that is probably a bad thing. Instead, it is a much safer bet to make a slight improvement on a proven success. 

And right now, one of the hottest micro-genres is room decorators. The genre doesn’t have a name that I know of yet. But, take a look at these:

Unpacking (A narrative decorator game)

begat

A Little to the Left (A puzzle organizer game (with a little less decorating than puzzling))

begat 

Momento (A narrative decorator with a little less puzzling and a bit more narrative)

And if you go deeper on the side branch of evolution of non-puzzly room decorators you will discover Chill Corner, and Virtual Cottage.

And all this comes from the grandmother of all cozy decorators: The Sims. And the Sims even has its own competition with the upcoming Paralives (which is so popular the associated Patreon earns $38,000/month and the game isn’t even out yet).

Too many developers are afraid that someone is going to steal their idea thus making their game irrelevant before it even launches. However, the bigger risk is that their game is so different that no fan base exists. Look at that list of cozy-room-decorators in the section above and notice how similar they are. Each has a slight variation of the other. But that is ok! If you find a popular genre, being 100% unique is not necessary, in fact it might be a problem.

Bulletproof game feel

However, even if you find a white-hot sub-genre, that doesn’t mean that success is guaranteed. I have seen a couple games in this subgenre underperform at launch despite earning tens-of-thousands of wishlists. In most cases they had bugs or their controls were “janky” or “hard to use.”

My theory on this is that the audience for room decorators are casual players. They expect very very smooth controls without much hassle. If your game doesn’t “feel” good, then they will reject it. Just because they are “cozy” or “casual” fans doesn’t mean they aren’t picky and will go along with whatever you give them. 

So if you are making one of these games, polish polish polish until the game controls and UI is absolutely perfect.  

“We’re all very nitpicky, haha, It’s probably our personalities actually. We had to stop ourselves from spending too much time on polishing things. We did have the luxury of a relatively small scope, allowing us to spend more time on production values.“

Demo was pivotal 

The marketing run-up for Spirit-city was about 1 year. But the first 7 months were relatively slow when it came to earning wishlists. Spirit City wasn’t a viral hit right out of the gates. It took a lot of work and most importantly, a playable demo. 

The demo launch occurred in November 2023 (indicated with the red arrow above) and kept it up until release. During this period they entered every festival they could: including Storyteller Festival, Quebec Games Festival, and Game Devs of Color. 

You can see the impact of these festivals here:

Finally they entered the February Steam Next fest and it did great. 

“We earned 15,204 wishlists during this Next Fest. Even though visits from the sale weren’t very high the last two days, the discovery queue picked up the slack, bringing in more visits than the sale yesterday! Hopefully the DQ blesses us a bit longer… We did a big push 2 weeks prior as well. Releasing our new trailer and release date announcement, as well as working with cozy influencers.”

By the game’s launch they had almost 90 000 wishlists. 

How do you design a demo for an idler?

For a game all about being chill, allowing people to track their time, how do you create a demo that gives them a taste for the game but not so much that they get “tired” of the game and don’t buy at launch. 

“So all the main features were there, except Room Customization. In terms of content, it was really just what was finished at the time.”

The demo had the following 

  • 4 Spirits
  • 4 activities
  • A pretty decent amount of character customization.
  • Mooncube did a mini update for Next Fest adding another Spirit.

For the full game they spent the rest of the time trying to pack in as much content as possible. Here is what they added for the full game by launch:

  • 9 Spirits
  • 6 activities
  • 100+ character customization items
  • 2 additional lofi playlists, for a total of 96 songs 
  • 8 additional soundscapes, 12 total
  • Room customization
  • A journal and habit tracker, on top of the to-do list and timer

And they are working on more updates now that the game is a success.

PR Outreach

The folks at Mooncube hired UberStrategist for a month to help them with PR at launch. The PR team was able to get them a metacritic score on launch day, which according to them, is very rare for indie titles.

Here is a list of press clippings


CZ analysis:

One thing to note about hiring a PR firm is that they can be very expensive for a very short marketing push. I recommend you think of a PR firm as a multiplier. Spirit City was already showing amazing traction with their Demo, Steam Next Fest success, and were earning hundreds of wishlists a week even without being in a festival. So UberStrategist was able to supercharge that existing attention. 

I have seen other studios struggle with low wishlists so they decided to hire a PR firm to try and turn things around. Unfortunately, if wishlists are low because fans aren’t interested in a game, then the press also won’t be interested in the game and won’t cover it. 

A PR firm cannot force the press to write about you. So if you have a limited budget, and you aren’t getting much attention from the general public, hiring a PR firm is very risky and you and the firm might be disappointed. Summary

Translation

The game is translated to English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese. Keith said that over 43% of sales are from Asian countries. 

You should definitely translate your game. 

Summary

Keith and his team had an amazing success with the launch of Spirit City: Lofi Sessions. Here are the big lessons I take aways:

  • Don’t be afraid to strip a game down to one core mechanic if the scope is out of hand. Keith’s team basically spun out a side-game into its own full game and that was enough for players.
  • Look for sub-communities who are already forming around a set of values, vibes, and needs. The lofi, cozy, productivity community was already gathering on Youtube and with other Steam games. That is a good sign that there is an audience. 
  • It is ok to release a game that is somewhat similar to another one. Not all games have to be 100% unique to sell. 
  • Get a demo out ASAP! And keep it up! And figure out ways to add a lot more value to the full game to get them to buy.
  • PR is a multiplier that can greatly expand the reach of your game, but your game has to have something there.