And more on the subject of releases.

Today inKonbini was released — a game I gave a piece of my soul and six months of intensive work to.

A random tweet of mine was seen by the head of a small indie studio while I was sitting in Cyprus without work. As a result, a couple of months later Phil Spencer was photographed in front of a logo written by my own hand.

I rarely get emotionally involved in work, but I loved this project, the team was simply ❤️ and the task was clear. I did everything possible to give the game the right feeling and tone of voice. Everything possible so that even after I left at the end of '24, it wouldn't be embarrassing to ship.

Today Yekaterinburg is opening the champagne and I'm with the team with all my heart. It came out well — I played the release build until three in the morning to immerse myself again and touch my own work. It was lying exactly where I left it.

When you're the art director at an indie studio (real indie, not this newfangled 100+ people kind), you're responsible not only for the notorious "vision" and "atmosphere" but for absolutely everything. I'll write a long article in both languages explaining the approach and how it all actually went, but today I was slightly undone by a discovery: in the old files I came across a 45-minute screencast of the build in which I thoughtfully comment for the external sound team on everything to do with the sound FX. Whether the menu switching clicks right, whether the crickets chirp well, and so on.

Mono no aware is my light, and it seems I caught the right thing by the tail. A Russian lad in Cyprus who's never been to Japan, trying to recreate the aesthetic of a small rural shop in the nineties — a task with an asterisk.

80–90 on Metacritic, 900+ people online, top of the Steam charts.

Corks to the ceiling. We did everything we could.