OK COOL · Dom Schott

Hölle auf Erden: Hinter den Kulissen eines Spielreleases (48h vor Release)

·34 min·2 clips

A Berlin indie studio faces the hellish release of their first game Bloodletter in just 48 hours.

1. OK COOL host Tom Schott documents the 48 hours before the Early Access release of Bloodletter, a roguelite medieval card game developed by Berlin indie studio Aldamami. 2. Two team members are interviewed: David Cafiso, responsible for game balancing, and Katharina Müller (alias Maiki), responsible for card artwork and marketing; the full studio has four members including programmer Marvin Braun and Alisa Schneider. 3. The episode's core thesis is capturing the irrepeatable emotional experience of an indie team's first commercial release, documented without editorial authorisation from the studio. 4. Tom first encountered Bloodletter at Gamescom at a minimal stand — one table, one chair, one PC — and was drawn to the game's dark cartoon tarot-card aesthetic and a screen showing a gaunt female figure facing a contorted demon baby. 5. Bloodletter is described as a roguelite card game in which the player acts as a plague doctor protecting a medieval village from a demon's attacks, using a growing deck of cards to manage villagers' health and religious purity. 6. The studio was founded after the Bloodletter prototype won the German Computer Games Prize 2024 Newcomer Award (best prototype), earning 25,000 euros in prize money; team members were still studying at HTW Berlin. 7. David Cafiso changed careers from the fashion industry to game development, enrolled at HTW Berlin, met the team, and describes persuading the group over time to found the studio and develop the full game. 8. Maiki describes her stress level at 48 hours pre-release as a 5 out of 10, noting that unlike the demo release, she now feels primarily excited rather than stressed, with the button ready to press three weeks in advance. 9. David places his stress at 8 out of 10, noting the team implemented a feature freeze two to three days before release to shift from adding new content to intensive playtesting of the known build. 10. A significant unresolved bug earlier in the week — the game crashing randomly with no apparent cause — briefly pushed stress toward 10 before the team identified and fixed it. 11. The release was moved last-minute from Tuesday 31 March to Monday 30 March based on advice from the team's Chinese publisher, who explained that Steam's 'new and upcoming' ranking algorithm freezes over weekends, making a Monday release more advantageous. 12. Maiki reveals that 30-40% of Bloodletter's 15,000 wishlist entries come from China, discovered organically after Chinese content creators on Bilibili posted Let's Plays of the Simplified Chinese demo with thousands of views per video. 13. The team partnered with a Chinese publisher specifically for platforms requiring local Chinese identity verification, such as WeChat and QQ groups, which they could not operate independently. 14. David describes balancing as a key pre-release task: the team is so immersed in the game that they have lost calibration on what is hard or easy, and received contradictory feedback from playtesters (some saying too hard, some too easy) right up to release day. 15. Sound design coordination with two freelance sound designers — described as acquaintances — required David to visit them in the evenings and manage feedback loops between the designers and the broader team. 16. Maiki describes her proudest contribution as not a specific card illustration but her personal growth in confidence: she now approaches unfamiliar marketing tasks (Steam bundles, Chinese publisher negotiations) with self-assurance she did not have a year earlier. 17. When asked about Slay the Spire 2 releasing at a similar time, Maiki says she hopes the high-profile release will attract more eyes to the genre overall, and expresses confidence that Bloodletter's game feel is distinct enough to attract players who want a different take. 18. The team has a stated policy of no overtime, working intensively during standard hours; both David and Maiki plan to spend the release weekend seeing friends and avoiding the backend — unless a game-breaking bug is found. 19. The episode's tone is warm and emotionally honest, with both developers expressing vulnerability about the scale of the project alongside genuine excitement and pride. 20. The episode suits listeners interested in indie game development, career change stories, the emotional texture of first creative releases, or the practicalities of Chinese market strategy for indie games.

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