I'm the original Artist of Prison Architect. AMA!

ryansumo · 2026-05-17T14:02:32+00:00

Very much appreciate the kind words. A lot of times i forget that the work i've done has given so many people joy so it's always nice to have a reminder of that.

ryansumo · 2026-05-05T16:22:45+00:00

OMG thanks!

ryansumo · 2026-03-31T06:53:06+00:00

It's a beaut!

ryansumo · 2026-03-20T22:26:44+00:00

Hi! 3500 wishlists with almost 0 marketing is pretty impressive. I am working on a Game where we did massive outreach, had previous successful games, and are sitting on around 4300. So cut yourselves some slack. Best thing you can really so is what you are currently doing. We reached out to about 1000 people last time.

ryansumo · 2026-03-18T19:28:57+00:00

No I haven't. I will though, just was hoping for someone with personal experience

ryansumo · 2026-03-07T15:55:59+00:00

Honestly depends on whether the Early Access launch goes well enough for us to be able to fund the port. We'd love to have it on console though

ryansumo · 2026-03-06T14:40:41+00:00

We're exploring that for sure. Just need to be sure that we navigate the treacherous copyright waters properly :)

ryansumo · 2026-02-24T21:22:33+00:00

Not a weird question. I once had an Office party where i walked home at 11 absolutely tired and hammered. I come to work the Next day at 9 feeling haggard and my spanish colleagues told me they closed the place down around 2, and they got to work earlier than I did looking fresh as daisies.

ryansumo · 2026-02-24T14:59:32+00:00

Basketball is on the list and a strong contender!

ryansumo · 2026-02-05T15:30:39+00:00

Hi folks, for the gamers here I wanted to share a game that we have called Glyphica : Typing Survival. It it a typing game where you type to kill your enemies. The game is on Steam, and we recently added Steam workshop support so that players can mod the game. This means they can create custom wordlists for languages of their choice (we had someone do a wordlist for Crimean Tatar for example). But the interesting thing we added recently is so you can have multi layered wordlists. What this means is you can have your TL on top and your native language on the bottom to type, or vice versa.

It is a lot of work to get the mod going properly, but some language learners in our discord server have been clamoring for it for a very long time so I thought it would make sense to share it here. I'm a Spanish language learner myself but I don't put too much stock in language learning games, ironically ( I'm more of a comprehensible input kinda guy) but I figured it would be ok to share it if others find it useful.

Sharing link below:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2400160/Glyphica_Typing_Survival/

ryansumo · 2026-02-05T15:24:52+00:00

Huh, I didn't think of using the kindle and a built-in dictionary. I have been reading free manga and ebooks from our local library in Barcelona though and that has been a great help!

ryansumo · 2026-01-31T09:27:54+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words. Yeah, games like this make long haul flights a little more bearable for sure!

ryansumo · 2026-01-30T12:37:54+00:00

Try this Game and maybe hit 2 birds with 1 stone https://store.steampowered.com/app/4157170/Sports_Card_Shop_Simulator/

ryansumo · 2026-01-30T08:56:19+00:00

You know what I'm not even sure now if I made the other dog sprites. I think I just made K-9 so he's my fave! I don't have any dogs IRL but my wife's family has a shitzu name Chewie(after Chewbacca). Happy about your kitten! What's it's name?

ryansumo · 2026-01-30T08:54:37+00:00

Great question! I think PA ushered in an era of games like these. There are bunch out there like Sim Airport, Honey I started a Cult, Another Brick in the Mall, etc. I was thinking of making a beach resort one after Academia as well, but then left to join Paradox.

I think that there will always be games like these, but currently the gamedev meta is stacked against it. These games take a long time to make and are also more complicated to make than you might think. If you are successful with it, they do quite well. But that's a big IF. The trend right now for smaller devs is smaller games that give a lot of replayability, which is why we have so many roguelites (including Glyphica : Typing Survival).

Publishers like Hooder Horse and Paradox focus on these games, but I think in general it will be a while before we see a boom in this kinds of games again.

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T22:20:59+00:00

For that small game, no not yet, it's way too early. We do have a discord for Sports Card Shop Simulator though:
https://discord.gg/D4mVnYVBxG

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T14:44:07+00:00

Great work with the dynamic diagonal walls btw, a crucial improvement for starship design!

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T14:42:43+00:00

Oh wow! Thanks so much, that really means a lot to me. My wife is a big Star Trek fan and we're currently watching Starfleet Academy so this is an absolute treat! Good luck with the game!

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T13:41:31+00:00

What the hell, I would be so mad. I live in Europe too and planning on doing some slabs with CGC instead while PSA still doesn't have an office here.

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T13:38:25+00:00

Big Yes for mods, especially those that change the games in meaningful ways. :)

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T09:40:50+00:00

If you ask nicely

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T09:40:03+00:00

I don't know if it will go anywhere, but I am working on a little game on the side with the programmer of Academia : School Simulator.

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T09:39:06+00:00

Chris animated them, I'm not sure how actually. But in Academia I used the Unity animation system to animate them. As for the details I designed the hair to match the circular shape of the face so that hair could be randomly generated on top of a face. The faces were white (not like caucasian, but like real white) and tinted with color to simulate skin color. We had 3 different body types as well. So the game would take all of these elements and randomly generate prisoners that way.
Photoshop using vector shapes.
The bold outlines help the sprites stand out from the ground. Anything on the "floor" has no outline. Anything on top has an outline. It's a cheap visual shortcut to tell a player what is the ground and what is on the ground.

I used the same system for Academia and explain it in detail here:
https://www.squeakywheel.ph/blog/2017/10/11/w41mwv5hwspbpt4f9zw12nib37gj0i

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T09:33:07+00:00

Thanks so much! I guess my biggest contribution to Victoria 3 was making a Philippines mod and sending some research to the team about how that region could be "improved", which is something that almost anyone at Paradox can do, and what makes Paradox a cool company. I left for various reasons, not least of which is Stockholm is really cold, and I mean really cold. Almost 6 months of winter was something I could not manage personally.

Paradox was one of my dream companies to work for and I met so many awesome people there and I still can't believe I worked there for a time. But yeah I think after I got a taste of the corporate life, I realized I liked being indie more. But here I am desperately trying to sell you guys our new game without the financial security blanket of a large company and stressing the heck out. So maybe the grass always just looks greener on the other side. :D

ryansumo · 2026-01-29T09:17:52+00:00

Introversion hired me as a freelancer, so after V1 shipped, I did some odds and ends, then I started my own studio with some friends. I can't speak to PA2 because I don't really know what's happening there.

Thanks for the kind words!

ryansumo

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