I recently visited San Francisco to be part of GDC. My game Faith in Despair was at the Austrian Arcard booth, part of a selection of Austrian games that attendees could choose to play.



Over the course of three days, people played my game almost back to back. Usually, when they sat down to play it, they stuck to it for 15 to 30 minutes. There usually were no questions, the game introduced itself well enough.

There were still some things I noted down that I wanted to fix later on, but overall the feedback was positive.

I had industry experts play my game, vfx artists, sound engineers, musicians, even gamedev teachers. I filled up my notes pretty quickly. And at the end of the event all of my Faith in Despair cards were replaced with business cards from other people that I got to meet.



San Francisco itself was great too, I was walking around and even streamed a few times. Part of what made it great was that my friend Alexis (and his wife as well as his dog Cuddlepup) was there to show me the best parts of the city.

Once I got home, it took me a week to recover from jetlag and just the general rush of being in a completely different environment.

I guess to sum it all up... It definitely left an impression on me. The organizer of the Austrian GDC booth told me to come again next year, but I'm not so sure about that yet. Maybe once is enough.



So, what now?

I'm currently working on an update for Faith in Despair, which involves more bosses, voice acting (by Patrick Lamb), and it will get new VFX (by Jack the Generalist) throughout the next few weeks.

I believe a game like this can be worked on forever, but I do feel the end of my motivation is on the horizon. This has been one of the most exciting games to work on and to launch, and I'm still committed to update this game throughout the rest of the year. But I'm getting to a point where I feel like my updates are diluting the original intent of the game a little bit.

At this point, nothing will make this game much better than it already is, aside from completely changing core mechanics. Which means, it will be turned into a completely different game. And that probably means, well, maybe it's just time to make a new one.



And speaking of which, I am already slowly working on a new game with Alexis (yes, that very same person I met in San Francisco). I still stream gamedev on twitch three times a week, and I will not show the new game yet, which I suppose also slows down development on the new one a little bit. But my hope is that we get a demo out soon-ish, so that I can also work on the new game on streams.

The streams on Twitch and YouTube have proven to work for me. I get to focus, and talk to like-minded people. I will continue doing them three times a week for the entire year as well. I reckon that it will stick as something that I want to keep doing in 2027, but it was at least my goal for this year. Just stream three times a week, updating Faith in Despair, and the occasional IRL.

We'll see where this takes me.

Faith in Despair has been updated once again, this time there are 21 new deities to unlock to help you on your journey. This has been one of the top requested features, and I believe it spices up the game right from the start of a run.

There's lots more in the update, for example, you can now stack creatures, and there are new curses, bosses, blessings, et cetera.

So, what's next? Good question!

There is a huge amount of things that people have suggested and another number of things that I'd like to try out as well. I believe there's plenty of remaining potential to keep working on it. Keep finding what makes this game interesting.

My plan is to have another smaller update end of March/April, then I might want to start working on a bigger one.

But first... it's time for GDC! In roughly two weeks, I'll be in a plane to San Francisco. I've never been to the US, so it's double exciting.

I will also use this time to take a bit of a break from development, I think I could use it. I'm not saying I'm burnt out or anything, I'm actually doing surprisingly fine. But usually after a break I can see the game from a fresh perspective and it results in cool new ideas.

At some point it would probably make sense to use these new ideas for a new project, but again, I've decided to invest another year into this one and see how it goes.

I also keep streaming on twitch and enjoying it, and I'd like to do more collaborations with other streamers this year. Who knows, maybe I'll attend twitchcon again. So far, it has only resulted in good things. More connections, more ideas, more creative input, cool people hanging out in chat, and meeting new people in real life.

I feel like 2026 is off to a good start. Let's see where it goes.

I'd like to quickly shout out new releases by some of my friends.



First, we have a new release by KAON, which is a remix of Battle Against My Thoughts. Feels like a tight radio edit with new drums and focus on vocals.



Next, TaskBeenden has released a new EP called "Emergence" under his new moniker LADDWICK. Super high energy, clearly NIN inspired.



Then we have renderpunk with his EP "Still Leben Remixed" that features dance remixes of my album Still Leben. What was a tiny experiment turned into a list of songs you can listen to while coding. Very addicting.



And finally, Imhxtp has released a new track called "Angel". With his absolute dark vibe, this could be part of the Resident Evil movie soundtrack. I know he's working on more remixes and original stuff, so you can look forward to that too.

I've been working on the Faith in Despair update, which is currently in beta. You can catch a glimpse here. It will be released in the next 1-2 weeks.

Then it's almost time for GDC already! Time flies.

Last month, my game Faith in Despair launched! It's a roguelike deckbuilder that lets you create your own cards using triggers, actions and modifiers. You play against Death for eternity.

I've written and said this intro to my game so much in the past few months and years, it almost happens automatically. Two and a half years have gone by way too fast. I still remember making the prototype and showing it to my wife. We both saw that it had potential, so I kept working on it.



And here we are. In a recent twitch stream, I was asked if the launch has "beaten my expectations". It's hard to say. My expectations were all over the place before launch. On the one hand, people said it's great, on the other I had people tearing into it, finding flaws and bugs. I knew the truth would come out on November 12th. Would it only get like 4 reviews? Or a thousand?

Well, I did see the wishlists in the backend. Based on that, I could pretty much forecast how it was going to do. And the forecast was on point. It sold a couple hundred units, and it now is sitting at 42 reviews.

Did I try my best? I think so. I got a marketing person (shoutout to the great Flo) to help me out with press and influencer outreach, and he got people like Celerity, aliensrock, and Wanderbots on board. I got an artist last-minute to add 20 new angel cards (say hi to Lyfeu), with more art to come. I spent days and weeks going through how roguelike deckbuilders tick, playing games and taking notes, reading negative Steam reviews, and devouring books on game design and dopamine. I networked at Gamescom in 2024, Twitchcon EU 2025, Gamecity Vienna 2025, and Gamedev Days Graz 2025. I was part of mentorship programs both as mentor and mentee. I did regular playtests, had a Discord up, automated bug reporting, and an invaluable in-game feedback form.



The game was translated into the biggest languages on Steam, including Simplified Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Brazilian-Portuguese, and German. With French, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian still in development.

I talked to industry veterans, and freelanced for a big indie game, to learn the ins and outs. Talked about pricing the game, marketing, unlock mechanics, onboarding, tutorialization, mental tricks, but also about what to do when not working on games, when you're burnt out and need to take some time off.

Faith in Despair is not only a game to me, this is the start of something new. I have learned so much. And it seems like this is only the beginning.

So, has it beaten my expectations? Has it been a success? I would say, yes. If you compare it to any of my previous projects, Faith in Despair has blown them out of the water. It might not have gotten the same attention and fanbase as Halfquake, but it is a completely new IP that I've built from the ground up with no prior recognition or community. Sure, some Halfquake people tried it out and a few even enjoyed it, but ultimately it is a different target audience.

Faith in Despair has given me so much. A place in the local (and hopefully international) gamedev community. A reason to stream and find a community there. It is not just about numbers, but the experience. And for that, I'm truly grateful. It is a dream come true to work on a game like this that also gets that many positive reactions.

Only one question remains. What next?

I'm currently working on a content update, and I have plans to add a few more systems to the game (such as unlocks and different modes). This will likely take another year. At the end of all these updates, it's going to be released on consoles, where it hopefully will be received positively as well.

I would like to work on other games of course, maybe something with horror vibes. One thing's for sure, whatever I make next, it's definitely going to have more of my music.

After working on it for two and a half years, Faith in Despair has now launched on Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2686020/Faith_in_Despair/

If you buy it, make sure to leave a review because we need to reach ten reviews as fast as possible to get into the Steam algorithm.

The soundtrack is available as DLC, but also on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and it will be on all popular streaming services soon.

There's also a bundle available with Novus Orbis, another deckbuilder that I really enjoyed.

I will go more in-depth in a later post. For now, this is it.

Thank you for being part of my journey!