VGTimes Interview with the Creators of Misery: Discussing the Challenges of Solo Development, Bug Fixing, the Value of Feedback, and Future Plans

Misery is a post-apocalyptic co-op survival game in the spirit of Lethal Company, featuring procedural level generation, crafting, anomalies, monsters, and a manual gnome that you can give alcoholic drinks to. We spoke with the main developer from Platypus Entertainment, who originally worked on Misery alone, as well as a representative from the publisher Ytopia, and found out a lot of interesting things: how difficult it is to make games solo, how the idea for the project was born, and why there were so many bugs at launch. In this interview, you’ll learn how to start creating your own projects and what challenges you may face if you decide to embark on the path of game development.

VGTimes: Hi, Maewing! Tell us how your journey in game development began.

Maewing, developer of Misery: Hello! It all started back in school. Around 9th grade, I tried my hand at 3D modeling, creating all sorts of dinosaurs in Blender, and at the same time helped a team develop a Minecraft addon. I got so into it that I wanted to create something of my own. I started learning game engines, watched tutorial videos on YouTube, read articles about game development — in short, I was building up a knowledge base from every available source.

VGTimes: Tell us more about the process of self-learning.

Maewing: Honestly, there was nothing special about it. I read articles on level design. I learned programming through video guides. I just opened tutorials and repeated the author’s actions to grasp the basics. That’s basically how I learned for about 5-6 years. I made small projects to gain experience, and then in 2021 I started working on my first serious project about cowboys, but I couldn’t finish it.

VGTimes: And then you started developing Misery?

Maewing: Not exactly. After my solo project failed, I tried to get a job in game development. I immediately applied for several positions, including level designer, and at some point received an offer from the developers of Stalcraft: X. But unfortunately, for a number of reasons, I wasn’t able to sign it. Of course, it was disappointing, but that event motivated me to start working on Misery.

VGTimes: You mentioned you learned programming from video tutorials. Does that mean you fully studied a specific programming language, or was it more about learning Blueprints (the visual scripting language) for Unreal Engine?

Maewing: The latter. I don’t know any professional programming languages at all.

VGTimes: For you personally, is Misery a success? Or is it more of a stepping stone before developing a new, bigger project?

Maewing: Well, first and foremost, Misery is my debut. And I think it turned out really great. I’m not thinking about anything new yet. We have a roadmap for further improvements to the game, and we need to implement everything step by step. We try to release updates as often as possible.

VGTimes: At this point, as I understand it, you’re no longer working on the project alone and have assembled a small team to finish Misery?

StrongChemisty, representative of Ytopia: Maewing was and remains the lead developer, but after the release of Misery, we put together a small team to bring the project to perfection more efficiently. In the future, we’ll be moving towards team-based development, but we still plan to keep the studio small.

VGTimes: What challenges did you face during solo development, and what advice would you give to aspiring developers?

Maewing: Oh, making games with multiplayer is a real pain, especially when it comes to coding. There are always tons of bugs, including desync issues. Understanding networking is really tough, especially the programming side of it. We discovered a lot of problems after release, when players started stress-testing the netcode. Of course, I try to fix all bugs as quickly as possible, and at this point the multiplayer is much more stable. By the way, we already have a new patch ready where most of the bugs have been fixed.

StrongChemisty: When we launched the demo, the game got a "Mixed" rating on Steam with 49% positive reviews. It was all because of bugs we couldn’t catch in time. We released a patch on the very first day to fix errors, then another the next day, and another after that. Eventually, we managed to deal with most of the problems, which improved the rating from "Mixed" to "Very Positive." Two weeks later, we released the full version and immediately got about 90% positive reviews. Yes, there were a lot of issues with optimization, networking, gameplay, and balance, but thanks to quickly monitoring community feedback, we managed to fix a lot of problems in a very short time. Overall, a very strong community has formed around Misery, helping us improve the game and clearly explaining what works poorly and what needs urgent fixing.

Maewing: Yeah, I didn’t sleep at all on release day. I was fixing every bug players found.

VGTimes: Does community feedback influence the development of the game? If so, how exactly?

Maewing: For us, feedback plays a huge role. By focusing on reviews, we understand which direction to move next.

StrongChemisty: We read all the comments on social media, analyze all available information, and study suggestions and feedback to break down the ideas into tasks and put them on a special board. Some ideas we accept, others we don’t. For example, there are frequent complaints about high difficulty. Players ask for a feature where the compass points to the bunker. We could easily add that, but then Misery would lose its exploration element. Plus, users wouldn’t learn to navigate the world. So yes, we listen to feedback and add mechanics players ask for, but we try to stick to Maewing’s original vision.

VGTimes: By the way, why didn’t you release the game in Early Access, so players would have fewer questions about bugs and other rough edges?

Maewing: We wanted to release Misery as a finished product, without Early Access.

StrongChemisty: In general, the meaning of Early Access has strayed far from its original idea. These days, many publishers abuse the system and release half-baked projects in early access with no further development. The line between a full release and early access has blurred. In the first case, the project gets updates right after release on Steam, while in the second, it might just get abandoned and not even receive minimal patches. There are many examples. Plus, games released in early access don’t get the same marketing support from Steam as a full release. We knew we’d keep developing Misery after release and saw no point in adding that label. There’s a roadmap on the game’s page, so users have a clear development plan.

VGTimes: What was harder for you: modeling or coding?

Maewing: Definitely programming. In general, it’s hard to pull off a project like this solo. Of course, there were periods of burnout when I wanted to quit, but after a couple of days, I’d get back to work. Well, what else can you do? If you’ve started, you have to see it through.

VGTimes: Which gameplay ideas were the hardest to implement?

Maewing: There was a problem with level generation and content randomization. Originally, during the "Shining" (note: an event similar to an "Emission" in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.), a huge 2 km² map loaded, made up of different pieces, and you could move around freely. But during testing, it became clear that the open world was too demanding on the system, so we had to abandon it and focus on smaller, enclosed locations. There was also transport in early builds, used for exploring the area. In short, we had to cut some mechanics for the sake of performance.

VGTimes: Which mechanics, that you considered secondary or unimportant, unexpectedly became the most popular in the community?

StrongChemisty: Probably the ability to give vodka to the gnome. And people really like setting up their own base.

Maewing: Yeah, by the way, originally I planned that you could only use the workbench in the bunker. During the first playtests, I decided to add the ability to move cabinets and arrange furniture. As a result, players started bringing back all sorts of decorations, chairs, and other items from raids to decorate their shelter and make it cozy.

VGTimes: What works inspired you during development?

Maewing: First and foremost, of course, "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatsky brothers. I really liked the description and structure of the "Zone." I even wanted to implement it in the game as it’s depicted in the book: super dangerous, harsh, and unforgiving, but unfortunately, I couldn’t translate that into gameplay. I think players would just refund a game where you can die out of nowhere from an invisible anomaly.

VGTimes: And you’d have to drop radiation and gas masks, since the Zone in the Strugatskys’ book was created by aliens who left artifacts and anomalies after visiting Earth. It would be a completely different setting.

Maewing: Exactly.

StrongChemisty: Actually, Misery blends several settings and themes. For example, there’s mysticism, like the mysterious "Shining" phenomenon on the map. At the same time, there’s radioactive contamination, but it’s not the source of the monsters in Misery.

VGTimes: What about games that influenced development? Besides S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Maewing: Well, to some extent, Lethal Company and DayZ. Actually, my original plan was to make something similar to Lethal Company and R.E.P.O. in two months and make some money. But then I reconsidered my goals and decided to make a cool game, not just a copy, and spend as much time as needed. Because of that, the project’s original concept changed a lot and became more of a survival simulator than just a game about collecting junk to resell.

VGTimes: About the game’s name. There’s a pretty famous mod with the same name. Weren’t you worried there would be confusion in search engines?

Maewing: Funny fact: I came up with the name back in 2021 for a completely different project that was more like DayZ but in a post-apocalyptic setting. The title eventually migrated to the current game. I didn’t even know about the mod back then. Now, of course, nothing can be changed. And I just really like the name.

VGTimes: In November, you had a conflict with a major studio, which led to the game being removed from Steam. How did that affect the project’s development and you personally?

StrongChemisty: The conflict was actually over something minor and a misunderstanding. I think it could have been easily avoided if we’d just talked things out. We definitely didn’t cause any harm to that studio, so there was no reason to act so aggressively right away. It’s good that we managed to resolve the conflict quickly. Still, the game took a serious hit, since it was removed from Steam a couple of weeks after release, which broke all the bundles. Plus, players started requesting refunds because they weren’t sure if the project would return to the store or keep getting updates. Fortunately, things have stabilized now. It’s a shame it happened, though.

VGTimes: Does the current build of Misery match Maewing’s original vision, or were there some gameplay mechanics that couldn’t make it into the release version? Maybe you’re planning to add something later?

Maewing: The release version fully matches my original vision. Before planning anything new, we need to implement the already scheduled tasks listed in the roadmap. And there are quite a lot of them.

StrongChemisty: I think that in games like Misery, there’s never really a true “end” to development. On the one hand, it’s finished as a project, but on the other, there’s still plenty we can add to expand its possibilities. For now, we’ll work through the roadmap items, and maybe we’ll come up with something else along the way. Overall, the game will keep growing and expanding with content as long as players remain interested.

Maewing: I’d like to turn Misery into something like a live-service game with several modes and constant content updates. I want the base version to become a kind of ecosystem where new mechanics and opportunities for user mods can appear. But again, it all depends on demand and how engaged the audience is.

VGTimes: Are you having any trouble fixing bugs and improving optimization? Users often mention in reviews that the game runs poorly even on powerful PCs.

StrongChemisty: We’ve pretty much dealt with the critical bugs. I think by February 2026 we’ll have a stable build. As for performance, there’s a funny detail: people see low-poly graphics in the screenshots and expect the game to run smoothly on ancient PCs. But you have to remember that Misery is based on Unreal Engine, and there’s a lot of logic in the game, including item crafting, multiplayer mechanics, world generation, and various enemy behaviors — all of which require a lot of resources. Of course, some performance issues were due to bugs, but Maewing did a lot of optimization, and now the project runs much better than it did at launch.

VGTimes: Will the visuals be improved in the future, or will the game keep its low-poly style?

Maewing: I don’t plan to change the graphics. The game already has its own visual style, and it will stay as it is in the current build.

VGTimes: Do you plan to expand the lore and universe of Misery both in-game and outside of it? Maybe with story quests or explanatory notes on locations?

StrongChemisty: The game’s lore will definitely be developed both inside and outside the game. But we can’t share details just yet. Maewing has come up with a pretty interesting universe with a unique backstory and world design, and we’ll definitely share as much as we can in future updates. I can only say there won’t be a questline or story campaign. It’s still a sandbox, where players create their own adventures.

VGTimes: In reviews, players often ask for a single-player mode. Do you plan to add it, since not everyone has friends who own the game?

StrongChemisty: Misery does have a single-player mode; it just doesn’t have a separate menu, so some players don’t realize how to enable it. You just need to create a server for one person. However, we’ve already addressed this, and a separate submenu will appear in the next update (note: this feature was added in the December 31 update).

VGTimes: Would you like to say anything or send a message to our readers and your audience?

Maewing: I’d like to thank everyone who supports us. Thank you for wishlisting the game on Steam, buying it, and of course, leaving a review. It means a lot to me personally. We’ll keep delighting you with new updates. We have a lot of cool plans for the future of Misery.

StrongChemisty: It’s great that players actively support small indie developers. It’s awesome that there are tools like Unreal Engine now, which let small teams or even solo devs create quality projects. The success of Misery will let Maewing focus on further game development, keep growing the current project, and create new things. Now, thanks to easily accessible information, almost anyone can make their own game, and that’s wonderful.