How a 25 -year -old Dutch game developer reclaimed her childhood

Among the hundreds of independent games released on Steam every week, only a few lucky people become breakthrough hits.

The biggest winner last week was a virus trafficking simulation Schedule I. But that is not the only game that has managed to crack 1,000 overwhelming reviews in the first week. Another surprise is Overflow!, A bite -sized game about cleaning the waterway.

Pour out! Take you into a cute small solar boat that you use to reduce oil spill and light, slowPushing cans and bottles into recycling barrels, making coins to unlock the boat upgrade to accelerate your task. It is a meditation experience that you can complete in about an hour.

And you can will At the end of it, because there is something attractive in terms of vision when watching the muddy brown water of the game gradually light up the blue while you put around. Once each area is deleted, the environment is full of garbage and oil being beaten next to call. So it goes in eight or nine times Overflow! ‘S Game loop. And because it costs only $ 5.99, 95% of the steam assessments have given it a thumb.

But perhaps more attractive than the price of the game is its behind -the -scenes story. Pour out! Produced mainly by a 25 -year -old Dutch game developer named Lente, who lived on a boat she bought and renovated.

A few years ago, Lente created a YouTube channel and began to record the development of the game that finally became Pour out! At first, she was trying to build a game completely without the game motive, and although that did not appear, her other efforts seemed to be seduced with fortunes first.

After creating a Twitter account to try and make friends with more friends, Lente’s first tweet was once posted to sell viral, giving her a community and a community. I thought that dance, I thought, Len Lente said. When Buzz started building around her game, she said, I started to participate in events and introduction, and those who really developed the number of desired lists for Pour out!“

After an early demo for the game, he did especially well on Steam, Lente decided to perform a Kickstarter campaign, successfully sponsored in the first 12 hours.

Lente’s lucky chain continued when a member of her discord community approached the offer. Dumped 3D Pixel Art Style. Artists, Starbi, have been following Lente’s efforts since the early days of her YouTube.

He showed me some of his previous art, Mr. Lente said, and created a mockup for Pour out!. I quickly excited because he was really, very talented with 3D Pixel art. Starbi participated in the official project and the duo was able to show the game’s visual update when Pour out! Make a healthy promotional position in June last year.

Many victories followed. By August last year, the game had more than 50,000 desired lists on Steam. A few weeks before its launch, a very simple tweet showed that Lente on her boat and a short video of the active game spread on X, earning 26,000 likes. And so it is probably not surprising that, when Pour out! Finally launched last Wednesday, it immediately reached the top of Steam’s new rankings.

Fate smiled brilliantly on Few Independent game. Of the 18,239 games released on Steam last year, only 445 people earned more than 1,000 reviews, a common milestone for the success of independence on Steam. Why is the universe trading very few games?

The reason for fate is rarely clear, something Lente knows well. She also shared fairly about the unlucky unlucky.

Lente’s current boat was not the first one she lived. My parents bought a ship 5 years before I was born, she said. For her entire childhood, that boat came home.

I had the best time to grow there, Len Lente said. It was in the middle of nature, next to a small town. I played outside all the time. And when my parents had to run a laundry or something and turn on the generator, my brother and I sometimes play CD-Rom and Flash games on the old laptop (it is very chunky).

When her parents will tied the land, Lente and her brother built houses on trees and played in the country. The world is our garden, she said.

Lente’s family lives in a small city outside Amsterdam, where rules for boat life are not always completely clear. Usually you have to pay an annual fee to book your boat somewhere, she explains. There are points that you are allowed to live officially, but there are also many ports that it is not officially allowed, but they are not really interested. And then, another option will wander a lot. You can stay in most natural points for three consecutive days.

Lente recalled an initial story about another neighboring neighbor, who operated the local authorities. Beside her family often anchored, there was a large wooden ship, she said. It was from a guy who used to get married and on it. Unfortunately, the tax caught him and he could not take care of the ship anymore. Finally, the ship sank and slowly the masts will fall. It looks great. My brother and I always call it a pirate ship.

It was a charming childhood, but at the time of Lente turned 9 or 10, her family began to be in trouble. The city began to act a bit strange, she said. They said we had to move the ship because we didn’t have a license to live there. This is basically accurate, because her parents simply bought the ship and started living in a position where the boat has been anchored for a long time.

Finally, Lente said, the city pushed her family away. Her parents were forced to sell the ship, and took a mortgage for a small apartment in the town so that Lente and her brother could continue to attend the same school they had grown up.

That is very important to them, Len Lente said. “Talking about this gives me a little tear.”

Her parents participated in a long -term legal struggle with the city, and after five years, they won: It turned out that the ship was there for a long time, so much so that they should never chase us out, she said. We had an alternative point in another place and my parents mortgaged a boat. But to this day, the location is just a temporary license and we cannot sell this place if we want.

Why do these things happen? One day, a number of unknown small town officials decided that the family lived in a local river for 15 years to go.

From the viewpoint of a 9 -year -old child, he must feel unable to understand. You have to leave home and live on the mainland like all other children. Why?

Spoilers for the end of the overwhelming! according to.

Alloy Pour out! Sometimes you will see an unnamed villain marked into the water, a sloppy oil ship leaving a mess wherever it goes.

Who is driving this boat, and why do they do this? They don’t know that people live here? Animals and people are the same are victims of Villainous Boat’s clowns. And you have to clean behind it.

In the final chapter of the game, you are forced to confront a super -level oil ship. Using your water cannon, you can flood into its floor and sink to the bottom of the bay.

You never learn more about the reason for your silent villain. The internal activities of the machine are confusing. Because the final traces of its damage is to be done and it disappears below the waves, you have the rest to wonder why it is determined to cause all these troubles.

Finally, the motivation of the machine is not really important. All you know is, even though the damage it causes, you have the tools to do something about it. You can regain water. And with efforts, you can rotate your luck.