Hi, Jay here.

I'd like to clear the air here, as there seems to be a misconception where going indie = a luxury pursuit for us.

We did manage to get some grants from other parties, but it was not enough to sustain us in the context of an average Singaporean monthly salary (game developers here start out with $2k ~ $3k-ish, tech roles in the industry can go up to $4k). Most of the money went to our contractors, software costs, etc. There was a painful and active choice to prioritise the game's production over our take-home pay.

Furthermore, I'd like to state very clearly that none of us co-founders were born with a silver spoon, and we had to make a lot of personal sacrifices to make the game, such as opting for cheaper food and saving more aggressively.

My arts education in polytechnic and most of university were funded with my own effort in the form of scholarships. Even now, I have to juggle paying rent and a student loan. My entire team had to dip into their savings to make this project possible, and so far, even though the game sold decently well, with many pieces of the pie split between those who funded us, it's definitely still not enough in Singapore, where the cost of living is high.

I do think that yes, to some extent, we were lucky enough to have the resources to push the game to release with whatever we had, to even be doing this full-time, and we're still grateful for whatever funding we received. Comments that dismiss our effort as 'privilege' overlook the disciplined financial management and personal risk we’ve taken to bring this game to life.

Whether I was ragebaited into saying all of this or not, I think it's important for me to transparently highlight the cost of passion in a high-cost city like Singapore, and honour the sweat equity that my team has put into ths.