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What I learned after making a game as a gift for one person

With that one stranger in mind, I set out on an adventure to create the perfect personalized game

Dusk Sharp
5 min readDec 25, 2020

During the holidays, I was inspired to create a game as a gift for a stranger, based on a design principle from a prominent game developer.

Hit mobile game “Crossy Road” creator Matt Hall of Hipster Whale has a very simple philosophy. He believes in choosing his target audience carefully. So carefully, in fact, that in 2015 he designed games for the individual.

When Matt was working at the game studio Tantalus and assisting with the development of “Pony Friends” for the Nintendo DS, he focused on a single photo of a rich young woman with a prize horse. “What would make her happy?” he thought as he instructed everyone in his studio to study the photo and keep it at the forefront of their minds during development.

“When I make a game this way, I don’t have to get bogged down in demographics or store trends. All I have to do is make a game that is everything for someone.”

— Matt Hall, Source https://bit.ly/3rCr8r0

Pony Friends went on to spawn a sequel, due in part to Matt’s passion for designing games for one person. Source, https://www.igdb.com/games/pony-friends-2/presskit

“Pony Friends” went on to sell millions of copies and spawn a sequel, “Pony Friends 2”. And we all know how much of a monumental success Crossy Road became back in 2015.

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Dusk Sharp
Dusk Sharp

Written by Dusk Sharp

Indie Game Development and Trends in Gaming

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