Every year, more and more players are becoming aware of different indie games in development. One such indie game is Loddlenaut, an underwater adventure game partially inspired by other underwater games like Subnautica or ABZU. In Loddlenaut, players take on the role of an interstellar custodian tasked with cleaning the underwater trash around the alien ocean planet GUP-14. Along the way, players are able to befriend and raise cute sea creatures called loddles, which function as one of Loddlenaut's main gameplay elements.

The two developers creating Loddlenaut are Ricardo Escobar, who takes care of programming and tech art, and Jin-Young Sohn, who takes care of art, 3D modeling, and level design. What once started as their NYU thesis project has transformed into the creation of indie studio Moon Lagoon, and a successful crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter. Escobar spoke with Game Rant about Moon Lagoon's indie game, and how Kickstarter and Wholesome Games were essential for Loddlenaut's development journey.

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Anybody who has followed the development journey for an indie game has likely come across the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. There have been numerous success stories that come out of the site, such as the recent indie game Coral Island earning over $1.6 million through Kickstarter. Escobar was first clued in to the potential of Kickstarter when Anya Combs, the platform's Director of Games Outreach, visited the developers' class. The panel she gave confirmed Escobar's desire to support his game's development with a Kickstarter campaign, especially to help raise awareness.

"Kickstarter, in addition to raising funds, is a really great way to build a community of devoted people behind your game before releasing. So we reached out to Anya Combs at Kickstarter, and we've been talking with her since summer of last year."

Any hope for a successful Kickstarter needs an equally successful marketing strategy. Luckily, Loddlenaut was offered a spot in Wholesome Games' recent Wholesome Direct, which showcased a number of titles from the fishing RPG Moonglow Bay to the inclusive match-3 indie game Spirit Swap. This would lead to Moon Lagoon's game being showcased in front of thousands of people. However, Escobar says they had a choice to make on when to go live on Kickstarter.

"Wholesome Games then said it would be on Saturday, at the beginning of E3. So we thought, do we wait and launch the Tuesday after? But that’s the same day as Nintendo’s big conference, we don’t want to compete with Breath of the Wild 2. We took the risk of launching on what would normally be a bad day for Kickstarter, banking on everyone just being super behind Wholesome Games... Looking at our stats, a huge chunk of our funding came directly from the Wholesome Games website."

Breath of the Wild 2 dominated Twitter after Nintendo's Direct, which would have made it hard for Loddlenaut to stand out. In the end, launching at the same time as the Wholesome Direct helped Loddlenaut reach over 50 percent of its original crowdfunding goal in a single day. Escobar said Moon Lagoon is indebted to Wholesome Games for the opportunity, and it really goes to show how having partnerships with the right people can catapult a game's popularity. Players who may have never heard of Loddlenaut, if not for its Kickstarter or appearance on Wholesome Direct, can now follow along with its development journey.

Those interested in Moon Lagoon's upcoming underwater pet-sim can head directly to the Loddlenaut Kickstarter to back the game as it aims for a new stretch goal before the campaign ends. Interested fans have already helped Loddlenaut reach its stretch goals of adding seaweed farming and an aquatic cooking mechanic. As of this writing, next up is an extra evolutionary form for the game's adorable loddles.

Loddlenaut is in development for PC with an expected 2022 release.

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Source: Kickstarter